UTILITIES: After previous resistance, a powerful group of North Carolina manufacturers and paper mills says it will drop its opposition to a Duke Energy program to assist thousands of households in Asheville and the eastern part of the state in paying electric bills. (Energy News Network)

ALSO: The Tennessee Valley Authority votes to deny a raise for CEO Jeff Lyash, the highest paid federal employee, after a fiscal year that included the workplace death of a site foreman and rolling blackouts during a December cold snap. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: 

POLITICS: 

EMISSIONS: A Virginia judge denies standing to environmental groups suing to block Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s moves to withdraw the state from a regional carbon market. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

BIOMASS: Wood pellet producer Enviva falls into a financial crisis, threatening its plans to build new plants in Alabama and Mississippi and maintain operations in five other Southeast states. (Inside Climate News)

OIL & GAS: 

GRID: Texas voters approved a new state fund to incentivize construction of natural gas-fired plants, but the new program is likely a year or more away from approving its first applications from participants. (Corpus Christi Caller Times)

COMMENTARY: 

  • Despite a growing number of Virginia counties that have placed moratoriums, acreage caps and outright bans on utility-scale solar, local-level case-by-case review of projects still remains the best solution for regulating such projects, writes a policy advisor. (Virginia Mercury) 
  • Polling shows conservatives increasingly worry about climate change, indicating that Florida candidates should back clean energy and climate initiatives, writes the state director for Conservatives for Clean Energy. (Invading Sea)
  • A Florida solar user points to the Philadelphia Eagles, which powers its stadium with 11,100 solar panels and operates other sustainability measures, as a model for his local Jacksonville Jaguars. (Florida Times-Union)

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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.