OVERSIGHT: Texas oil and gas companies contend renewables are receiving unfairly large subsidies despite the industry being heavily subsidized itself, dividing lawmakers and businesses over the future of the state’s energy economy. (Texas Monthly)

EMISSIONS: An expansion of Alabama’s James M. Barry Electric Generating Station is among numerous fossil fuel projects that utilities are pursuing that will likely outlast President Joe Biden’s 2035 deadline for a zero-emissions electric grid. (Bloomberg)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Automaker Ford and electric battery manufacturer SK Innovation, which is building a factory in Georgia, announce a joint venture on two North American factories to make batteries for roughly 600,000 electric vehicles per year. (Associated Press)
• Korean auto supplier Duckyang Industrial will invest $10 million and hire 285 people in Georgia to make battery modules and energy storage systems to support SK Innovation. (Associated Press)
• North Carolina is the only Southeastern state with an executive order pushing for electric vehicle expansion, and has also seen its registered electric vehicles triple since 2018, but critics note it still lags Florida and Georgia in actual electric vehicle adoption. (Charlotte Business Journal)
• Largo, Florida, aims to install 100 new charging stations annually through 2025 with a phased program to implement minimum standards in three areas before extending them citywide. (Tampa Bay Newspapers)
• Austin, Texas, announces it will install more than 200 charging ports to support its growing fleet of electric cars. (KVUE)

COAL: Environmental groups argue federal regulators have failed to require measures for West Virginia’s surface mining program that would ensure coal companies fully fund reclamation bonds, resulting in failed reclamation on 118 of 636 mining permits since 2001. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

PIPELINES: Kentucky landowners on the losing side of an eminent domain case argue that a 12-mile Louisville Gas and Electric Co. pipeline would serve a private rather than a public use — specifically Jim Beam’s distilleries. (Courier Journal)

BIOGAS: Environmentalists file suit challenging water permits for a Smithfield Foods and Dominion Energy project to turn hog waste into renewable energy. (North Carolina Health News)

EFFICIENCY: Memphis Light, Gas and Water receives a $750,000 grant for energy efficiency home repairs. (WMC-TV)

CLIMATE: Orlando’s sustainability and resilience director and the Florida director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy discuss the role of cities in leading the fight against climate change. (WMFE)

COMMENTARY:
• The Tennessee Valley Authority’s goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 is undercut by its plan to build more than 1,500 MW of new gas capacity at shuttered coal plant sites in Kentucky and Alabama, writes a manager for the Energy and Policy Institute. (Energy and Policy Institute)
• Virginia energy consumers seeking to buy renewable power face a bewildering array of options that can include burnable fuels like biomass and municipal solid waste without their knowledge, writes a lawyer and renewable energy advocate. (Virginia Mercury)
• Appalachian Power demolishes two stacks at its old coal-fired Philip Sporn Power Plant in West Virginia, prompting an opinion editor to consider the energy transition from coal to natural gas and renewables. (Huntington Herald-Dispatch)
• Texas lawmakers should consider energy efficiency measures as well as production in their legislative response to February’s winter storm, writes a policy consultant. (Houston Chronicle)

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.