The Obama administration laid out its plans on Thursday to limit petroleum drilling on the habitats of the greater sage grouse, a native of the American West that many environmentalists say is being threatened with extinction. “The announcement may stave off a possible Interior Department declaration by October that the finicky chickenlike bird known for its flamboyant courtship strut is endangered.

Such a legal determination could stifle the development of vast energy resources in Wyoming and nearby states, including natural gas fields, coal mines and wind farms.” [The NY Times]

The Norwegian government will cease investments in coal companies through its $900 billion sovereign wealth fund because of their impact on climate change. “Under new rules to be presented by Parliament’s finance committee on Thursday, the fund — also known as the oil fund — would exclude companies that get at least 30 percent of their revenue from mining coal or burning it.

The decision is expected to be formally approved by the full Parliament on June 5 because both government and opposition parties are behind it. “Coal is by far the biggest source of greenhouse gases, so this is a big victory for the climate,” said committee member Torstein Tvedt Solberg of the opposition Labor Party.” [U.S. News/AP]

A Johns Hopkins University analysis has revealed electricity systems in the United States are so arbitrarily regulated for reliability, customers cannot know their true risk of losing service during a major storm. “Though weather-related outages have risen over the last decade, and research shows extreme weather events will occur with more intensity and frequency in the future, power providers do not necessarily have to report storm-related outages, leaving customers with an incomplete picture of the system’s reliability and potentially limiting efforts to improve system reliability, researchers concluded in a paper published today in the journal Risk Analysis.” [JHU]

Sage Grouse photo courtesy of Shutterstock.