POLITICS: Climate activists face off against Texas’ powerful oil and gas industry as El Paso residents vote this week whether to adopt a climate charter with aggressive renewable energy targets. (Inside Climate News)

ALSO:
• Virginia lawmakers remain deadlocked over two vacancies on the powerful three-member regulatory body that oversees utilities. (Virginia Mercury)
• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper rallies state business leaders to push back on legislative efforts to block his administration’s efforts to boost electric trucks and buses, energy efficiency and offshore wind development. (WFAE)
• More than 250 former coal workers who’ve sued for overdue prescription drug coverage are among the many individuals complaining West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has failed to pay obligated expenses as he gears up to run for U.S. Senate. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Electric vehicle maker Rivian announces it will invest $10 million to expand a Kentucky factory to add a part reconstruction facility. (Louisville Courier Journal)
• A consultant names Charleston, South Carolina, as the best place in the eastern U.S. to build an electric vehicle factory based on costs. (Post and Courier, subscription)
• Mack Trucks announces it will make a medium-duty, freight-hauling electric vehicle at a Virginia plant. (Roanoke Times)
• An Arkansas trucking company’s sustainability officer and other industry officials are skeptical they can achieve U.S. EPA’s proposal to significantly reduce emissions from trucks beginning in 2027. (Arkansas Business)

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: A cafe that opened in 2019 in the midst of Louisiana’s petrochemical and oil refinery corridor has become an informal headquarters for Black residents and environmental justice advocates. (NOLA.com)

PIPELINES: A company restores natural gas flow in a Mississippi pipeline after a large fire last week that officials believe resulted from a lightning strike. (Associated Press)

COAL:
• West Virginia utilities’ consideration of whether to buy a coal-fired power plant is complicated by the question of whether they’d choose to close another coal plant that employs more workers and produces nearly twice the tax revenue. (Dominion Post)
• A West Virginia landlord wants to evict an energy company that owns a coal-fired power plant on its land, alleging the company hasn’t paid rent since 2013. (Times West Virginian)

UTILITIES:
• Oklahoma’s attorney general announces a settlement with a utility to add three solar farms and three wind farms providing a total of 995 MW in exchange for ratepayer protections. (news release)
• Jacksonville, Florida’s municipal utility board approves a plan to reduce carbon emissions 80% from 2005 levels by 2030, largely by adding new solar and nuclear power. (Jacksonville Today)

GRID: Appalachian Power prepares to upgrade a nearly 30-mile transmission line in West Virginia. (WV Metro News)

OVERSIGHT: The chair of the Tennessee Valley Authority board comes to the job after leading a local Tennessee chamber of commerce and spending nearly two decades working for a rug company. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

CLIMATE:
• Florida building codes that often rely on trucked-in gravel to elevate new homes lead residents of low-slung older homes in the same neighborhoods to worry whether the new additions are worsening flooding. (Miami Herald)
• Southwest Florida’s largest airports still haven’t adopted climate change action plans to reduce carbon emissions. (WGCU)

COMMENTARY:
• Efforts by West Virginia officials and lawmakers to save a single coal-fired power plant will effectively cost ratepayers $3 million a month for a plan that may not even work, writes an energy analyst. (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis)
• A Florida lawmaker calls for passage of legislation to provide school districts greater spending flexibility to harden infrastructure and ensure emergency shelters maintain power during storms. (Invading Sea)

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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.