** Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler said on Wednesday it will accelerate its shift to electric cars as it builds on a strong start to 2021 despite a global semiconductor chip shortage, but gave no details of how fast its car line-up will go electric reported Reuters.
** MarketWatch reports Biden’s plan for 500,000 EV charging stations across the U.S. faces a tough road ahead.
** Exxon Mobil Corp could post its first profit in five quarters on improved results across its businesses, with higher oil and gas prices providing a lift of as much as $2.7 billion, offset by costs from a February deep freeze.
** The White House has directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to study whether using renewable fuels to power electric vehicle charging should generate tradeable credits under the nation’s biofuels program, two sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters.
** As states across the U.S. West beef up their renewable energy requirements, a push to do so in Arizona has been met by fierce resistance from the Republican governor and GOP-dominated Legislature, which are looking to strip elected utility regulators of their power to set energy policy in one of the nation’s sunniest states reported the Associated Press.
** Some 145 climate groups are calling on John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, to shut off the flow of money from Wall Street to the fossil-fuel industry and acknowledge the role of U.S. finance firms in warming the planet.
** Apple Inc said Wednesday that it will build a battery-based renewable energy storage facility in Central California near a solar energy installation that already provides energy for all of its facilities in the state.
** Protesters lock themselves to a Wells Fargo bank building in downtown Duluth, Minnesota in opposition to the company’s financing of the Line 3 pipeline.
** A U.S. trade body cleared a South Korean battery maker of violating a rival company’s patents, potentially affecting a separate dispute between the two companies that could lead to one withdrawing its plan to build a $2.6 billion factory in Georgia.
** On Friday, April 2 at 11:30 a.m. ET, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and actor and climate justice advocate Mark Ruffalo will hold an Instagram Live conversation to discuss the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to build back better, including the American Rescue Plan’s (ARP) significant funding for Tribal communities.