Stealthy Supreme Court move fast-tracks fossil fuel projects

OIL & GAS: The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority temporarily revives a Trump-era rule that limits state and tribal involvement in pipeline and energy development, with dissenting justices criticizing the use of the court’s ​“shadow docket” to issue the emergency decision. (Associated Press, New York Times)

ALSO:
• Oil executives testifying before a U.S. House committee push back on Democrats’ suggestions that their companies are to blame for high fuel prices, while Republicans point fingers at Biden administration policies. (New York Times)
• The oil and gas industry has spent decades framing climate change as too costly to tackle, a claim that continues to shape the political debate. (Grist)
• A clean energy critic makes a ​“moral” case that poor nations deserve to develop with fossil fuels, despite spending decades disparaging those countries. (Washington Post)

SOLAR:
• Stanford University researchers say they’ve developed a solar cell that can generate electricity at night by pulling electricity from the different temperatures between the air and the panel itself. (NPR)
• Local governments and activists nationwide are increasingly seeking to block solar developers from acquiring land, claiming arrays are costing them farmland and wildlife habitat. (Reuters)

CLIMATE:
• A study finds the U.S. is responsible for the most global ecological damage of any country over the last 50 years, largely due to overuse of natural resources. (Guardian)
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report highlights the importance of electrifying transportation, buildings, and energy systems in fighting climate change. (Utility Dive)
• Companies developing software to calculate carbon emissions see a spike in interest as federal financial regulators prepare to require public companies to disclose climate-related financial risks and emissions. (E&E News)
• Social media company Pinterest will ban ads and post featuring climate misinformation as it sees increasing interest in sustainability content. (New York Times)

OVERSIGHT:
• A federal watchdog’s analysis raises questions about how the U.S. Postal Service rationalized its purchase of gasoline-powered trucks over electric models. (Utility Dive)
• U.S. senators criticize the Tennessee Valley Authority for its limited clean power generation, and say its board nominees lack geographic representation. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• The transit agency serving Minneapolis and St. Paul redeploys its first electric buses after sidelining them for a year because of reliability problems, and also begins work on a plan to purchase more than 100 electric models over the next five years. (Energy News Network)
• General Motors restarts production and shipments of its Bolt electric vehicle and expects sales to rebound after vehicle fires prompted a high-profile recall last year. (CNBC)

CRYPTOCURRENCY: A cryptocurrency platform’s plan to negate crypto mining’s massive use of fossil fuel energy backfires as it becomes one of the biggest buyers of carbon offsets. (Bloomberg)

EFFICIENCY: New York needs to weatherize and electrify a huge number of buildings every year to make a dent in its emissions profile, but several hurdles prevent low-income residents from making swaps at home. (New York Focus)