SOLAR: Virginia regulators consider changing stormwater rules to treat ground-mounted solar installations like parking lots, which solar proponents say would dramatically increase costs and potentially disrupt clean energy deployment. (Energy News Network)

ALSO:
• A Virginia town council considers a 5 MW solar project that could be its first solar development. (South Boston News & Record)
• Federal officials announce a settlement to resolve alleged Clean Water Act violations at four solar farms, including one in Alabama. (news release)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• A California company that plans to build small electric air taxis announces it will build a factory next to a Georgia airport. (Associated Press)
• Construction workers at Tesla’s gigafactory in Austin, Texas, say they’ll file a lawsuit over allegations of serious labor and employment violations, including wage theft, constant hazards and onsite accidents. (Guardian)
• A Korean car parts company with a plant supplying an Alabama Hyundai factory announces it will expand in Georgia to support Hyundai’s planned factories there, launching an expected wave of Korean suppliers locating in the area. (GlobalAtlanta)

EMISSIONS:
• Scientists urge North Carolina regulators not to approve Duke Energy’s plan to build more gas-fired power plants as a way to reduce and eventually eliminate carbon emissions by 2050. (WFAE)
• A Tennessee Valley Authority coal plant is named as Tennessee’s biggest methane emitter, followed by landfills, cement factories, airports, steel plants and a Memphis-area oil refinery. (WPLN)

OIL & GAS:
• Analysts expect the Permian Basin to see record natural gas and oil production in December, but production is still climbing slowly as drillers try to preserve surging profits. (Reuters)
• An economist credits revenues from West Virginia’s natural gas severance tax for driving at least 20% of the state government’s record-setting budget surplus. (Parkersburg News and Sentinel)
• A natural gas company disputes rumors that its Texas liquified natural gas terminal, which closed in June for repairs after a fire, won’t reopen until 2023. (Natural Gas Intelligence)

RATES: A new survey finds 45% of Texans say they’ve had to ​​forgo spending on basic necessities to pay their power bills — 11 percentage points higher than average and worst in the country, despite the state’s status as a generation powerhouse. (Dallas Morning News)

UTILITIES:
• Oklahoma regulators fail to reach consensus on how to spread out a utility’s rate hike to minimize effects on ratepayers, leaving its current two-year structure intact. (KWTV)
• Environmental groups, consumer advocates and others pitch a rate structure to the municipal utility in Austin, Texas, that includes a significantly lower monthly fixed residential fee and other measures they say will boost conservation and more equitably distribute bill increases. (Austin Monitor)

POLITICS:
• Texas lawmakers begin pre-filing bills for 2023, including legislation to protect the state’s oil and gas infrastructure and to make building renewable energy facilities more difficult. (San Antonio Report)
• Kentucky lawmakers discuss potential legislation to keep electric rates affordable, address advanced nuclear power and respond to historic flooding in the eastern part of the state. (The Bottom Line/Kentucky Chamber of Commerce)
• American Electric Power and NextEra Energy, which both maintain large footprints in the Southeast, are among the utilities whose leaders continue to call for a clean energy transition despite an uncertain and narrow balance of power in Congress after midterms. (S&P Global)

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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.