Energy

In 1998, 46 states and the District of Columbia signed on to the largest civil litigation settlement in US history, the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. Stunning in its scope and scale, the agreement forced the four largest tobacco companies to stop advertising to youth, limit lobbying, restrict product placement in media, and fund anti-smoking campaigns. It also required them to pay out more than $206 billion over 25 years. Tobacco companies had in previous decades successfully swatted down hundreds of private lawsuits. [node:read-more:link]

Former Iowa Sen. Jeff Danielson says he has taken a job as a regional state policy director for the American Wind Energy Association, a national trade group for the wind energy industry. Danielson, who unexpectedly resigned Feb. 14 after 15 years in the Senate, says in a statement he will lobby to help expand wind power in the organization’s 12-state central region.By state law he is prohibited from lobbying Iowa lawmakers for two years and the AWEA says it will “comply with any and all state regulatory requirements.” [node:read-more:link]

At least 57 times in 2017, and many more last year, Georgetown’s residents paid EDF, a company owned 84.5% by the government of France, around 6 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity produced in the middle of the night when demand was low—so low, in fact, that because of tax incentives and government subsidies, the price for power was negative. Put simply: Texas taxpayers paid the French government for power and then, to add insult to injury, paid the grid to take the excess power off their hands. [node:read-more:link]

2016 was the best year on record for solar energy in the United States. A report from the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

CVR Energy Inc., backed by billionaire investor Carl Icahn, saved $189 million under the U.S. biofuels mandate last year. That’s largely thanks to a campaign he helped ignite to lower costs for compliance. CVR Energy, an independent oil refiner majority owned by Icahn Enterprises LP, spent $60 million on biofuel credits necessary to fulfill the mandate in 2018 -- a 76 percent drop from the company’s $249 million tab in 2017, a Feb. 21 regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows. [node:read-more:link]

The nation’s biggest coal-burning power companies paid a top lobbying firm millions of dollars to fight a wide range of Obama-era environmental rules, documents obtained by POLITICO reveal — shortly before one of the firm’s partners became President Donald Trump’s top air pollution regulator. Now that ex-partner, Bill Wehrum, is aggressively working to undo many of those same regulations at the EPA, where he is an assistant administrator in charge of issues including climate change, smog and power plants’ mercury pollution. [node:read-more:link]

Top Trump administration officials have pushed to build nuclear power plants throughout Saudi Arabia over the vigorous objections of White House lawyers who question the legality of the plan and the ethics of a venture that could enrich Trump allies, according to a new report by House Democrats. The report is the most detailed portrait to date of how senior White House figures — including Michael T. [node:read-more:link]

The US Department of Transportation announced Tuesday it is canceling $929 million in grant funds for California's high-speed rail system, escalating the Trump administration's efforts to regain all the federal money for the canceled rail project.If built, the high-speed rail system would have run from San Francisco to Los Angeles. [node:read-more:link]

Minnesota transit officials have a bold new goal for electric vehicles in the state: electrify 20 percent of all cars, SUVs and light-duty trucks in a decade.An effort to tackle climate change and move away from fossil fuels, the Minnesota Department of Transportation's proposal, released last week, calls for a 3,200 percent increase in the amount of electric vehicles by 2030.The electric vehicle target comes a month after a new state report shows that personal vehicles are among the largest greenhouse gas sources in Minnesota — emitting 23.3 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2016. [node:read-more:link]

The 436 consumers who filed a complaint with the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (NEPR) against Sunnova Energy Corporation, a residential solar panel leasing company, were right. The NEPR recognized in a report the web of problems the complainants faced: the equipment did not provide the service or savings promised to consumers. They had put their signature on a tablet for an alleged credit check, but the company used the signature to stamp it on a contract that they had not been shown. [node:read-more:link]