PIPELINES: The Colonial Pipeline resumes operations but gas shortages continue across the Southeast, with nearly three-quarters of North Carolina gas stations reporting shortages because of the state’s heavy reliance on the pipeline. (WAVY, Tennessee Lookout, Asheville Citizen-Times, WRAL)

ALSO:
• Republicans weaponize the Colonial Pipeline shutdown and resulting gas shortage, misleadingly suggesting President Joe Biden’s administration not only mishandled the incident but possibly engineered it. (Associated Press)
• The shutdown prompts Gulf Coast refiners to book at least five tankers to store gasoline stranded at their plants. (Reuters)

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GRID: Texas lawmakers pass legislation to ban electricity plans in which customers pay wholesale prices for power. (Texas Tribune)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Hyundai will invest $7.4 billion by 2025 to upgrade factories in Alabama and Georgia to make electric vehicles. (Reuters)
• Texas lawmakers consider legislation that would charge EV owners at least $250 and perhaps more than $400 in annual fees. (CleanTechnica)
• Virginia’s most populous county lands more than $4 million in grants from the state’s Volkswagen settlement to purchase electric vehicles and chargers for three government agencies. (Tysons Reporter)

OIL & GAS:
• Louisiana’s Democratic governor and one of its Republican U.S. senators use a congressional committee hearing to call on President Biden to end a moratorium on offshore oil and gas leases by summer. (WGNO)
• A recently restructured Oklahoma gas company looks to bounce back from bankruptcy by leaning in further on natural gas. (Natural Gas Intelligence)
• The oil and gas industry turns to moving gas with tanker trucks to meet escalating demand amid the Colonial Pipeline shutdown, but the shift brings its own, often pandemic-related problems. (Wired)

UTILITIES: Analysts puzzle over reports that an activist investment firm implicated in an Ohio bribery scheme has now taken a large stake in Duke Energy. (Charlotte Business Journal)

SOLAR: A Louisiana company wins $27 million in venture capital to grow its solar and efficiency business aimed at low- to moderate-income households. (Canary Media)

WIND: Virginia, a university and local governments open a coworking space to develop offshore wind companies and foster the region’s growth as an innovation and supply chain hub for industry. (Virginia Business)

NUCLEAR: The Tennessee Valley Authority completes a scheduled refueling of its Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Tennessee. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

CLIMATE:
• The EPA proposes banning intensive greenhouse gas hydrofluorocarbon-23 as a way to crack down on a climate “super-pollutant” chemical plant in Kentucky. (Courier Journal)
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a bill to prepare a flooding and resilience plan and provide up to $100 million each year to local communities at risk from sea-level rise. (E&E News, subscription)

COAL: Researchers, government officials and coal industry representatives work to restore a 40-acre abandoned mine refuse site in West Virginia using a reclamation technique designed to limit acid mine drainage. (news release/Beckley Herald-Register)

COMMENTARY: The growth of Texas’ solar and wind industries will complicate the legal interplay between surface owners and holders of mineral rights, which could get even trickier if air rights are taken into account, writes a law professor. (Forbes)

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.