** Jerome Bettis sued energy company EQT for $66 million in a federal court on Thursday alleging racial discrimination. The Hall of Fame running back who won a Super Bowl with the Pittsburgh Steelers is part owner of a trucking company called IntegrServ. He claims that EQT backed out of a business agreement with IntegrServ that was meant in part to support a minority-owned business.
** U.S. regulators are investigating whether a massive methane release over Florida they say likely occurred during maintenance on a natural gas compressor station this spring violated the nation’s Clean Air Act.
** There will be no Space Symposium this year in Colorado Springs. Originally planned to open March 30 and postponed until Oct. 31, the Space Symposium has now been rescheduled a second time and set for August 2021, with organizers saying the COVID-19 pandemic has made staging the largest convention in Colorado Springs “not possible.”
**Recent rolling energy blackouts in California are due at least in part to the state’s self-imposed dependency on renewable energy sources, according to industry leaders and a top state assemblyman. The situation has left the Golden State struggling to meet demand amid an ongoing heat wave that continues to strain power grids increasingly dependent on solar and wind.
** Teslas made up more than 80% of electric vehicle sales in the first half of 2020.
** The Trump administration is under pressure to complete its Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil and gas lease sale before Inauguration Day.
** Washington joins other states in challenging a Trump administration rule allowing the transport of liquefied natural gas by rail.
** In a surprise move, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Rep. Joe Kennedy in his Senate challenge over incumbent Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, the Senate sponsor of the Green New Deal.
** The Energy Department granted Alaska LNG a license to export liquefied natural gas on Thursday, though the massive project has gone dormant because of trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
** Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana called on a federal judge Thursday to act quickly to remove William Perry Pendley, the de facto head of the Bureau of Land Management, from his role leading the agency, arguing it violates the Constitution and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
** The Sierra Club is calling for the Democratic National Committee to reinstate language to the party platform calling for an end to tax breaks and subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.
** A New York state Supreme Court justice upheld the state’s single-use plastic bag ban on Thursday but rejected an exemption contained in the state’s regulations that allowed thicker bags containing plastic.
