PIPELINES: An ongoing fight over how air pollutants affect low-income and Black residents near a proposed compressor station on the Mountain Valley Pipeline could influence how pipeline emissions are measured in Virginia and beyond. (E&E News)

ALSO:
• Native American organizers from North Carolina travel to Washington, D.C., to lobby against the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate extension and other projects that threaten sacred lands and burial grounds. (WXII)
• The Memphis city council grants initial approval to two laws to protect the city’s drinking water, even after the Byhalia Connection pipeline — which helped spur consideration of the ordinances — was cancelled. (WMC-TV, WHBQ)
• The widow of a natural gas worker sues Atmos Energy and a contracting firm for negligence in a fatal explosion that killed two workers testing a pipeline. (Dallas Morning News)

GRID: The Tennessee Valley Authority replaces a power control center in Tennessee as part of a $2 billion grid modernization program. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

OIL & GAS:
• A Dallas pipeline tycoon whose company made $2.4 billion during the February winter storm and gas price spike gives $1 million to the governor’s campaign for reelection. (Texas Observer)
• About 100 Kentucky customers lose gas service when a drilling firm unexpectedly abandons a series of gas lines after finding “serious leaks in populated areas.” (Appalachian News-Express)
• Oil and gas trade associations representing the Permian Basin fret over President Joe Biden’s energy plans and potentially higher taxes on fossil fuels to pay for a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. (Carlsbad Current Argus)

OVERSIGHT: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appoints a member of the state’s public utilities regulatory board to a judgeship, leaving a vacancy on the five-member body. (Georgia Recorder)

SOLAR:
• An Arkansas renewable energy company announces completion of solar arrays for two school systems and a water association totalling more than 2 MW. (Talk Business & Politics)
• A growing number of southeastern Texans invest in solar energy systems. (KBMT)

BIOMASS: A wood pellet plant built in Maine by a North Carolina company has so far produced far less material than it promised, while questions over the accuracy of the plant’s emissions estimates also jeopardize its future. (NC Policy Watch)

CYBERSECURITY: The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in May prompts federal officials to direct pipeline operators to improve their cyberdefenses. (Washington Post)

COAL:
• Tennessee residents push for action after testing by a state agency shows excessive chemical levels in streams and groundwater around the coal-fired Bull Run Fossil Plant. (Oak Ridger)
• West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice asks state media outlets to “just stand down and see where this thing finally wraps up” instead of actively reporting on his legal entanglements with a Virginia bank. (Huntington Herald-Dispatch)

LITHIUM: A battery company that wants to mine lithium in North Carolina faces opposition from nearby residents as it seeks to obtain a permit and rezoning from county commissioners. (WSOC)

COMMENTARY: The accelerating closure of an Ohio Valley power plant that uses West Virginia coal disconcerts an opinion editor who is concerned that other plants in Ohio’s deregulated energy market could soon follow. (Huntington Herald-Dispatch)

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.