PIPELINES: Virginia law enforcement extracts the first of two tree-sitters who remained in a blockade of the Mountain Valley Pipeline two and a half years after it was first erected. (Roanoke Times)

ALSO:
• A Gulf Coast liquid natural gas terminal cancels a planned pipeline and fracking network at Texas’ Port of Brownsville amid an unstable global market and stout community opposition. (KVEO; E&E News, subscription)
• Virginia Natural Gas withdraws its plan to build nine miles of pipeline and a compressor station in northern Virginia, saying they are “no longer needed as proposed.” (Patch)

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COAL: A judge approves a plan for bankrupt coal operator Blackjewel to sell more than 200 mining permits, raising concerns that many may be abandoned and left to states for clean-up. (Ohio Valley ReSource)

UTILITIES: An analysis shows that more than three-quarters of a million customers in 10 states had their power disconnected during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the greatest concentration in the Southeast states of Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina. (Utility Dive)

SOLAR: Dominion Energy defends its South Carolina tariff on net metering as fair and necessary, while state regulators prepare to weigh in. (Daily Energy Insider)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Florida lawmakers advance bills to build more charging stations while increasing annual fees on electric vehicles to fund the infrastructure build-out. (WJCT)
• Georgia Republicans press President Joe Biden to veto an international trade ruling that threatens to shut down a Korean electric battery maker’s planned factory in the state. (HuffPost)

OIL & GAS: San Antonio’s municipal electric utility sues 16 natural gas companies over high prices during last month’s winter storm, which in one case included a 15,000% price increase. (Texas Public Radio)

HYDROELECTRIC: Tennessee Valley Authority maintains a hydroelectric pumping station in eastern Tennessee as a back-up energy source for when the grid is stressed. (WHNT)

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OVERSIGHT:
• Nine people seek appointment to a vacant seat on Florida’s five-member utility regulation board. (Tallahassee Democrat)
• A bill to prohibit localities from using building codes to limit potential fuel sources nears passage in the Georgia state legislature. (Capitol Beat News Service/Albany Herald)
• Louisiana’s governor says the state is following the private sector away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy, but the transition will take decades. (KLFY)

COMMENTARY:
• A southwestern Virginia school system looking for money to build three new schools should explore contracting with a solar developer, writes a newspaper editorial. (Roanoke Times)
• Promises for substantive fixes to Texas’ electric grid after last month’s outages are falling by the wayside as lawmakers slowly consider bills that make only minor changes, writes a columnist. (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.