OIL & GAS: The rupture of a Tennessee pipeline in late June spilled more than 180,000 gallons of crude oil in what was the state’s second largest oil spill to date. (WPLN)

ALSO:
• The U.S. Coast Guard monitors cleanup of an estimated 4,000-gallon oil spill at an energy facility near Louisiana. (WAFB)
• “It’s a hard pill to swallow” — landowners who’ve been fighting the Mountain Valley Pipeline for years are disappointed congressional Democrats will allow completion of the project to win U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin’s support of a climate spending package. (Mountain State Spotlight/ProPublica)

WIND: North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper visits an offshore wind facility near Virginia Beach as his state ramps up to begin development of its own offshore wind projects. (WVEC, Daily Advance)

CLIMATE:
• Federal officials warn that parts of coastal Virginia could see high tide flooding 85 to 125 days per year by 2050. (WHRO)
• Texas says 246 people officially died in last year’s winter storm, but researchers say the state’s figure is a severe undercount. (Austin Monitor)
• Residents of a Virginia county are just beginning to recover two weeks after flooding destroyed dozens of homes and buildings. (Cardinal News)

EMISSIONS: Federal regulators are using flyovers to look for methane “super-emitters” in the Permian Basin. (Texas Tribune)

POLITICS: An Appalachian environmental group sues to obtain a document from the attorney general’s office that it says undercuts Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s push to remove the state from a regional carbon market. (Virginia Mercury, Richmond Times-Dispatch)

UTILITIES:
• Oklahoma is among the states that allows utilities to charge “onerous security deposits” that punish poor people already struggling to pay their monthly bills. (Frontier/Curbside Chronicle)
• Duke Energy considers selling its commercial renewable energy business. (WFAE)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: West Virginia completes its preliminary plan to add electric vehicle chargers and tap into $46 million in federal infrastructure funding. (WCHS)

STORAGE:
• A California-based battery startup plans to announce by September where it will build a factory in West Virginia. (Huntington Herald-Dispatch)
• A company that makes battery materials from recycled lithium-ion batteries announces it will build a Kentucky factory. (news release)

COAL: Democrats’ climate spending plan divides coal companies who oppose it and coal miners advocating for its fix of the federal black lung trust fund. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, subscription)

SOLAR: A company that wants to automate solar deployment raises money after it used robots to successfully install a 400 MW solar project in Texas. (PV Magazine)

COMMENTARY:
• Documents show most utility-scale wind and solar projects that applied for a Texas tax incentive program are owned by energy companies or utilities known for fossil fuels, including some that have aggressively opposed renewable energy and climate policies, write a professor and research assistant. (The Conversation)
• A political consultancy’s surveillance of Southern Co.’s CEO raises questions about one of the Southeast’s most prominent utilities, write two officials at a clean energy think tank. (Energy and Policy Institute)

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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.