SOLAR: Arkansas lawmakers introduce legislation to roll back the state’s net-metering program, which a coalition of advocates and businesses says would threaten the state’s recent solar boom. (Arkansas Advocate)

ALSO:
• San Antonio, Texas’ municipal utility signs deals to acquire power from a 100 MW solar farm and a natural gas-fired power plant. (San Antonio Express-News)
• Construction progresses on a 147 MW solar farm in west Texas. (PV Magazine)

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WIND:
• Dominion Energy’s CEO tells investors that its 2.6 GW offshore wind farm near Virginia is “very much on track and on budget.” (Reuters)
• A clean energy developer grows its presence in Oklahoma with 14 wind farms completed or under construction since 2012. (Journal Record)

OIL & GAS: More than 5,000 workers who helped clean up BP’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have filed medical claims against the company but have not received compensation. (WWL-TV)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A Kentucky economic development official touts a program to market the region’s proximity to electric vehicle battery production centers in Kentucky and Tennessee. (Murray Ledger & Times)

STORAGE:
• West Virginia lawmakers hotly debate a $105 million incentive package for a planned iron-air battery factory. (Parkersburg News and Sentinel)
• A global developer hires its first employees for a planned Tennessee plant to produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide. (Chattanoogan)  

CLIMATE:
• Severe winter storms continue to prompt debate in Texas over how to prepare local infrastructure for extreme weather. (Texas Tribune)
• Federal officials discuss a $1 billion project to raise and flood-proof 4,000 homes instead of building a controversial dam that would heavily impact Black residents who would have to be bought out. (The Advocate)

CARBON CAPTURE:
• Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards presses federal officials to respond to the state’s request to regulate wells that store carbon dioxide in the ground. (E&E News, subscription)
• A carbon-capture facility attached to a Texas coal plant may resume production after nearly three years of inoperation due to low oil prices. (E&E News, subscription) 

COAL:
• West Virginia lawmakers approve legislation to exempt coal sold to in-state power plants from severance tax, potentially costing the state more than $20 million annually. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, subscription)
• West Virginia lawmakers advance a resolution urging Mon Power to buy a coal-fired power plant slated for closure this year. (WV Metro News)
• A coal-industry trade group deletes its member list after losing its final investor-owned utility members when Southern Company and American Electric Power left in 2019. (Energy and Policy Institute)
• Virginia regulators fine a rail company for a 2020 train derailment that spilled more than 1,000 tons of coal into the Roanoke River. (Roanoke Times)

OVERSIGHT:
• A Virginia county board discusses but decides against amending its zoning ordinances to require special exceptions for data center, battery storage facility and solar farm proposals. (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)
• An Arkansas Congress member chairs the first hearing this year of the U.S. House’s Natural Resources Committee, immediately spotlighting partisan differences on fossil fuels. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

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ACTIVISM: A nonprofit that tries to rally voters around clean energy concerns expands its presence to Louisiana and other Republican-leaning states. (NBC News)

COMMENTARY: Virginia lawmakers should pass bills to allow shared solar programs, which would lower power bills and expand clean energy, writes a Republican county supervisor. (Cardinal News)

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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.