Georgia advocate launches consumer-based utility watchdog

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UTILITIES

• A former candidate for Georgia’s public service commission launches a utility watchdog group to advocate for consumers, with plans to monitor state regulators’ dealings with Georgia Power and to advocate against passing the cost of data centers to ratepayers. (Georgia Recorder)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Texas lawmakers consider bipartisan legislation supported by the oil and gas industry to require drillers to plug wells after 15 years of inactivity, targeting roughly 155,000 idle wells across the state. (Houston Chronicle)

• Louisiana environmentalists worry the Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks will further complicate the state’s ability to respond to oil spills, which already has been slowed by a reorganization under the new governor. (Louisiana Illuminator)

• Alabama regulators extend a federally prompted deadline for coal operators to submit methane monitoring plans after the Alabama Mining Association lobbies for more time. (Inside Climate News)

• More than 100 Memphis, Tennessee, residents and environmental advocates object to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plans to build six new gas-fired turbines in an area already subject to multiple refineries and the effects of oil and coal operations. (WATN)

• Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry closely monitors Trump’s proposed tariffs against Canada and its potential to raise the cost of imported crude oil that’s refined in the state. (KOCO)

GRID

• Virginia has become the nation’s epicenter for data center growth and accompanying debate about how to deal with the sector’s voracious power demands, with a study finding unconstrained demand will drive up energy use 183% by 2040 versus 15% without new data centers. (States Newsroom)

• Virginia’s data center buildout will test the grid’s capacity and could even lead to rolling blackouts, warns the CEO of an electric cooperative. (Cardinal News)

• President Trump’s firing of two Tennessee Valley Authority board members could impact the federal utility’s ability to approve a separate electricity rate class for data centers, possibly affecting Elon Musk’s contentious xAI supercomputer project in Memphis, Tennessee. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

WIND

• Arkansas lawmakers approve a bill to more tightly regulate wind farms, but exempt projects in the lower Delta region of the state along the Mississippi River. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

EMISSIONS

• Trump targets the U.S. EPA’s 26-year-old federal haze rule for rollback despite its role in helping clear the air at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and in other national parks, wilderness areas, and tribal reservations. (Associated Press)

CLIMATE

• Louisiana lawmakers file legislation to address rising homeowners insurance rates and the withdrawal by some insurers from the southern part of the state, which has been rattled by hurricanes. (Times-Picayune)

COMMENTARY

• Trump’s executive orders to boost coal production could lead to a federal attempt to overturn Virginia’s clean energy law, which aims to reduce emissions and eliminate the use of fossil fuels in power production, writes an editor. (Cardinal News)

• Austin, Texas, offers rebates to lower the cost of electric lawn equipment like mowers and weed eaters that provide a cleaner and quieter alternative to gas-powered equipment, writes an environmentalist. (Austin American-Statesman)