ELECTRIFICATION: Washington state’s building code council votes to require heat pumps in all new residential construction starting in July, as critics worry the systems will be hard to come by. (Spokesman-Review)

GRID: A report warns new transmission infrastructure is urgently needed to prevent outages as Washington moves to decarbonize its grid by 2045. (Capital Press)

OIL & GAS:
• Colorado’s overhaul of oil and gas regulations has given citizens more power over drilling plans, and there are no ballot measures this year seeking to restrict the industry, as there have been in previous cycles. (E&E News)
• Weld County, the center of Colorado’s oil and gas industry, has lagged the rest of the state in post-pandemic job recovery. (Journal-Advocate)
• Exxon Mobil faces a $2 billion loss on its sale of a California offshore oil field that was idled after a 2015 pipeline spill. (Reuters)
• A widespread refinery outage was largely to blame for a gasoline price spike in California last month, but regulators have little information about how much of it was planned. (San Francisco Chronicle)

POLITICS: While the vast majority of oil industry political donations in New Mexico this cycle went to Republicans, two Democrats with key committee posts are notable exceptions. (Carlsbad Current Argus, New Mexico Political Report)

HYDROGEN: An Oregon natural gas utility scraps plans for a hydrogen production facility amid local opposition. (Salem Reporter)

COAL:
• Customers of a New Mexico utility are paying the same rate for a shuttered coal plant as they were when it was running after the state’s Supreme Court ruled the utility can stop issuing bill credits. (Source NM)
• Disputes among co-owners mean a company’s proposal to reopen the New Mexico plant as a carbon-capture facility will be delayed to at least 2027, if it happens at all. (Albuquerque Journal) 

SOLAR:
• Solar proponents tell Idaho regulators that the state’s largest utility is already undervaluing customer-owned solar and should not be allowed to cut rates further. (Idaho Statesman)
• California regulators will hold a public hearing later this month on credits for solar customers. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Arizona regulators this week will consider a utility’s plan for $34.8 million in electric vehicle rebates, including for charging stations and ebikes. (Arizona Daily Star)

EFFICIENCY: Officials in Durango, Colorado, vote to take on 30 energy-efficiency projects simultaneously, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars over doing them separately. (Durango Herald)

CLIMATE: A heat-mapping project in Boulder, Colorado, shows the city’s commercial areas and low-income neighborhoods are most in need of cooling centers as the climate warms. (Colorado Sun)

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Ken is the director of the Energy News Network at Fresh Energy, and has led the project from its inception as Midwest Energy News in 2009. Prior to joining Fresh Energy, he was the managing editor for online news at Minnesota Public Radio. He started his journalism career in 2002 as a copy editor for the Duluth News Tribune before spending five years at the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, where he held a variety of editing, production, and leadership roles, and played a key role in the newspaper's transition to digital-first publishing. A Nebraska native, Ken has a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a master's degree from the University of Oregon.