HURRICANE IDA: Aerial survey imagery shows what appears to be a miles-long oil slick near an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico following Hurricane Ida, while a telltale rainbow sheen is visible near Louisiana port facilities, oil refineries and shipyards. (Associated Press)

ALSO:
• Roughly a million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi still had no electricity Wednesday and more than 600,000 people lacked running water as power began to be restored. (Associated Press)
• Federal and Louisiana officials struggle to develop evacuation plans in the face of rapidly moving, increasingly intense storms driven by climate change. (NOLA.com)

GRID:
• Hurricane Ida took down more than 2,000 miles of transmission lines and 216 substations, and infrastructure advocates say the damage presents the opportunity to rebuild a more resilient grid. (Bloomberg)
• The U.S. Coast Guard projects that a major transmission line that collapsed into the Mississippi River could be removed by Friday.  (Reuters)

OIL & GAS:
• Ongoing utility outages slow the process of resuming operations at Louisiana refineries, ports and pipelines. (S&P Global, Reuters)
• Hurricane Ida knocked out Louisiana refineries and gas stations at the same time gas demand soared due to evacuations and the use of generators, creating a shortage in the state. (NOLA.com, CNN)

SOLAR: A Dallas energy company commits to buy 120 MW of energy from a 200 MW solar plant planned for construction in Texas next year. (Dallas Morning News)

COAL:
• Federal mine regulators require that West Virginia change its coal mine cleanup program after finding state regulators failed to obtain accurate estimates of reclamation obligations on active permits. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• A utility workers union pushes back against a Florida city’s proposed separation agreement for 26 workers being laid off following a coal plant closure because they say a clause will prevent them from pursuing Workers’ Compensation claims. (Ledger)

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE:
• Researchers and advocates say Appalachia’s clean energy transition must address not just the legacy of extractive industries like coal mining and petroleum drilling, but also systemic racism throughout Ohio’s cities and rural areas. (Energy News Network)
• Louisiana’s most vulnerable populations faced the hurricane and now its after-effects because they did not have the means to evacuate. (ABC News)
• Environmental justice advocates use a bus tour in Tampa, Florida, to highlight potential disaster zones, underserved areas, and possible solutions. (WUSF)

EMISSIONS: A central Virginia county must quadruple its greenhouse gas emission cuts to meet its goal of being net zero by 2050. (Daily Progress)

WIND: The CEO of a company charged with fraud over a failed Arkansas wind farm takes the stand in his own defense and says he didn’t intentionally lie. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

COMMENTARY:
• Florida has largely replaced coal largely with natural gas, but must shift from fossil fuels altogether to cut greenhouse gas emissions, write two officials with a chapter of the League of Women Voters. (Gainesville Sun)
• Labor leaders in Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia call for the inclusion of robust labor and community standards in federal climate infrastructure investments. (The Times)

Mason has worked as a journalist since 2001, covering Appalachian communities and the issues that affect them. He compiles the Southeast Energy News digest. Mason previously worked as a wildlife biologist before moving into journalism by freelancing at Coast Weekly in Monterey, California, before taking an internship in 2001 at High Country News. He wrote for the Enterprise Mountaineer in western North Carolina and the Roanoke Times in western Virginia before going freelance in 2012. His work has appeared in Southerly, Daily Yonder, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, WVPB’s Inside Appalachia and elsewhere. Mason was born and raised in Clifton Forge, Virginia, and now lives with his family and a small herd of goats in Floyd County, Virginia.