Maine backs away from tighter EV sales requirements

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Maine’s environmental protection board votes against adopting a Clean Cars proposal that would’ve required a bigger portion of cars sold in the state be electric, with board members describing their struggle to decide. (Maine Morning Star)

ALSO:

• New York City needs a lot more money to electrify its school bus fleet, but where those funds will come from and if the buses will effectively mitigate climate change are points of concern. (City Limits)
• Finding a free place to charge an electric vehicle is hard in Philadelphia, where many chargers are in paid garages and 75% of public chargers take payment, including all Level 3 stations. (WHYY)

FOSSIL FUELS:

• New York’s senate passes a bill to expand a fracking ban to include liquid carbon dioxide, a practice a Texas company planned to use in the state. (Finger Lakes 1, The Independent)
• In Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh lawmaker files a bill to codify the governor’s plan to take the state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and create the Pennsylvania Climate Emission Reduction Program, a cap-and-trade program for the state. (Pittsburgh Business Times)
• A bill in Connecticut, where many of the country’s largest insurance carriers call home, advances through the state Senate that would impose a fee on any fossil fuel projects insured in the state. (Grist)
• Some Philadelphia communities live near facilities frequently flaring and venting excess natural gas, a process that a new study finds causes roughly two premature deaths every day from the resulting air pollution. (Inside Climate News)
• In New York, a nonprofit research group’s new analysis suggests sector-specific pollution limits and power plant emissions reduction regulations would do more for disadvantaged communities than a cap-and-trade policy being considered by the governor’s office. (E&E News, subscription)

WIND:

• Shell sells its 50% stake in the SouthCoast wind project, off the Massachusetts coast, to its joint venture partner. (Reuters)
• With the final Gulf of Maine wind energy area further south than New England’s grid operator expected, ISO-New England wants to study moving two offshore wind interconnection points from Maine to Massachusetts. (RTO Insider, subscription)
• Over a dozen fisheries groups express concern over the location of a newly designated offshore wind area in the Gulf of Maine, with the Maine Lobstermen’s Association citing the frequent sighting of endangered whales. (Mainebiz)

POLICY: Not every climate bill that Maryland advocates wanted to see passed before the state’s crossover deadline, but they’re still optimistic about the odds of agitating for further change before the legislative session concludes. (Inside Climate News)

INCINERATION: Johns Hopkins Hospital and its namesake university say they’ll stop sending medical waste to a South Baltimore incinerator in the next month or two due to pollution concerns. (Capital Gazette)

TRANSIT:

• Pennsylvania’s House advanced the governor’s plan to boost funding for public transit systems still struggling with post-pandemic ridership, but the bill has an uncertain future in the state senate. (Associated Press)
• A lawsuit seeking to block a Maryland highway widening project has been dismissed by a federal judge, despite concern the expansion would increase air pollution, impact a botanical research site and hurt nearby, disadvantaged communities. (Maryland Matters)

GRID:

• The Eversource Energy Center at the University of Connecticut selects a Kentucky firm to support a $4.4 million community power grid resilience project with hyperlocal power usage monitoring software. (Hartford Business Journal)
• National Grid wants to undertake a multimillion dollar project to modernize around 1,000 miles of transmission infrastructure in New York. (NNY360)

SOLAR: A central New York village will kick off a community solar program at the end of the month. (Eagle News)

CLIMATE: New York City community groups want more financial and administrative support from the city to execute their climate mitigation and preparedness programs for residents. (City Limits)