PIPELINES: A Virginia woman who in 2018 occupied a tree sit for more than a month on her family’s property to block the Mountain Valley Pipeline now feels despondent over congressional approval of legislation to force completion of the long-delayed natural gas transmission project. (Energy News Network)

COAL ASH: The U.S. EPA considers closing a regulatory loophole that could force the Southern Company to abandon its plans to leave toxic coal ash in contact with groundwater at some of its Georgia power plants. (Georgia Recorder)

OVERSIGHT: A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in an Alabama voting rights case could affect a delayed election for Georgia’s energy utility regulatory board. (Savannah Morning News)

CLIMATE:
• Local governments in Florida scramble to address long-standing flooding problems amid growing development and the increasingly harsh effects of hurricanes worsened by climate change. (Washington Post)
• Tampa, Florida, releases a 156-page climate action and equity plan to address the clean energy transition and climate change. (Florida Politics)

OIL & GAS: The Texas board that oversees oil and gas companies, composed of three commissioners tightly linked to the industry, presents a significant obstacle to the Biden administration’s plans to tighten oversight of methane releases. (Politico)

SOLAR:
• A Kentucky county board considers a solar farm whose developer says could generate up to $153,000 of tax revenue annually, as well as an appeal by another solar project whose application was previously rejected. (News-Enterprise)
• A Virginia county approves an amended solar ordinance after making changes to address its lack of zoning. (Martinsville Bulletin)

NUCLEAR: Georgia Power delays commercial operation of a new reactor at nuclear Plant Vogtle for another month due to a problem in the hydrogen system used to cool its main electrical generator. (Associated Press)

GRID:
• Hundreds of thousands of homes in Texas and Louisiana lose power after storms strike the Gulf Coast amid a sweltering heat wave. (Texas Tribune, Louisiana Radio Network)
• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signs a bill to stiffen penalties for attacks on energy facilities such as December’s gunfire on two electrical substations that resulted in widespread outages. (Raleigh News & Observer)
• Texans consider a proposed state constitutional amendment to loan taxpayer money to companies to build or expand natural gas, coal or nuclear plants to generate more power for the grid. (WFAA)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• A company that makes electrolytes for electric vehicle batteries breaks ground on a Tennessee factory, the latest in a string of companies to locate near auto manufacturers ramping up EV production in the state. (Knoxville News Sentinel)
• Kentucky seeks proposals from the private sector to build up to 37 electric vehicle charging stations along interstates and parkways. (News-Enterprise)

EMISSIONS: Students at Virginia universities press administrators to divest endowments of fossil fuel interests and invest in clean energy, but so far only the University of Virginia has responded with action. (Virginia Mercury)

FINANCE: An Oklahoma law banning financial firms with environmental goals from working with state pension funds and state bond sales is already causing confusion and could negatively affect residents who rely on pensions. (Oklahoma Watch)

COMMENTARY:  South Carolina lawmakers should pass legislation to incentivize utilities to better forecast fuel cost changes, write two clean energy advocates. (Energy News Network)

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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.