SOLAR: An alleged terror attack temporarily disables a 100 MW solar array in Nevada that provides power to 13 Las Vegas casinos. (Casino.org)

GRID:
• Heavy winds, rain and snow again damage utility equipment in California, leaving more than 420,000 households without power. (Los Angeles Times)
• Pacific Gas & Electric says it may be another week before it is able to restore power to some customers after a heavy storm battered northern California. (San Francisco Chronicle)

OIL & GAS:
• The U.S. Coast Guard works to determine the source of a large oil slick in an area with numerous abandoned oil and gas wells off the California coast. (Los Angeles Times)
• California budgets $100 million over the next two years to plug and reclaim 700 of the state’s 5,300 identified orphaned oil and gas wells. (Press-Enterprise)
• The federal Bureau of Land Management seeks public input on a proposed oil and gas lease sale for 52 parcels in Montana and North Dakota. (news release)

BIOFUELS: An uncompleted aviation biofuel refinery in southern Oregon appears to be headed for foreclosure after developers fail to make payments on $300 million in debt. (Oregonian)

LITHIUM: Arguments conclude in an Indigenous and environmentalist advocates’ lawsuit aimed at blocking the proposed Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada, leaving the case in a federal judge’s hands. (NPR)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Montana lawmakers consider imposing fees on electric vehicles after the governor vetoed a similar proposal in 2021. (Daily Montanan)

COAL:
• A New Mexico municipal utility calls on state lawmakers to allow it to recover costs associated with the closure of the San Juan coal power plant. (Farmington Daily-Times)
• Wyoming officials struggle to diversify the economy as the coal industry — long the state’s cash cow — declines. (Casper Star-Tribune)

STORAGE: New Mexico lawmakers propose offering tax credits for residential and grid-scale energy storage projects. (Carlsbad Current-Argus)

CLIMATE: Washington state schedules the first pollution allowance auction under its carbon cap-and-invest program for late February. (Grist)

COMMENTARY:
• A New Mexico lawmaker urges colleagues to pass a bill that would require and fund an independent study of potential groundwater contamination at the shuttered San Juan coal power plant. (Albuquerque Journal)
• A New Mexico editorial board urges lawmakers to spend an oil and gas-fueled budget surplus on initiatives that would help insulate the state from the boom-bust cycle. (Albuquerque Journal)

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Jonathan hails from southwestern Colorado and has been writing about the land, cultures, and communities of the Western United States for more than two decades. He compiles the Western Energy News digest. He is the author of three books, a contributing editor at High Country News, and the editor of the Land Desk, an e-newsletter that provides coverage and context on issues critical to the West.