COAL: Shareholders file a class-action suit against Southern Co. alleging failure to disclose adverse information about the Kemper “clean coal” power plant. (SunHerald)
ALSO:
• Conservationists in Kentucky are fighting back against attempts to gut the federal stream protection rule. (Public News Service)
• The director of West Virginia University’s Center for Energy and Sustainable Development is the latest to debunk hopes of coal’s recovery despite what President Trump may do. (Fox40.com)
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POLICY:
• The Trump administration suspends the awarding of any new grants or contracts by the EPA and imposes a blackout on external communications. (Associated Press)
• President Trump reportedly is to nominate a new chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who is more likely to speed reviews of interstate pipelines. (Utility Dive)
• A decades-old environmental commission in Kentucky which once functioned as a semi-independent watchdog falls into limbo. (Louisville Courier-Journal)
NUCLEAR: Activists await a judge’s ruling on whether the federal government can truck weapons-grade waste through Western North Carolina. (Carolina Public Press)
SOLAR: A long-time Southern loyalist and recognized agronomist in Virginia wins approval to lease 222 acres of his family’s land for a solar farm just north of Richmond that will sell its electricity to Dominion Virginia Power. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
CLIMATE: Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fl, says he’s secured a commitment from Commerce Secretary-nominee Wilbur Ross to protect climate data from political interference. (POLITICO Florida)
VIRGINIA: A bill that would deny local governments the power to block planned high-voltage transmission lines clears the House. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
PIPELINES: A South Carolina county votes unanimously to urge regulators and lawmakers to deny Dominion Carolina Gas Transmission the right to use eminent domain to acquire pipeline easements. (The State)
SUSTAINABILITY: A Georgia couple is the first to sign a binding contract for a home in a planned 18,000-acre, eco-centric, solar-powered community east of Fort Myers, Florida. (Fort Myers Florida Weekly)
NATURAL GAS: A third interstate pipeline is now sending its gas to be liquefied and exported from the terminal at Sabine Pass, Louisiana. (Argus)
BIOMASS: Piedmont Natural Gas signs up a contractor to build a pipeline to send swine-waste gas to two Duke Energy power plants. (Charlotte Business Journal)
WIND: The University of Tennessee-Knoxville and the Department of Energy lead research into composite materials to bolster large-scale wind turbines. (North American Windpower)
COMMENTARY: The Wall Street Journal editorial board says a dispute over a North Carolina wind farm shows how the Obama Administration has “used the military as a spear for its green agenda.” (National Wind Watch)