WIND: Virginia regulators approve Dominion Energy’s $9.8 billion plans to build America’s largest offshore wind farm, but impose a performance guarantee, requirements to report cost overruns, and other conditions to protect ratepayers. (Virginia Mercury, Associated Press)

KENTUCKY FLOODING:
• Kentucky’s historic floods raise questions about whether extreme weather driven by climate change combined with the long-term effects of strip-mining will make parts of Appalachia uninhabitable. (Inside Climate News)
• The historic coal mining town of Fleming-Neon, Kentucky, rallies after flooding devastates the community and surrounding region. (Associated Press)

PIPELINES:
• A Texas energy company that recently pleaded no contest to environmental crimes in construction of a Pennsylvania pipeline also discloses a July pipeline leak in Louisiana that released 8.2 million cubic feet of natural gas. (StateImpact Pennsylvania, Reuters)
• Provisions in Democrats’ climate spending package to accelerate construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline could affect a proposed 75-mile extension into North Carolina even though state regulators have rejected water-quality permits for it. (Winston-Salem Journal)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• An aluminum foil manufacturing company announces a factory in Kentucky to make products for the electric vehicle battery industry. (Associated Press)
• A Texas lithium production company aims to make the state more of a player in the growing electric vehicle industry. (Spectrum News)

CARBON CAPTURE: Occidental Petroleum applies for substantial Texas tax breaks to finance its plans to build a massive carbon capture network in the state. (Inside Climate News)

OVERSIGHT: Email records reveal a member of a Virginia regulatory board likely to vote on a natural gas pipeline expansion permit lobbied elected officials to support it, but has declined to say whether he was paid for the work. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

UTILITIES: Southeast Texas community members speak out against a proposed Entergy power plant that would use a combination of natural gas and hydrogen. (Beaumont Enterprise)

COMMENTARY:
• An editorial board questions Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s ongoing efforts to withdraw the state from a regional carbon trading market that’s so far funded $378 million in grants to lower energy bills and fund energy efficiency and flood reduction projects. (Daily Progress)
• Reports that NextEra subsidiary Florida Power & Light hired a political consultancy firm to manipulate elections and news coverage raise questions about whether shareholders, regulators and the public should rein in its monopolistic profit-making power, writes an editorial board. (Palm Beach Post)
• A West Virginia lawmaker hails Democrats’ federal climate spending package as an opportunity for the coal-reliant state to become a leader in the clean energy economy. (River Cities Tribune & Register)
• U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin responds to the coal industry after receiving criticism for his role in drafting and supporting Democrats’ climate spending package in Congress. (news release)

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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.