PIPELINES: Plains All American Pipeline and Valero Energy Corp. abruptly drop plans to build the Byhalia Connection crude oil pipeline, which would have run through mostly Black South Memphis neighborhoods. (Commercial Appeal, MLK50)

SOLAR:
• North Carolina solar installers cite homeowner associations, along with utility rules about connecting to the grid and selling back excess solar energy, as barriers to expanding rooftop solar. (Energy News Network)
• Local Louisiana governments navigate rules around solar development as farmers fear utility-scale projects could rob them of tillable land and create eyesores, while landowners say they should be allowed to lease their property as they choose. (The Advocate)
• A Texas county approves tax abatements for a 150 MW solar farm. (Uvalde Leader-News)

OIL & GAS:
• Texas regulators hear from the state grid operator and experts about how to make the state’s market more attractive to new gas power plants. (KCEN)
• The Port of Corpus Christi’s plans to become a major petrochemical hub jars residents of a largely Black neighborhood boxed in by refineries, oil tanks, an interstate and now a bridge under construction. (Inside Climate News)
• Environmentalists criticize Mexico’s state-owned oil company after an underwater fireball from a pipeline gas leak appears to boil the Gulf of Mexico. (E&E News, subscription)

TRANSITION:
• The Tennessee Valley Authority considers shutting down three of its five remaining coal-fired power plants and replacing them with natural gas. (Associated Press)
• A West Virginia county leases a site with dozens of long-abandoned coke ovens with plans to turn it into a tourist destination. (WV News)

TRANSPARENCY: Louisiana’s governor signs a law allowing industries to self-report certain toxic spills and releases while keeping records of those incidents hidden from the public for up to two years. (Louisiana Illuminator)

GRID:
• More than 600 contract power crews from the Southeast and Midwest head to Florida to assist Duke Energy as it prepares for Tropical Storm Elsa. (WFTS)
• Demand for generators surges in Texas amid concern about the reliability of the state’s power grid. (San Antonio Report)

UTILITIES:
• Dominion Energy accedes to South Carolina regulators who awarded it a rate increase five times smaller than what it requested, and agrees not to raise rates again for two years. (Associated Press)
• West Virginia regulators approve Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power’s request to add a surcharge on customers’ bills to recover costs from infrastructure projects. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

BIOGAS: North Carolina’s governor signs into law a farm bill that includes streamlined permitting for hog farmers who want to convert methane from waste ponds into energy. (Associated Press)

COMMENTARY:
• Virginia should allow competitive retailers to offer discounted prices on 100% renewable energy plans to low- and moderate-income customers, writes a state lawmaker. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• A West Virginia lawmaker complains that federal regulators’ review of how they evaluate natural gas pipeline projects is “bureaucratic navel-gazing” that has delayed approvals for 14 projects. (WV News)
• Coalfield communities in Virginia should look at rural Texas as a model for how renewable energy can recharge languishing local tax revenues, writes an editorial board. (Roanoke Times)
• Electric school buses will benefit Georgia’s economy, its school districts and the children who ride them, write a pediatrician and clean energy advocate. (Georgia Recorder)

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Mason Adams

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.