POLITICS: North Carolina lawmakers adjourn for the year without making fixes to an energy bill that critics warn could allow Duke Energy to build dozens of new gas plants instead of solar and wind. (Energy News Network)

ALSO:
• Records show Florida Power & Light paid $3 million to a dark-money nonprofit just before the group began promoting spoiler candidates to seemingly preserve Republican control of the Florida Senate, part of a larger pattern of the utility funding dark-money groups. (Orlando Sentinel, subscription)
• A Florida state senator asks auditors to examine the role of Jacksonville’s municipal utility in the long-delayed Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project, calling it an “alarming example” of “potential mismanagement.” (Florida Times-Union)
• EPA Administrator Michael Regan tours Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” as part of a 5-day tour highlighting low-income, mostly minority communities adversely affected by industrial pollution. (Associated Press)
• The director of a national group of labor unions and environmental activists touts Democrats’ proposed investments in clean energy as transformational for coal-reliant West Virginia. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

SOLAR:
• Four Southeastern states — Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia — are included among the 10 states with the most solar installed. (Canary Media)
• A Virginia county planning board votes to recommend approval of a 20 MW solar farm after the developer’s previous attempt was rejected. (Winchester Star)

OIL & GAS:
• Energy company Venture Global LNG announces it will invest $10 billion to develop a liquified natural gas facility in Louisiana that will use carbon capture technology. (news release)
• During last week’s federal offshore oil and gas lease sale, three companies secured new drilling rights on offshore leasing blocks where barrels containing decades-old toxic waste remain scattered across the ocean floor. (HuffPost)
• Researchers look for ways to decarbonize North Carolina’s 21 diesel-powered vehicle ferries. (Coastal Review)

PIPELINES: Two gas transmission companies ask federal regulators to review projects to replace pipeline and upgrade existing compressor stations to increase gas supply to Virginia’s Hampton Roads region. (S&P Global, Virginia Mercury)

MINING: Oklahoma and the U.S. Interior Department argue over which agency has the authority to regulate surface coal mining and reclamation programs on tribal reservations after a Supreme Court case last year. (KWTV)

COAL: Tennessee regulators loosen a permit to allow the Tennessee Valley Authority to discharge more pollutants from a coal-fired power plant into the Clinch River. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• A Virginia air board approves regulations to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and help accelerate the shift to electric vehicles. (Virginia Mercury)
• A Virginia school division shows off an electric bus as it begins to electrify its fleet. (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)

GRID: Texas Democrats eye the state’s power grid struggles as a potential political issue in the 2022 election cycle. (Texas Tribune) 

RENEWABLES: Amazon adds eight new renewable energy projects totaling over 2 GW, including the company’s first solar facilities in Georgia and Arizona, and other projects in Texas, Ohio and Virginia. (Forbes)

COMMENTARY: A former U.S. Energy Department official complains that Dominion Energy is funding attempts to stifle power market competition despite its failure to keep power on during a recent arts festival in northern Virginia. (Fairfax Times)

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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.