EMISSIONS: Federal regulators begin assessing air pollution in Louisiana as industrial plants restart operations while 15 of the state’s air monitors remain out of commission. (NOLA.com)

OIL & GAS:
• Entergy brought a 128 MW gas power plant online last year in hopes it would provide quick, reliable start-up power, but it sat dark for two days after Hurricane Ida, raising questions about why the city has put its faith in fossil fuels. (New York Times)
• The number of reported oil and chemical spills linked to Hurricane Ida grew from 350 to more than 2,000 over the past week. (NOLA.com)
• Wildlife officials say they’ve found more than 100 oil-soaked birds after crude oil spilled from a refinery off Louisiana’s coast during Ida. (Associated Press)
• The U.S. Energy Department approves a second loan of 1.5 million barrels of oil to Exxon Mobil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. (Reuters)

GRID: Entergy continues restoring power to parts of Louisiana hit by Hurricane Idea, but pockets of people without power remain around New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. (WWL-TV, NOLA.com)

SOLAR:
• Georgia’s cap on a net-metering program to pay higher, retail-rate compensation for buildings with solar that feeds the grid has limited the growth of rooftop solar in the state. (Inside Climate News)
• A central Virginia county considers capping solar development after approving several projects over the last five years. (Central Virginian)
• A renewables company drops its plan to build a solar facility in a designated growth area in Virginia but says it will work with county officials to find a more appropriate building site. (Roanoke Times)
• A Kentucky-based pipeline company will invest $2.4 million in a solar facility to power its headquarters. (Messenger-Inquirer)
• Projects across the Carolinas to enhance renewable energy and lower rural energy costs receive $78 million in federal funding, mostly in low-cost loans for solar farms. (WFAE)

NUCLEAR: Texas lawmakers pass a bill to prohibit nuclear waste storage sites with the exception of existing facilities like power plants that store waste on-site. (Carlsbad Current Argus)

COAL:
• American Electric Power subsidiaries ask West Virginia regulators to make state customers pay to keep three coal-fired power plants open after Kentucky and Virginia regulators denied the upgrades. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• Arch begins operations at a West Virginia longwall mine to produce metallurgical coal for export into global steel markets. (S&P Global)
• Alabama Power implodes three boiler houses and one vent stack at a coal plant that began producing electricity in 1917. (WIAT)

PIPELINES: Federal regulators approve a permit for a nearly 12-mile natural gas pipeline in Kentucky that runs to the makers of Jim Beam bourbon. (WFPL)

OVERSIGHT: The mayor of a Florida city asks the municipal utility director to resign a day after the city clerk and attorney already did so. (WCJB)

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.