Trump axes Biden-era Public Lands Rule

This roundup of energy news headlines comes from our Western Energy News newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.

CLEAN ENERGY

• AES proposes the 550-MW Desert Rainbow solar-plus-storage project on about 5,000 acres of private land in Goodyear, Arizona. (Hoodline)

• Industry experts say the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in northern California serves as a model for ​“repowering” older arrays, which consists of replacing densely sited small turbines with larger and more powerful ones. (Quitting Carbon)

• A Colorado county plans to add a solar array to a new detention center and say it will make it the nation’s first net-zero jail. (Correctional News)

STORAGE

• Santa Cruz County, California, residents push back on New Leaf’s proposed 200 MW battery energy storage system on private agricultural land, citing concerns stemming from the January 2025 Moss Landing battery fire. (Civil Eats)

PUBLIC LANDS

• The Trump administration revokes the Biden-era ​“Public Lands Rule” that aimed to put conservation on par with oil and gas drilling and other extractive uses on federal lands, saying it did not align with current energy policies. (Deseret News)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Alaska’s industrial development agency proposes a nearly $200 million oil exploration project in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Northern Journal)

• Colorado lawmakers pass a bill that would require coal plants under federal orders to continue operating to implement new pollution controls by 2034 and report the costs of staying open. (Aspen Times)

• New Mexico regulators vote to reconsider new rules restricting oil and gas wastewater reuse, drawing environmental advocates’ objections. (Source NM)

• A fire breaks out on a natural gas drilling platform off southern California’s coast, forcing the evacuation of over two dozen crew members. (KABC)

• Alaska oil exports to Asia increase as the Iran conflict continues to disrupt global petroleum markets. (Northern Journal)

TRIBAL NATIONS

• The U.S. Interior Department and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe in Colorado enter into an agreement giving the tribe sovereign authority to manage and develop energy resources on its land. (news release)

ELECTRIFICATION

• Democratic Colorado lawmakers abandon legislation aimed at blunting the impact of a ballot initiative that would give consumers and utilities the right to buy and sell natural gas for cooking and heating, saying it would not have had a meaningful impact on the measure. (Colorado Sun)

UTILITIES

• Republican Colorado lawmakers look to expand the state’s Public Utilities Commission from three to five members to increase ​“ideological diversity,” pointing to recent decisions favoring clean energy. (Colorado Sun)

GEOTHERMAL

• Amazon signs a deal to acquire 100 MW of geothermal capacity from NV Energy to power its data center operations near Reno, Nevada. (Data Center Dynamics)

DATA CENTERS

• A Colorado legislative committee kills legislation that would have required data centers to pay for their power use and ensure the facilities don’t cause the state to miss greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. (CPR)

CLIMATE

• Southern California advocates criticize Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for quietly firing the city’s climate emergency office leader, calling it a ​“strategic blunder.” (Climate Colored Goggles)