** BP has made an oil discovery at the Far South field in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, it said on Monday, as the energy major seeks to grow production under a strategy reset announced earlier this year. The exploration well was drilled in Green Canyon Block 584 about 120 miles (193.12 km) off the coast of Louisiana.
** President Donald Trump’s administration is seeking to end nearly all of the climate research conducted by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), one of the country’s premier climate science agencies, according to an internal budget document seen by Science.
** Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont says the state will stand firm against President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting state climate and environmental justice initiatives and won’t let it “change what we do.”
** U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, pushes back against the Trump administration’s plan to keep coal plants operating in the name of grid reliability, and urges utilities and regulators to clear the way for more clean energy instead.
** Texas legislation could undermine the state’s wind, solar, and battery boom by pushing investment elsewhere, raising energy costs and threatening grid reliability while also imposing top-down control on the state’s deregulated power market, writes the Texas vice president of the Advanced Power Alliance.
** Indiana Gov. Mike Braun issues an executive order directing state regulators to examine the state’s coal plants to determine whether any of their operations could be extended.
** More than 500 school districts nationwide are waiting on about $1 billion in funding the EPA has frozen to cover the costs of more than 3,400 electric buses.
World
** Oil has contaminated an Iraqi river, leaving authorities to suspend water distribution to more than 100,000 people. The contamination occurred in the Little Zab River in the Koya district of Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Officials told Rudaw that it occurred when someone washed a crude oil tanker in the river, causing the water to smell like oil.
** Oil and Natural Gas Corporation bought PTC Energy for $106.02 million (9.25 billion rupees) to further the country’s shift toward producing green energy. ONGC is an Indian oil explorer, and PTC is an Indian clean energy company. ONGC acquired PTC to expand its green energy portfolio and expand on PTC’s previous goals, Reuters reported.
** British Steel workers have blocked Chinese executives from entering the Scunthorpe steelworks in a dramatic standoff. The workers are believed to have feared the Chinese executives were trying to force the closure of Britain’s last remaining so-called “virgin steelworks”, whose product is used in major construction projects such as new buildings and railways.
** A new wind farm off the east coast of Sweden is expected to power two million homes with clean, renewable energy. Skyborn Renewables will build the Fyrskeppet installation in the Gulf of Bothnia, 4C Offshore reported. It will produce 8-11 terawatt-hours per year, providing energy for 1.6-2.2 million houses and accounting for 6-8% of Sweden’s current electricity demand.
** General Motors’ all-electric CAMI Assembly plant in Ontario is halting production of BrightDrop delivery vans, Unifor said Friday. Unifor is Canada’s largest private sector union, representing 320,000 workers. The company will initiate temporary layoffs starting April 14 and production will stall for three weeks, Mike Van Boekel, plant chair for Unifor Local 88, which represents hourly workers at CAMI, told the Detroit Free Press.
