OIL & GAS: A grassroots group formed to fight a now-canceled Virginia gas plant takes aim at a second power plant, its accompanying pipeline and a growing landfill working with a renewable gas generator. (Energy News Network)

UTILITIES:
• Dominion Energy reaches a tentative settlement with Virginia regulators and others to provide $330 million in refunds and a $50 million rate reduction after a rate review. (Virginia Mercury, Associated Press)
• Dominion Energy says its contribution to a political action committee attacking the Republican candidate for Virginia governor wasn’t properly vetted, and it wants the money back. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

POLITICS:
• U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia continues to push back against measures in Democrats’ spending plan to reduce carbon emissions, winning praise from the fossil fuel industry but frustrating clean energy advocates. (Reuters, Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• The relatively small size of West Virginia’s economy and coal mining sector frustrate congressional representatives over stalled progress on a federal spending bill. (Washington Post, Fox Business)
• U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma says he’s concerned with the recyclability of wind turbine blades, electric vehicle batteries and other elements of renewable energy. (Public Radio Tulsa)
• The first sustainability officer of a western North Carolina city announces a run for its city council next year. (Mountain Xpress)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Tennessee lawmakers begin a special session to approve a $884 million spending package for Ford’s $5.6 billion investment in an electric vehicle and battery manufacturing campus, including the creation of an oversight authority. (Tennessean, WSMV)
• Alabama hopes to land a newly announced Toyota battery factory by touting a building site less than five miles from an existing Mazda Toyota plant. (WAAY)

SOLAR: A solar array to power regional universities marks the latest in a series of 100+ MW solar projects in Kentucky. (PV Magazine)

HYDRO: A Kentucky college uses a recently completed 2.6 MW hydroelectric facility that is the state’s first new hydropower project in 90 years. (WKYU)

GRID:
• Texas regulators propose plans to winterize power plants, beginning with addressing issues that resulted in last winter’s outages, and eventually incorporating year-round weatherization standards. (KXAS)
• A judge rejects efforts by Texas’ grid operator and state regulators to dismiss a lawsuit by the state’s largest and oldest electric co-op over a $2 billion energy bill resulting from February’s winter storm. (Reuters)

COAL:
• A company that turns coal into fertilizer locates a pilot factory in southern West Virginia. (Beckley Register-Herald)
• West Virginia residents complain of noise and coal dust emanating from a metallurgical coal mine ramping up production to meet growing steel demand. (Mountain State Spotlight/Southerly)

HURRICANE IDA:
• Louisiana lawmakers are still trying to get answers about why AT&T’s phone services went down during Hurricane Ida, including on company-provided phones for first responders and 911 communications. (Louisiana Illuminator)
• A Louisiana lawmaker says the state legislature must address grid and telecommunication issues exposed by Hurricane Ida. (WAFB)

EMISSIONS: Attorneys general in South Carolina and other Southeast states ask Congress to reject methane taxes in two bills. (SCNow)

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.