** Michigan’s environmental agency said Friday it has approved construction of an underground tunnel to house a replacement for a controversial oil pipeline in a channel linking two of the Great Lakes. The decision, a victory for Enbridge Inc., comes as the Canadian company resists Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s demand to shut down its 68-year-old line in the Straits of Mackinac.
** Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell roundly slammed Biden’s anti-oil and gas actions as a threat to employment. “There’s nothing green about a tsunami of pink slips for American workers or carting Canadian crude [oil] around in trucks and trains instead of a pipeline,” reported POLITICO.
** The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency halted a last-minute, Trump-era rule Thursday that would prevent big banks from denying loans and other services to entire sectors, like the energy industry.
** BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager with $9 trillion in assets under management turns up the heat on oil companies. CEO Larry Fink has disclosed plans to pressure companies to do a lot more to lower their carbon emissions by leveraging the massive weight of his firm mammoth asset base.
** Newly released data shows that 87% of the Bureau of Land Management’s Washington D.C. staff decided to leave the agency rather than relocate to a new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colorado reported The Hill.
** The Interior Department confirms President Biden’s executive order suspending new federal oil and gas lease sales postpones planned auctions in the West originally planned for March and April according to S&P Global.
** Arizona’s largest utility is working with an electric vehicle public charging network to deploy 20 ultra-fast chargers statewide.
** An international coalition of over 200 Indigenous groups, businesses and environmentalists have announced opposition to a Canadian mining plan that could have far-reaching impacts in the US. A company is asking for approval from the Canadian government to drill for gold around the source waters of the Skagit River near the US border but opponents say polluted waters will flow into Washington state.
** Arizona’s largest utility is working with an electric vehicle public charging network to deploy 20 ultra-fast chargers statewide.
** GM shares rose after the company announced it would seek to become carbon neutral by 2040. The automaker said it wants to eliminate tailpipe emissions from all new vehicles and power its operations around the globe with 100 percent renewable energy.
** Farmers could be targeted next by Biden’s climate change emphasis as incoming chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Debbie Stabenow is eyeing the upcoming farm bill reauthorization as an opportunity to ramp up USDA’s conservation programs as part of the federal government’s effort to confront climate change.
** New York City will officially ban fossil fuel connections in new construction by 2030 as it takes what is considered a major step toward phasing out a reliance on gas and oil.
** The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), an oil refining trade group, confirmed it has been contacting state and national representatives of the corn and biofuel industries in recent weeks to seek support for a policy that would reduce the carbon intensity of transport fuels and block efforts to provide federal subsidies for electric vehicles according to Reuters.
** New York mayor Bill de Blasio called to ban gas hookups in new buildings in the city by 2030, during his State of the City address this past week. Previously, in February 2020, De Blasio proposed banning the use of oil and natural gas in all residential and commercial buildings by 2040, as part of a push to update city infrastructure to run on renewable energy.
