** As President Joe Biden approves a disaster declaration, Texas officials call for utilities to “winterize” infrastructure, citing a decade-old legislative report that was never implemented.
** Congress eyes reforming the process for pipeline approvals, as federal regulators rejected just six out of 1,021 proposed projects over 20 years without hearing a single landowner appeal.
** Plans for seismic surveys to help find oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have fizzled due to a lack of protection for polar bears, according to a brief statement from the Department of the Interior.
** Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced new tax benefits for Pemex as the beleaguered state oil company seeks to reverse long-term production declines and reduce debt.
** The Biden administration on Friday told Congress it would impose sanctions on a Russian ship and company helping to finish a Russian natural gas pipeline, but Republican lawmakers said the move fell far short of what was required to halt Moscow’s project.
** South America still supplies most of the world’s lithium (93% of US imports come from Argentina and Chile). The US has just one opening lithium mine (pdf) located in Nevada, and a single facility to recycle lithium-ion vehicle batteries in Ohio, according to the US Geological Survey.
** The largest U.S. oil refiners released tons of air pollutants into the skies over Texas this past week, according to figures provided to the state, as refineries and petrochemical plants in the region scrambled to shut production during frigid weather.
** Xos, a maker of electric commercial vehicles for such companies as UPS and Loomis has agreed to go public through a merger with a blank-check company, NextGen Acquisition Corp., according to a statement viewed by Bloomberg News. The deal values the combined equity at $2 billion, the companies added.
** A utility seeks to equip a North Dakota wind project with technology that dims turbines’ blinking red lights at certain times of the day reported the Bismarck Tribune.
** Virginia lawmakers advance a bill that would mandate state car dealers sell a certain percentage of electric or hybrid vehicles beginning in 2024.
** A Nebraska county loosens restrictions on wind turbine siting as local officials hope to spur more clean energy development according to NET.
