ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Louisiana residents call for a state ban on petrochemical plants and sue parish officials over allegations of civil rights, environmental justice and religious liberty violations for locating industrial plants near majority Black neighborhoods. (NOLA.com, WWNO)

COAL: The conclusion of a nearly two-year strike by Alabama coal miners demonstrates how the industry’s decline and a general lack of job opportunities in coal country has left even well-organized workers with little leverage. (Grist)

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SOLAR:
• Construction progresses on a 240 MW Texas solar farm for Facebook, a 20 MW Arkansas solar and battery system for a rice mill and a 3 MW Tennessee solar facility for an energy company. (PV Magazine)
• NextEra plans to begin construction of a 200 MW solar farm in Louisiana by the end of 2023. (American Press)
• Duke Energy begins construction on a 1 MW floating solar array in Florida. (Daily Energy Insider)
• Alabama students develop solar powered suitcases for teachers and students in Ukraine to charge devices. (Bama Buzz)

WIND:
• As two companies move to develop offshore wind power near North Carolina, residents in coastal communities express fear that wind turbines would hurt tourism. (WRAL)
• A county board will hear a lone speaker who opposes a proposed 180 MW Arkansas wind farm despite the county government’s limited authority over the project. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Florida lawmakers consider legislation to add a new fee for drivers of most hybrid and electric vehicles to replace lost gas tax revenue. (WUSF)
• A charger company will install a Texas city’s first open-access fast electric vehicle charging station in a parking garage. (Dallas Innovates)

RENEWABLES: A Florida county begins negotiations to sell a 309-acre property to a clean tech company. (Orlando Sentinel)

OIL & GAS:
• An energy company announces it will move forward with construction of a $13 billion liquefied natural gas facility on the the Texas Gulf Coast. (Houston Chronicle)
• A natural gas company has made billions of dollars while slowly moving through the process of commissioning a Louisiana liquefaction facility, frustrating some customers who urged it to open last summer as natural gas prices spiked. (S&P Global)
• Some residents of a Texas Gulf Coast city who lost natural gas service due to problems at offshore gas supply wells look to a plumbing company to help restore their service. (KIII)

NUCLEAR: Researchers at a Louisiana university use a federal grant to develop sensors to more quickly detect nuclear power leaks. (Greater Baton Rouge Business Report)

HYDROPOWER: Federal officials issue a report on how fish are affected by a Dominion Energy-operated hydropower dam in South Carolina, moving the project closer to having its license renewed. (The State)

UTILITIES:
• A lawyer drops a federal lawsuit against Summit Utilities over billing and gas-purchasing practices to allow Arkansas regulators to begin investigations. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority reviews a Mississippi utility that’s been plagued by frequent outages. (WHBQ)
• A Florida city’s mayor complains that state legislation to limit the amount of money that municipal utilities can transfer to their cities’ general funds could amount to a $10 million hit to its budget. (Tallahassee Democrat)
• A Florida association of municipal utilities lobbies against legislation to give the state more regulatory authority over how they operate. (Florida Politics)

COMMENTARY: Congress should uphold President Biden’s veto of legislation to restrict the government from considering environmental impacts in pension decisions because the economy’s long-term health requires energy investments, writes an editorial board. (NOLA.com)

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Mason Adams

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.