Duke won’t help extend North Carolina’s solar tax credit

SOLAR:
• Duke Energy rejected a request by solar installers in North Carolina to support their call to extend the state’s 35 percent solar tax credit two years beyond 2015. (Charlotte Business Journal)
• Utilities such as Georgia Power are discovering they can make money by meeting the growing demand for solar power. (The Washington Post)
• The female CEO of Sunrun, now expanding its operations into the Southeast, explains what drove her to launch the company in 2006. (Sierra Club blog)

CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMIES: Growth in ​“green” jobs in Georgia is in part because of an unlikely political partnership between liberal and conservative policy advocates. (Atlanta Public Radio)

CLEAN POWER PLAN: Elected officials and industry leaders in West Virginia rallied against the plan Tuesday claiming continuing job losses and skyrocketing electricity prices. (Wheeling News-Register)

NUCLEAR:
• Georgia regulators rejected a request that instead of authorizing the rising cost of building two reactors that it order utilities to use those funds for additional solar energy projects. (Atlanta Business Chronicle)
• Officials in South Florida and various critics pushed back during a regulatory hearing against Florida Power & Light’s request to spend $34 million toward adding two reactors at its Turkey Point nuclear complex. (CBS-TV Miami)

OFFSHORE DRILLING: The Virginia Beach city council is looking to neighboring U.S. Dept. of Defense operations as it revisits federal plans to drill for oil off its coast. (The Virginian-Pilot)

COMPRESSED NATURAL GAS: Piedmont Natural Gas in North Carolina said it has achieved a goal to fuel 30 percent of its vehicles with compressed natural gas by year’s end. (Charlotte Business Journal)

GASOLINE TAXES: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia are among the 14 states that have raised their gas taxes this year, and Tennessee may join them. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

METHANE EMISSIONS:
• The Obama administration’s newly proposed rules to reduce methane emissions from oil and drilling would apply only to new wells. (The Wall Street Journal)
• Leading environmental groups asserted the newly proposed rules need stronger teeth. (InsideClimate News) 

COAL:
• Federal mine safety regulators are preparing the coal industry for the next phase of a landmark rule aimed at reducing workers’ exposure to coal dust. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• 99 percent of U.S. coal mines are complying with the first phase of regulations to protect workers from coal dust. (The Hill)
• Environmental groups agreed Tuesday to settle a federal lawsuit against United Bulk’s coal export facility in Louisiana. (New Orleans Times-Picayune)

COAL ASH:
• North Carolina’s environmental regulators are now asking to stay action in three lawsuits against Duke Energy over its disposal plans. (Charlotte Business Journal)
• Limited testing by North Carolina regulators at three Charlotte-area coal ash sites indicates that nearby Duke Energy ponds are not the source of well contamination. (WRAL-TV Charlotte)

PIPELINES: Virginians helped connect a ​“Hands across our lands” protest against the Atlantic Coast and other proposed pipelines in nine states. (Staunton News Leader)

COMMENTARY:
• Progress towards cleaner energy can be very slow, but it’s progress. (The News Virginian)
• A former oil lobbyist argues Virginians are better off letting other states spend taxpayer dollars on solar energy incentives. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• A supplier of cleaning products in Virginia argues the federal EPA should scrap a proposed standard that would limit ground-level ozone. (The Virginian-Pilot)