A Colorado coal community calls for $118 million in transition funds

TRANSITION: A Colorado county and city call on state regulators to require Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association to provide up to $118 million in transition funds to help weather the ​“near-existential threat” of a coal plant’s and mine’s impending shutdown. (Colorado Sun)

ALSO: New Mexico lawmakers call on regulators to force a utility to develop replacement generation for the shuttered San Juan coal plant in the school district affected by the closure, as state law requires. (Albuquerque Journal)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A California energy advisory committee calls for the state’s zero-emission vehicle infrastructure program funding to be allocated more equitably to disadvantaged communities. (RTO Insider, subscription)

CLIMATE: Washington state’s carbon cap-and-invest program generates less revenue than expected during the first half of the year following a significant drop in auction prices. (Crosscut)

GRID:

• Clean energy advocates and developers support a proposed high-voltage transmission line from Montana to North Dakota that would link the Western and Midwestern grids. (Montana Free Press)
• New Mexico’s largest utility says it has added enough wind and solar capacity since the 2022 San Juan coal plant shutdown to avoid heat-related outages this summer. (KRQE)
• Pacific Gas & Electric officials predict an upsurge in data centers, electric vehicles and electrification will double the utility’s electricity demand by 2040. (E&E News, subscription)

SOLAR: Arizona solar installation firm Titan Solar Power closes its doors after negotiations to sell the firm fall through. (Solar Power World)

WIND:

• Oregon’s seafood industry calls on Gov. Tina Kotek to create a state plan to guide offshore wind power development instead of passively following the federal process. (KPIC)
• U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Washington Democrat, introduces legislation that would require proposed offshore wind developments in the Northwest to prove they would not harm commercial fishing, recreation or the environment. (KXRO)

OIL & GAS: 

• New Mexico advocates, industry and lawmakers debate a proposal to reuse oil and gas produced wastewater for industrial purposes such as hydrogen production. (Inside Climate News) 
• Democratic Congress members from California and Alaska who’ve received oil and gas industry donations push back on the Biden administration’s moratorium on new natural gas exports. (Jacobin)
• Environmental groups file a lawsuit against federal regulators seeking a more thorough review of a proposed pipeline approved last year that would carry Permian Basin natural gas to Mexico for overseas export. (news release)

PUBLIC LANDS: Republican federal lawmakers from Western states lash out at federal Bureau of Land Management director Tracy Stone-Manning for allowing clean energy development while restricting or blocking fossil fuel projects. (Deseret News)