CLIMATE:
• Rising sea levels are already changing the market for coastal real estate in Florida. (New York Times)
• St. Petersburg is the first municipality in Florida to commit to a Sierra Club program striving for clean energy and climate mitigation. (WLRN)

STORAGE: PJM Interconnection capitalizes on federal rules changes to lead on energy storage, saving money for ratepayers in the process. (Southeast Energy News)

COAL ASH:
• Duke Energy is to pay as much as $1.25 million to settle end litigation over ash pollution from the Sutton power plant near Wilmington. (Charlotte Business Journal)
• Environmentalists share concerns over Alabama Power’s plan to keep ash stored at existing disposal sites. (Lagniappe Weekly)
• Environmental lawyers are set Tuesday to discuss the TVA’s plan to store ash at its Bull Run plant in Claxton, Tennessee. (Oak Ridge Today)

SOLAR:
• Regulators in Louisiana eliminate the cap on solar systems that qualify for net metering. (KATC)
• Regulators approve a plan by East Kentucky Power to lease shares of a community power system to customers. (Associated Press)
• The gulf between Duke Energy and independent developers in North Carolina widens over its proposal to restructure the solar market there. (Charlotte Observer)
• A letter to homeowners signals a developer’s plan to build a 35 megawatt solar farm in James City County, Virginia. (Williamsburg Yorktown Daily)
• A developer plans to build more large projects in South Carolina. (Palmetto Business Daily)
• More than 500 homeowners and businesses express interest in a Georgia solar bulk-purchasing co-op but only about 30 have made purchase commitments. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES
• Tesla opens a boutique gallery inside a Nordstrom’s store in Charlotte. (Charlotte Observer)
• The fight over a Tesla store in Richmond heats up with a court’s decision expected by year’s end. (Washington Post)

COAL:
• West Virginia’s senators say they have 20 colleagues signed on to a letter urging Congress to authorize extension of miner’s benefits before they expire Jan. 1. (Associated Press)
• Mississippi Power achieves a milestone in its bid to get its Kemper “clean coal” plant operating by year’s end. (Mississippi Today)
• Promises by President-elect Trump to revive the coal industry will be hard to keep but some miners have faith he’ll succeed. (New York Times)

POLICY:
• President-elect Trump reportedly taps the former owner of a West Virginia coal mine to be Commerce Secretary. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• Green groups eye federal courts to try to block expected pullbacks of environmental initiatives by President-elect Trump. (The Hill)

EFFICIENCY: Miami-Dade County joins a national energy efficiency initiative. (WLRN)

BIOMASS: A North Carolina plant reports a widening loss on operations for the first nine months of 2016 compared to the same period last year. (Charlotte Business Journal)

NATURAL GAS: An advocacy group in North Carolina calls for public hearings in its challenge against Duke Energy’s plan to convert a coal-fired power plant to natural gas. (Charlotte Business Journal)

UTILITIES: A Tennessee Congressman urges the TVA to cool a gas-fired power plant with recycled waste water rather than  fresh water from a nearby aquifer. (Memphis Flyer)

TRANSPORTATION: The next sustainability project along the I-85 corridor between Alabama and Georgia is to include a station to test tire pressure and tread depth. (Atlanta Business Chronicle)

PIPELINES:
• A property owner in Central Virginia persuades Dominion to reroute the path it wants for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• The current route planned for the Mountain Valley Pipeline could reverse the economic recovery of this Central Virginia town. (The Roanoke Times)

OFFSHORE DRILLING: Fact-checkers assess a claim by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-FL, that President-elect Trump intends to authorize drilling along the Atlantic Coast. (PolitiFact Florida | Miami Herald)

WIND: The CEO of the company developing the Clean Line interstate transmission project tells business students “persistence” is needed to site controversial energy systems. (Electric Light & Power)

COMMENTARY:
• The nomination of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as the next U.N. Ambassador is reason to worry about mitigating climate change. (ThinkProgress)
• West Virginia urgently needs to redefine what lands qualify for public use so that the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline can boost in-state jobs. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• Mitch McConnell, R-KY, needs to stop blocking the extension of benefits for retired coal miners. (The New York Times)
• After this year’s elections, strong state leadership on the environmental is critical for Virginia. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)