SOLAR: A conservative political operative who founded a so-called citizens group to fight a rural Virginia solar project has since spread its strategy to Kentucky, the Carolinas and other states. (NPR/Floodlight)

ALSO:
• Georgia lawmakers consider a bill to tighten consumer rules around rooftop solar installation by requiring installers have a state certification and provide written disclosures and an informational video to explain to customers what they’re buying. (WAGA)
• A company prepares to build a 100 MW solar-plus-storage facility in South Carolina. (Times and Democrat)
• A solar company installs a 3.24 MW solar array on a spice factory that’s now Florida’s largest rooftop system and largest privately owned solar project. (Electrek)
• West Virginia-based solar developer Solar Holler announces a partnership with a coalfield development group to train 100 solar workers in the next 18 months. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, subscription)

COAL ASH: Activists in Memphis, Tennessee, fight the Tennessee Valley Authority’s trucking of toxic coal ash through vulnerable neighborhoods to a nearby landfill. (WHBQ)

COAL:
• A Texas lawmaker urges state regulators to intervene to block the planned closure of a coal-fired power plant this year. (KSLA)
• A judge approves a settlement in which a West Virginia coal company will pay  $350,000 to settle more than 500 mine safety and health violations. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, subscription)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Mercedes-Benz’s CEO says the two electric SUVs it makes at an Alabama factory are too expensive to qualify for newly passed electric vehicle tax credits. (AL.com)
• A Florida school district prepares to begin using six new electric buses, becoming the first in the state to do so. (Orlando Sentinel)

CARBON CAPTURE: A company looks at reopening a previously closed carbon capture facility in Texas since the price of oil has risen. (Forbes)

WORKFORCE: Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt pursues new workforce development initiatives after the state lost out on a Panasonic battery factory to Kansas. (Oklahoman)

CLIMATE:
• Texas residents worry about changing weather patterns after winter storms cause power loss and school closures for three years in a row. (KXAS)
• Texas farmers abandoned 74% of their planted crops in 2022 because of climate change-driven drought and heat, inflating the price of related products like diapers, tampons and cotton balls. (New York Times)

POLITICS: North Carolina lawmakers consider bills to prohibit cities and counties from limiting the expansion of natural gas service and to require public utilities to provide security systems at substations. (NC Policy Watch)

COMMENTARY:
• Dominion Energy has spent the last 15 years making a mockery of Virginia’s regulatory compact with utilities by using lobbyists and legislative trickery to rake in $1.9 billion more than what’s allowable, writes a former state lawmaker. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• The return of Alabama coal miners to work at Warrior Met Coal without a contract represents a failure of the Democratic Party to meet the moment by backing the miners, writes a labor reporter. (In These Times)

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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.