Trump looks to slow clean energy development on federal lands

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

• The U.S. Interior Department will subject proposed renewable energy projects on federal lands to extra scrutiny, saying it hopes to end ​“preferential treatment for unreliable, subsidy-dependent wind and solar energy.” (Reuters, news release)

• California’s clean energy industry asks state lawmakers to streamline solar and wind permitting and allow more facilities to be sited on agricultural lands to help them bring projects online before federal incentives expire. (Reuters)

• Navajo Nation lawmakers approve a lease with Painted Desert Power, clearing the way for a proposed 750 MW solar-plus-storage system and a transmission line in the Cameron and Coalmine Canyon chapters. (Navajo-Hopi Observer)

• California awards Tandem PV a $4 million grant to support commercialization of its perovskite-silicon tandem solar panels. (Solar Quarter)

FOSSIL FUELS

• The U.S. EPA moves to prevent Colorado from forcing utilities to shutter coal plants to improve air quality, drawing criticism from state officials and advocates. (CPR, Inside Climate News)

• The U.S. Court of Appeals dismisses environmentalists’ bid to overturn more than 4,000 federal oil and gas drilling permits in New Mexico and Wyoming, saying plaintiffs failed to link environmental harm to the permits. (Oil & Gas Journal, Cowboy State Daily)

• A New Mexico oil and gas industry group petitions state regulators to allow drillers to discharge treated wastewater into waterways. (Santa Fe New Mexican)

PUBLIC LANDS

• Republican federal lawmakers from Alaska introduce legislation that would repeal Biden-era land-use plans that restricted drilling on public lands in the state. (E&E News)

TRANSPORTATION

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom says the state will challenge the Trump administration’s ​“illegal” decision to revoke $4 billion in federal funding for the state’s high-speed rail project. (Reuters)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• A UCLA study finds that Los Angeles’ low-income communities contain about 70% fewer electric vehicle chargers per capita than more affluent neighborhoods. (NBC Los Angeles)

BATTERIES

• General Motors agrees to supply Nevada battery recycler Redwood Materials with new and used EV batteries for its grid-scale energy storage systems. (Solar Power World)

TRANSITION

• Modular home builder ZenniHome cancels plans to build a manufacturing facility at the defunct Navajo coal plant site in northern Arizona, citing contractual breaches, delays, and political interference from the Navajo Nation. (Arizona Republic)

GRID

• A Colorado quasi-independent, legislature-created organization proposes studying three new potential transmission projects in the state. (Big Pivots)

NUCLEAR

• California startup Pacific Fusion considers establishing its nuclear fusion research and development facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico. (KRQE)

COMMENTARY

• Columnist Sammy Roth urges California lawmakers and environmentalists to back a regionally governed transmission organization and day-ahead power market, saying ​“if we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.” (Los Angeles Times)

• A California environmental studies professor says the Trump administration’s ​“energy dominance” agenda evokes the extremist Sagebrush Rebellion and Wise Use movements aimed at dismantling public lands protections. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)