Southern California gas plant closes at last

NATURAL GAS: An energy company shutters a natural gas power plant in southern California after a city lobbies for decades to have it decommissioned. (Daily Breeze)

ALSO:

• New Mexico advocates and residents push back on a proposed natural gas storage facility on the outskirts of Rio Rancho, a city in the central part of the state. (KRQE)
• A Colorado group raises millions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry to fund a campaign to block natural gas hookup bans in homes and businesses. (CPR)

OIL & GAS: 

• A peer-reviewed study details how oil and gas drilling shrinks imperiled sage grouse habitat in Wyoming, while also guiding efforts to protect the bird from development. (WyoFile)
• New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham proposes spending part of an oil and gas-generated budget surplus on affordable housing, public education and electric vehicle and low-emission truck incentives. (Associated Press)

BIOFUELS: Portland, Oregon, approves three proposed biodiesel pipelines at a fossil fuel terminal on the Willamette River as part of a company’s agreement to phase out crude oil storage at the facility. (Oregonian)

POLLUTION:

• Democratic federal lawmakers from Arizona and Montana urge the Biden administration to back off on plans to limit power plant greenhouse gas emissions that could lead to coal facility closures. (Billings Gazette)
• Alaska joins 20 other Republican-led states in a lawsuit aimed at blocking a Biden administration rule requiring states to set vehicle carbon emission reduction targets. (Anchorage Daily News)

SOLAR: California advocates ask an appeals court to rehear their challenge of the state’s new net-metering policy slashing compensation for energy generated by rooftop solar. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

CLIMATE: A federal report finds the waters off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands registered the warmest winter temperatures in over a century, making the ecosystem a ​“bellwether for climate change.” (Alaska Beacon)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Federal labor regulators accuse California electric vehicle startup Lucid of illegally firing two employees for joining the United Auto Workers union. (Los Angeles Times)

URANIUM: The federal Bureau of Land Management permits a uranium mining company to begin exploratory drilling just outside Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah. (Mining Technology)

PUBLIC LANDS: The federal Bureau of Land Management seeks public input on a proposal to lift some environmental protections from 28 million acres in Alaska. (Nome Nugget)

COMMENTARY: A California energy columnist urges readers to see the world through ​“climate-colored goggles” because human-caused global warming is pressing, immediate and terrifying. (Los Angeles Times)