Energy news in brief

** The northern part of the Permian Basin in west Texas is getting an office of the Texas Railroad Commission. Regulators plan to open an oil and gas field office in Lubbock.

** An Illinois college expects to save $100,000 by installing an 11-acre, 2.09 MW solar project.

** A settlement between Tesla and the state of Michigan allowing the company to directly sell and service cars in the state could lead other EV startups to pursue a similar distribution model.

** Xcel Energy expects to have more than 11,000 MW of wind energy on its system by the end of the year, the most of any utility in the western hemisphere. 

** North Dakota regulators have fined an oilfield services company $1 million over a blowout last year at a saltwater disposal well. The blowout was east of Williston at a well owned by Henry Hill Oil Services.

** The House Natural Resources Committee will vote Thursday whether to grant Democrat chairman Raul Grijalva the authority to use subpoenas as he investigates the relocation of the Bureau of Land Management’s  headquarters to western Colorado.

** Two versions of a bill that would establish an income tax credit for electric vehicles purchases advance in New Mexico.

** A Native American activist who told New Mexico’s House that Chaco Canyon should be protected from oil and gas drilling during a January invocation has been disinvited from giving the opening prayer Friday in the state’s Senate.

** The BLM is withdrawing parcels from its upcoming Colorado oil and gas lease sale because of an ongoing lawsuit over its Grand Junction Field Office’s greater sage-grouse management plans.