California advocates urge Newsom to sign orphaned well bill

OIL & GAS: California advocates urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill requiring oil and gas operators to post larger cleanup bonds, but a state agency warns the rule could backfire by disincentivizing big operations from taking over small ones, leading to well abandonment. (Los Angeles Times)

ALSO:

• New Mexico regulators plan to notch up oil and gas facility emissions monitoring and rule enforcement, saying operators are ​“not taking compliance seriously.” (news release)
• The U.S. EPA fines three oil and gas operators nearly $700,000 for air quality rule violations in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin and orders them to take action to reduce volatile organic compound and methane emissions. (news release)
• The U.S. EPA fines an ExxonMobil subsidiary nearly $20,000 for violating federal water quality laws at oil and gas wastewater injection wells on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in Utah. (news release)

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PUBLIC LANDS: The federal Bureau of Land Management considers banning industrial-scale clean energy and fossil fuel development on nearly 2.5 million acres in southern Wyoming. (WyoFile)

CLEAN ENERGY: Analysts say Arizona provides a test case for whether split-party controlled states can enact effective clean energy standards. (E&E News)

WIND: A California wind energy project receives a federal golden eagle take permit, clearing the way for it to begin operations later this month. (Noozhawk)

BATTERIES:

• An Arizona utility plans to build a 200 MW battery energy storage system outside Tucson. (Arizona Daily Star)
• A home energy storage firm expands its Reno, Nevada, engineering facility and plans to increase its workforce five-fold. (Nevada Appeal)

UTILITIES:

• A California county files two lawsuits against Southern California Edison alleging the utility’s equipment sparked destructive wildfires in 2020 and 2022. (Los Angeles Times)
• San Jose, California, votes to form a city-owned electric utility to explore the concept of creating a municipal power provider and breaking free from Pacific Gas & Electric. (San Jose Spotlight)
• Hawaiian Electric tells regulators it has $165 million in liability insurance to help it cover as much as $4.9 billion in claims related to the deadly Maui blazes. (BNN Bloomberg)

CLIMATE: A Colorado school district considers spending as much as $268 million for classroom cooling systems as climate change raises average temperatures to intolerable levels. (Fort Collins Coloradoan)

TRANSPORTATION: Colorado safety advocates urge state lawmakers to make vehicle registration fees proportional to the automobile’s weight, saying bigger cars are more deadly to pedestrians and cyclists. (Durango Herald)

BIOFUELS: A West Coast Amtrak passenger rail line replaces petroleum-based fuel with biodiesel made from materials such as cooking oil. (news release)

NUCLEAR: Idaho National Laboratory researchers look into ways to power remote mining operations with nuclear microreactors. (news release)