GRID: The scramble to keep the power on amid last month’s winter storms revealed a regulatory blind spot in Texas: utilities’ failure to keep up with paperwork. (Texas Tribune)

ALSO:
• Texas lawmakers file a spate of legislation to strengthen the electric grid and protect customers, but the state House balks at a heavily publicized bill to reverse $16 billion in overcharges. (Center Square, Dallas Morning News)
• Texas’ attorney general says more than $29 million in unpaid electric bills will be forgiven by a power company that filed for bankruptcy this week. (WTVR)
• Grid officials tell Oklahoma regulators they are conducting a review of their response to last month’s outages, which required importing 6,000 MW of power to meet demand. (KWGS)

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OIL & GAS:
• Environmental groups fight permits issued to a Texas petroleum company for exploratory drilling in a sensitive area critical to a Florida region’s water supply. (Tallahassee Democrat)
• Georgia researchers conclude that where natural comes from affects its methane emissions profile, and that eastern states tend to use gas with lower emissions intensity.  (S&P Global)

SOLAR:
• A Kentucky power plant board hires a consultant to evaluate a proposal to partner schools and local governments around developing a 20 MW solar project. (State Journal)
• Silicon Ranch partners with a renewable energy provider to develop a 200 MW solar portfolio across three utility-scale Georgia projects. (ReNews.biz)
• A Virginia man is sentenced to two and a half years in prison for bilking $228,000 from a recently widowed retired teacher by falsely promising he’d build a solar farm on her rural North Carolina property. (Charlotte Observer) 

WIND:
• The mayor of Virginia Beach points to offshore wind development as a sign of the region’s ambition to “to be the East Coast headquarters for clean energy.” (Virginian-Pilot)
• Texas residents express concern about damage to a rural road during construction of a wind farm. (KWTX)
• A new report calls for a massive investment in offshore wind, with the East Coast touted as having the nation’s highest potential for energy production, followed by the Gulf Coast. (news release, Environment America Research & Policy Center)

CLIMATE:  Democrats and Republicans argue over whether President Joe Biden should revoke the permits for a $9.4 billion chemical manufacturing complex in Louisiana that would emit pollutants and carbon and disproportionately affect Black neighborhoods. (The Advocate)

CARBON CAPTURE:  West Virginia’s congressional delegation rallies around legislation to build out national infrastructure to support carbon-capture technology. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

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BIOMASS: Environmentalists and local advocates petition to block a wood pellet plant because they say Georgia regulators improperly denied their ability to comment before awarding the plant a clean air permit. (The Hill)

COMMENTARY:
• The length of Texas’ February blackout compared to its more-connected neighbors demonstrates the need for renewed attention to grid infrastructure amid a changing climate and mix of resources, writes a renewables advocate. (Bloomberg)
• A new report suggests that North Carolina is at a crucial point in its clean-energy transition when small policy changes can lead to significant shifts, writes a regional climate advocate. (Natural Resources Defense Council)
• A Georgia state committee has become “Death Valley” for any legislation proposing stricter oversight of Georgia Power, including its disposal of toxic coal ash, writes the head of a southern newspaper chain. (Georgia Recorder)

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.