Companies pull projects from Texas gas power fund

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FOSSIL FUELS

• Nearly a third of projects that advanced to the due diligence stage have now been withdrawn from Texas’ $5 billion fund to incentivize gas-fired power plants, with their developers citing challenges in the state’s energy market. (Houston Chronicle)

• January crude oil and natural gas production in Louisiana dropped from the year before, which an expert attributes to the state’s general lack of shale compared to places like the Permian Basin. (Greater Baton Rouge Business Report)

• A West Virginia coal company racked up 138 violation notices and 27 cessation orders since 2015 before it declared bankruptcy earlier this year. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, Appalachian Voices)

OVERSIGHT

• President Trump fires the chair of the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors on the heels of firing another board member five days ago, reducing the nine-member board to four just a day after the utility announced its new CEO. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

PIPELINES

• A New York asset management firm edges closer toward a $9 billion deal to acquire the 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S. (Reuters)

• The Mountain Valley Pipeline presses to build a 31-mile extension into North Carolina, while opponents organize against the plan. (Cardinal News)

WIND

• Oklahoma lawmakers advance a bill increasing setbacks required for wind farms. (KFOR)

GRID

• Documents reveal Elon Musk’s planned xAI supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee, won’t be able to get enough power unless it builds an on-site power plant. (Business Insider)

• West Virginia lawmakers approve a bill allowing data centers to develop their own power using microgrids, but without a previous requirement for utilities to run coal plants at a higher capacity. (West Virginia Watch)

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

• Advocates in Louisiana’s ​“Cancer Alley” and elsewhere say the Trump administration’s push to roll back the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement of clean air and water rules will fall hardest on children. (Floodlight)

UTILITIES

• City officials in St. Petersburg, Florida, consider leaving Duke Energy and forming a municipal utility when its 30-year agreement with Duke comes up next summer. (Tampa Bay Times)

POLITICS

• The governors of Oklahoma and Texas sign executive orders creating state-level departments replicating the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which experts say could weaken environmental rules and give the oil and gas industry more sway. (E&E News)

• West Virginia U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito expresses concern about Trump’s cuts to a federal office that monitors coal miners’ health. (WV News)

COMMENTARY

• Texas should incorporate net metering and streamline permitting requirements for solar projects to again surpass California in solar installations after falling behind in 2024, writes the state director of the American Conservation Coalition. (Dallas Morning News)

• Kentucky communities still struggling from the coal industry’s decline now face a new challenge from Republican cuts to federal aid programs, writes a staffer for an economic policy group. (Lexington Herald-Leader)

• Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is using his veto and amendment powers to kill or water down bills to ease the state’s mandated transition to clean energy, writes a columnist. (Virginia Mercury)