EQUITY: New York’s finalized disadvantaged communities list — which would help the state identify where climate funds and environmental cleanup efforts should be directed — includes just over a third of the state’s census tracts. (Gothamist)

ALSO:
• Massachusetts’ new environmental protection commissioner is confident her energy and environmental law experience and a proposed budget increase will help her tackle climate change and environmental equity. (Boston Globe)
• New York City’s public advocate joins calls for the Mets to change Citi Field’s name because of the current sponsor’s “significant” fossil fuel sector investments. (Tribune News Service)

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OIL & GAS: A New York bill to require oil and gas majors to pay $3 billion annually for 25 years to account for climate change has a chance to be included in the state’s final budget this year, per a sponsoring legislator. (City Limits)

GRID:
• Years into various legal challenges to a Maine power line, an energy advisor to a former governor says it’s still unclear who is paying massive legal bills for some opponents. (Portland Press Herald)
• PJM Interconnection can’t maintain its pace of retiring generators without encountering reliability concerns by the end of the decade, the grid operator’s chief executive says. (RTO Insider, subscription)
• Connecticut kicks off the second phase of a commercial energy storage program, planning to encourage 100 MW of battery deployment as it looks toward a goal to develop 1 GW by 2030. (PV Magazine)
• New York increased its energy storage goal last year to 6 GW by 2030, but utilities in the state haven’t achieved or made progress on less-ambitious goals. (Canary Media)

SOLAR: New Jersey regulators increase a per-megawatt incentive fee for a nearly 9 MW floating solar project but say they don’t want the revised rate to set a precedent for future projects. (RTO Insider, subscription)

CLIMATE: To track the impacts of climate change, Vermont conservation officials are incentivizing residents to report on melting ice at lakes and ponds. (VT Digger)

BUILDINGS: A Rockport, Massachusetts, man develops a website to help residents understand what they need to decarbonize their home or go net-zero. (Daily News)

TRANSIT:
• The modern redesign of Union Station in Washington, D.C., could reinvigorate the surrounding communities, but some question whether the money could be better spent on trains and tracks. (City Cast DC podcast)
• Boston’s troubled transit agency will now be helmed by an engineer who has spent decades running public transit systems in the New York City region. (Associated Press)
• A lack of volunteer drivers is impacting a mobility assistance program for the roughly 25% of elderly residents of Maine’s Aroostook County who can’t afford cab fares to get around. (Bangor Daily News)

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Bridget is a freelance reporter and newsletter writer based in the Washington, D.C., area. She compiles the Northeast Energy News digest. Bridget primarily writes about energy, conservation and the environment. Originally from Philadelphia, she graduated from Emerson College in 2015 with a degree in journalism and a minor in environmental studies. When she isn’t working on a story, she’s normally on a northern Maine lake or traveling abroad to practice her Spanish language skills.