ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Virginia gives school districts around the state $10.5 million to buy 39 electric school buses and 44 that run on propane, but funding for a full-scale conversion remains elusive. (Energy News Network)

ALSO: U.S. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia visits a bus company to tout $5 billion in the federal instructure bill for electric and low-emission school buses, as well as $106 million for Virginia to expand its electric vehicle charging network. (Altavista Journal)

OIL & GAS:
• The Biden administration says it will restart new federal oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico this fall, but is still completing a review of the process. (Fox Business)
• A Georgia city council votes to participate in a program with the Municipal Gas Authority of Georgia to promote natural gas, including with a showroom selling gas appliances. (Moultrie Observer)
• Phillips 66 places a Louisiana refinery up for sale amid uncertainty about motor fuels as automakers shift to electric vehicles. (Reuters)
• An onshore oil well in Louisiana ruptures. (KPLC)

SOLAR:
• Only one of Alabama’s 22 rural electric cooperatives offers a community solar program, and none assist members with “pay as you save” energy efficiency programs. (Inside Climate News)
• A new solar and storage company announces it will build a headquarters and create 75 jobs in Oklahoma. (OK Energy Today)
• The Texas Farm Bureau officially supports solar, wind and biogas projects, but spotlights opposition to solar projects from farmers concerned about land use. (Texas Farm Bureau)

GRID: Texas’ grid manager predicts energy demand could reach a record high today amid hot and humid conditions. (Dallas Morning News)

UTILITIES: The board of South Carolina’s state-owned utility establishes metrics to give its two executives additional bonuses on top of more than $400,000 it awarded in June while it looks for a full-time CEO. (Post and Courier)

COAL:
• Removing coal ash at an Indiana power plant would eliminate a potential source of groundwater pollution and create 70 jobs, a study that examined South Carolina ash cleanup finds. (Energy News Network)
• West Virginia celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain, in which thousands of coal miners fought to unionize in the largest labor uprising in U.S. history. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• A federal infrastructure package includes $11.3 billion for the Interior Department’s program to reclaim abandoned coal mines — about twice as much as states and tribes have ever received from the fund since it was established in 1977. (E&E News)

TRANSITION: A network of off-road vehicle trails built to diversify West Virginia’s coal-centric economy have created new jobs, but fallen far short of early economic forecasts. (Mountain State Spotlight)

WIND: Investors in a proposed Arkansas wind farm testify they were scammed by two men charged in a fraud case, but one of the defendants argues the merits of his wind turbine technology. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

CRYPTOCURRENCY: A bitcoin mining company decides to build in Georgia because of the state’s emission-free nuclear power capacity. (13WMAZ)

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.