UTILITIES: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and state lawmakers reach a bipartisan compromise on sweeping legislation to set Dominion Energy’s profit margin and reform how the state regulates electric utilities. (Virginia Mercury)

SOLAR:
• Georgia lawmakers are poised to pass a bill giving state officials sweeping power to regulate solar installers and weed out companies that make false claims and saddle customers with overpriced equipment. (Georgia Recorder)
• A clean energy group agrees to Arkansas legislation to halve customers’ net metering rate in return for keeping current rates through the end of 2024 and locking existing solar systems into the current rate through 2040. (Arkansas Business)
• An Arkansas county plans to transition to nearly all renewable power through construction of a 4.7 MW solar array to complement a 250 kW array already in use. (Arkansas Business)

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announces the state is a finalist for an electric vehicle battery plant that’s rumored to be connected with Volkswagen. (KRMG)
• A European electric-vehicle rental company expands with two new locations in Miami, Florida. (Miami Herald)
• The leader of a transit system in Little Rock, Arkansas, anticipates the arrival of new electric buses. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
• Taiwan’s top diplomat meets with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear to discuss cooperation in the electric vehicle industry. (Focus Taiwan)

WIND: A Norwegian company will develop a service operation vessel to help Dominion Energy build its offshore wind farm near Virginia. (ReNews)

OIL & GAS: Chesapeake Energy agrees to sell some of its oil and gas assets in south Texas’ Eagle Ford shale for $1.4 billion. (Houston Chronicle)

COAL: A 73-year-old coal miner dies in a southern West Virginia mine, becoming the coal industry’s first fatality of 2023. (Associated Press)

EMISSIONS:
• The Sierra Club sues the owner of a Texas power plant over sulfur dioxide emissions. (Longview News-Journal)
• San Antonio, Texas, might not have fallen under stricter U.S. EPA air regulations had it followed sister city Austin in the early 2000s and implemented a voluntary vehicle emissions and maintenance program. (San Antonio Report)

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CLIMATE: A meteorologist says at least seven tornadoes were confirmed in Oklahoma on Sunday with many more still to count, making this the most active February for tornadoes in state history. (KOCO)

COMMENTARY:
• An editorial board calls on South Carolina lawmakers to go beyond toughening penalties for deliberately damaging electrical equipment to make prison sentences and fines commensurate with the human and economic damage. (Post and Courier)
• Louisiana should not place its hopes in the petrochemical industry’s plan to make the state a carbon capture hub to save the Gulf Coast from rising seas and flooding driven by climate change, writes a columnist. (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.