Biden’s mixed record on environmental justice

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Advocates give mixed reviews of the Biden administration’s environmental justice legacy, noting it prioritized investment in Black and Brown communities but also promoted unproven technologies like carbon capture and storage. (E&E News)

OIL & GAS:

• Fossil fuel industry leaders meet with the Trump campaign to convince the candidate not to completely gut Inflation Reduction Act incentives if he’s elected, especially as they invest in renewables, carbon capture and hydrogen. (Wall Street Journal)
• Major natural gas producers indicate prices will rise this winter as forecasted colder temperatures are expected to increase demand. (Utility Dive)
• North Dakota’s likely next governor, who earns nearly all of his personal income from the oil and gas industry, if elected would chair two bodies that regulate the industry in a state with already weak disclosure laws. (North Dakota Monitor/​ProPublica)

EMISSIONS:

• The U.S. Supreme Court issues an emergency decision saying it won’t stop the Biden administration from enforcing methane and mercury emissions rules. (Associated Press)
• The decision means operators of the Colstrip coal plant in Montana will have to install costly pollution controls or close the facility. (Montana Free Press)
• “It’s all smoke and mirrors:” Former Texas employees blow the whistle on the state’s pollution monitoring team, which analysis finds has been systematically weakened since the early fracking boom in 2010. (Inside Climate News)
• Minnesota manufacturer 3M sets Scope 3 emission-reduction targets that aim to limit the greenhouse gasses produced from suppliers and the transportation of goods. (Star Tribune)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Economists say the U.S. has gotten a 2-to-1 return on investment for the IRA’s $7,500 electric vehicle tax credits when accounting for the rebates’ benefits for the climate and domestic automakers. (New York Times)

CLEAN ENERGY:

• Veterans of Alaska’s oil industry shift their focus to developing wind, solar, geothermal and tidal power projects, saying the state’s energy-friendliness will reduce siting conflicts. (Inside Climate News)
• Indigenous advocates support Vice President Kamala Harris’s policies toward tribal nations, but worry her verve for clean energy development could endanger sacred lands. (Grist)

SOLAR: A New Hampshire program using community solar to benefit low-income residents is coming close to fruition some seven years since regulators first approved the idea. (Energy News Network)

TRANSITION: West Virginia officials embrace a plan to convert a long-troubled coal plant into a coal-powered facility to produce hydrogen and graphite, but the project has stalled as the company running it juggles multiple projects and a history of loan defaults. (Floodlight/​Mountain State Spotlight)

OFFSHORE WIND: The blade that fell off a wind turbine off Martha’s Vineyard this summer might have dampened support for offshore wind among residents of nearby Rhode Island, recent polling suggests. (Rhode Island Current)