GRID: An analysis finds 700 people were killed in Texas during and immediately after February’s storm and outages — more than four times the state’s official count of 151. (BuzzFeed News)

ALSO:
• With just a few days left in Texas’ legislative session, Republican leaders in the House and Senate still can’t agree on a plan to require electricity grid suppliers and operators to winterize their facilities. (Houston Chronicle)
• A court rules San Antonio’s city-owned electric utility can proceed with a lawsuit that claims Texas’ grid operator held wholesale electricity prices at the maximum level longer than necessary, costing utilities billions of dollars. (San Antonio Express News)
• Lubbock, Texas, approves a buyout to terminate the contract with its existing electricity supplier, switch to the state grid and open competition among power providers. (KLBK, KCBD)
• Duke Energy builds improvements at a North Carolina substation to reduce flooding and harden the grid. (Reflector)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• A Firestone Industrial Products plant in Kentucky announces a $51 million expansion to produce air suspension systems for electric vehicles. (Associated Press)
• A Florida school district prepares to buy 60 new electric school buses once it sets up charging stations. (WLRN)

COAL:
• The Tennessee Valley Authority aims to close both coal-fired units at its Cumberland Fossil Plant in Tennessee no later than 2033, but it remains unclear whether the plant will transition to gas, solar or be retired altogether. (Leaf-Chronicle)
• Federal lawmakers advance two bills to provide reclamation funding for abandoned mine lands in central Appalachia and throughout the country. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

PIPELINES: Land disputes and bipartisan resistance to a Kinder Morgan 360-mile pipeline proposal left Georgia largely reliant on the Colonial Pipeline for fuel, making it more vulnerable to supply interruptions like those caused by this month’s cyberattack. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

POLITICS:
• The Texas state legislature’s debate over power grid reform fuels a surge in lobbyists, a news analysis finds. (WFAA)
• Texas lawmakers approve a bill to revise eminent domain negotiations to require pipeline, utility, and oil and gas companies to provide more transparency as they seek to buy land. (Texas Tribune)

SOLAR: A Florida couple installs the first full Tesla solar-paneled roof in their county. (St. Augustine Record)

OIL AND GAS: Private spaceflight company SpaceX and several Texas energy companies tussle in court over a vacant 24-acre parcel of land with two oil and gas wells. (San Antonio Express News)

CLIMATE: Jacksonville, Florida, looks to Nashville, an economic peer and competitor, for lessons about reducing its carbon footprint and adopting a climate action plan. (WMFE/WJCT and Inside Climate News)

HYDROELECTRIC: The Tennessee Valley Authority nears completion of a seven-year, multi-million dollar repair of a hydroelectric dam in eastern Tennessee. (WJHL)

WIND: Texas lawmakers pass a bill to block a former Chinese military official from building a wind farm in the state. (KABB)

OVERSIGHT: A former Trump administration deputy interior secretary joins Florida Power & Light Co. as vice president for environmental services. (E&E News, subscription)

COMMENTARY: A Georgia regulator calls for a shift to electric vehicles to reduce transportation emissions and boost manufacturing. (CleanTechnica)

 

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.