South Carolina moves to limit out-of-state coal ash

COAL ASH: South Carolina lawmakers move to limit the disposal of coal ash from other states to properly equipped landfills. (Greenville News)

POLITICS: North Carolina’s Jay Faison launches a super PAC to boost Republican candidates willing to embrace the economic benefits of clean energy. (The Wall Street Journal)

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NUCLEAR:
• Georgia regulators sign off on $148 million in costs for the two reactors under construction at Plant Vogtle; total tab now at $14.5 billion. (Atlanta Business Chronicle)
• Jay Faison fine-tunes his pitch for nuclear energy at a North Carolina clean tech summit. (The Energy Fix)

CLEAN POWER PLAN: Virginia lawmakers advance bills that would mandate legislative approval of implementation of the plan. (WVIR-TV)

BIOENERGY: The outgoing Secretary of Agriculture says he’s hopeful the next administration will lend the ethanol industry financial and technical support. (Progressive Farmer)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Nissan says it will pay for three charging stations at a football stadium named after it in Nashville, Tennessee. (WSMV-TV)

CLIMATE:
• Leaders of the North Carolina region that includes the military base at Fort Bragg come to grips with the growing local impacts of climate change. (Fayetteville Observer)
• Former South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis makes his climate solutions pitch to students at Duke University. (Duke Chronicle)

SOLAR: A Virginia ​“pioneer” explains his passion for, and the economics about, the solar system he purchased. (The Roanoke Times)

EFFICIENCY: A student center at a community college in Virginia is the state’s first public building using new standards for conserving energy. (Associated Press)

EMISSIONS: The EPA finds a Louisiana coal-fired power plant owned by Cleco Corp. emitting too much sulfur dioxide to meet new federal standards. (Associated Press)

OFFSHORE DRILLING: Federal regulators are expected to announce as early as March 14 whether to propose lease sales off the Atlantic coast. (The Post and Courier)

COAL: Despite coal’s shortcomings, West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito says the nation still benefits from preserving it in utilities’ generation portfolios. (The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register)

OIL & GAS:
• The federal government schedules sales of leases next month opening up 45 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for drilling. (Miami Herald)
• The West Virginia Senate advances two bills to ease drilling restrictions potentially at the expense of landowners. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• A Louisiana court upholds the state’s move to allow a suit against oil, gas and pipeline companies for wetlands damage. (New Orleans Times-Picayune)

2010 GULF OIL SPILL: The supervisor of the drilling rig who pleaded guilty to a pollution charge says a colleague fighting the same charge never supplied critical information that could have avoided the explosion. (Associated Press)

UTILITIES: Piedmont Natural Gas is to sell its remaining stake in an energy services company to Georgia Natural Gas, subject to its own sale to Duke Energy. (Charlotte Business Journal)

COMMENTARY:
• Duke Energy’s $2.8 billion in 2015 profits could clean up a lot of North Carolina’s coal ash. (The Progressive Pulse)
• Editorials in North Carolina and Virginia favor the process for siting Atlantic Coast Pipeline. (Fayetteville Observer / Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• Despite its Republican presidential primary tomorrow, drilling off South Carolina’s coast is drawing scant attention. (The Institute for Southern Studies)