** EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler pressed state governors to designate drinking water and wastewater employees as “essential workers” during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
** Legislation sending just under $400,000 to a state board to use to kill problem wolves in Idaho has been signed into law by Gov. Brad Little (R).
** The Supreme Court determined oil refiner Citgo is responsible for $140 million in damages from a 2004 spill in the Delaware River.
** West Virginia environmental regulators sued a coal mine operator last week, alleging the company had gotten 160 environmental violations before it laid off all its employees and abruptly abandoned its mines.
** Royal Dutch Shell PLC is exiting a gas export facility on the U.S. Gulf Coast due to weak market demand, leaving pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners to move forward alone.
** Pipeline companies have begun turning away oil shipments in some parts of Texas as the impact of the coronavirus outbreak spreads through the energy industry.
** Gov. Tom Wolf (D) on Friday followed through on his threat to veto a bill to provide potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks for petrochemical plants that use natural gas extracted in the state.
** Russia’s Rosneft has transferred its assets in Venezuela to a company fully owned by Vladimir Putin’s government, a move apparently intended to shield Russia’s largest oil producer from U.S. sanctions while Moscow continues showing support for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in the wake of a U.S. narcotics indictment.
** The Trump administration has failed to correct major errors in its rollback of clean car standards, leaving the proposal vulnerable to legal challenges, according to a draft of the proposal described by the office of Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.).
** The Bureau of Land Management is dropping its appeal of a temporary court order blocking the Trump administration’s greater sage grouse plan.
** Forest officials in northern Arizona have plans to use prescribed fire to help with restoration efforts in an area north of Grand Canyon National Park.
** City officials in Ann Arbor, Michigan, unveil a $1 billion plan to make the city carbon neutral by 2030.
** About 420 gallons of crude oil spill from a pipeline in western North Dakota, affecting roughly 1.5 miles of a creek and tributary to the Little Missouri River.
** Wisconsin regulators opened up an investigation last week to determine what costs utilities may incur from COVID-19-related disruptions. The investigation is in response to an order issued by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in response to a request by Public Service Commission (PSC) Chair Rebecca Cameron Valcq that allows regulators to order utilities to waive late fees and refrain from nonemergency power shutoffs, among other measures.