Trump’s clean energy rollback could cost families $400 per year

This roundup of energy news headlines comes from our Southeast Energy News newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox each morning.

CLEAN ENERGY

• Studies find the repeal of Biden-era federal tax credits for renewables in Trump’s ​“big beautiful bill” could increase the average family’s power bills by as much as $400 per year as electricity demand surges due to data centers and shifting to fossil fuel-fired power plants would likely push up the price of natural gas. (New York Times)

• Texas wind, solar, and battery advocates move from defending against now-failed state legislation to lobbying Congress against repealing Biden-era clean energy incentives that have supercharged the booming sector. (Houston Chronicle, Utility Dive)

• An Arkansas county board votes to ban the construction of any wind or solar farms for the rest of the year, becoming at least the fifth county in the state to ban wind farms. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

FINANCE

• The Texas comptroller removes BlackRock Inc. from a list of financial firms that allegedly ​“boycott” the fossil fuel industry and from which state public agencies were required to divest after it withdraws from clean energy initiatives. (Texas Tribune)

PIPELINES

• A Texas man files a wrongful termination lawsuit against the Mountain Valley Pipeline and its owner, alleging he was fired from an inspector position for raising safety concerns that included improper pipeline welding. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Coal companies across West Virginia and southwestern Virginia lay off miners, raising questions about the industry’s future as coal prices drop 27% from last year despite state legislation and Trump’s executive orders to boost it. (WVVA)

• A small seaside Texas town faces the rapid emergence of export terminals on Corpus Christi Bay, which have turned the area into America’s crude oil export capital. (Floodlight)

• Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry criticizes the oil and gas industry as he backs proposed legislation to retroactively prohibit indemnification, which allows companies to pass off the responsibility to clean up old wells when it sells them to another company. (The Advocate)

• Federal lawyers testify that job cuts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have been rescinded, but critics question whether the agency has fully restored its programs to screen for black lung disease in coal miners. (WV Metro News, West Virginia Watch)

• The U.S. Transportation Department selects McNeese State University in Louisiana to house a federal liquefied natural gas research hub. (The Advocate)

SOLAR

• Florida regulators approve a solar power rate adjustment that will allow Duke Energy to recover costs from building four 74.9 MW solar farms. (Florida Politics)

WIND

• Virginia clean energy advocates warn Trump’s ​“big beautiful bill” and its rollback of clean energy funding would be ​“a disaster for Hampton Roads” and damage the region’s ability to develop into an offshore wind supply chain hub. (Virginian-Pilot)

HYDROELECTRIC

• The Tennessee Valley Authority considers building a 1,600 MW pumped storage facility in Alabama. (Sequatchie Valley Now)

GRID

• Utility and grid officials blame a longstanding lack of long-range transmission lines in south Louisiana for the forced power outages in the New Orleans area over Memorial Day weekend. (Times-Picayune)

• A new study questions utilities’ aggressive growth projections based around data centers and posits the Southeast at the frontlines of a national debate about energy needs. (Southern Alliance for Clean Energy)

• Appalachian Power reworks its plans to upgrade transmission lines and substations in West Virginia to avoid a trail network. (WCHS)

• Dominion Energy has been moving power lines underground in parts of Virginia, significantly reducing outage times. (WTVR)

COMMENTARY

• Oklahoma lawmakers are ignoring the oil and gas industry’s environmental degradation and community health threats by declining to pass any regulations to address those risks, writes an environmental activist. (Oklahoma Voice)

NEW FROM CANARY

• The Biden administration’s climate-smart agriculture initiative wasn’t perfect, but its cancellation under President Trump was for all the wrong reasons, Michael Grunwald writes.

• Massachusetts utilities and regulators agree on a system for splitting the costs of infrastructure upgrades necessary to connect more solar power to the grid, Jeff St. John reports.