OIL & GAS: Newly revealed documents show BP’s “scorched earth” legal tactics toward workers who helped clean up its 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and now are suing the company over ensuing health problems. (Guardian)

ALSO:
• A Louisiana energy company reaches a tentative $3.1 million settlement with the federal government over a 2017 oil leak that spilled about 16,000 barrels into the Gulf of Mexico. (Associated Press)
• Texas pipeline and terminal operator Kinder Morgan reports a 26% increase in its earnings as it moves higher volumes of natural gas primarily from Haynesville and Eagle Ford systems. (Reuters)

GRID:
• Georgia, Tennessee and Utah are the latest states to give prosecutors broad new authority to charge people with felonies for disrupting power plants or pipelines. (HuffPost)
• A former National Guardsman pleads guilty to a weapons charge in North Carolina after he was arrested in an alleged neo-Nazi plot to attack power substations. (WGHP)
• A Texas company agrees to provide residents more notice as it places large power poles as part of a $43 billion, 10-year grid improvement project. (KTRK)

SOLAR:
• The University of Arkansas enters into a 25-year, $150 million deal with a company to receive electricity from a 74 MW solar plant and other solar arrays across its campuses. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
• A Kentucky utility brings in more than 200 Shetland and Katahdin sheep to manage the grass at its 50-acre solar facility. (WAVE)
• Two residents speak against a planned solar farm in Virginia. (Martinsville Bulletin)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announces that a community college will help train workers for a Vietnamese electric vehicle maker that’s building a factory in the state. (WTVD)
• A North Carolina city signs an agreement with Duke Energy to install an electric vehicle charging station in its municipal parking lot. (Salisbury Post)

COAL:
• “Rome is on fire,” warns the head of West Virginia’s coal association as industry officials gather to fundraise and discuss the fossil fuel’s future. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• West Virginia regulators prepare for public hearings on a plan by Monongahela Power and Potomac Edison to bill ratepayers to temporarily operate and assess a coal-fired power plant that’s otherwise set to close in June. (WV Metro News)

NUCLEAR: A North Carolina lawmaker introduces legislation to change statutory language about climate goals from “renewable” to “clean” energy so as to include nuclear facilities along with wind and solar in that category. (WUNC)

CARBON CAPTURE: A company holds an open house on its plans to build a Louisiana carbon capture plant to trap emissions from a coal plant and store them underground. (KALB)

BIOFUELS: Virginia restaurants complain of thieves stealing oil containers with used cooking grease, perhaps to make their own cheap fuel. (WRIC)

UTILITIES: The Tennessee Valley Authority will increase its monthly fuel cost adjustment due to higher coal costs and anticipated increases in power consumption. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

POLITICS:
• A political fund aimed at countering Dominion Energy’s influence in Virginia backs progressive challengers to three Democratic incumbents in primaries for the state senate ahead of legislative elections this fall. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• An Arkansas Congress member played a key role in drafting Republicans’ push to increase fossil fuel production and repeal parts of Democrats’ climate package that’s now a key part of the party’s negotiations to raise the debt limit. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

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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.