Virginia tightens the leash on watchdog citizen boards

OVERSIGHT: A policy analyst with an Appalachian advocacy group explains why Virginia lawmakers are moving to yank regulatory power from a pair of citizen boards after one blocked a proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline compressor station. (Energy News Network)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A Vietnamese automaker announces plans to build an electric vehicle factory in North Carolina, spurring a nearby railroad company to invest in a related auto ramp. (Associated Press, Chatham Journal)

SOLAR:
• Developers of North Carolina apartment complexes complain about a state law prohibiting owners of multifamily developments from installing solar panels and selling the energy directly to tenants. (Winston-Salem Journal)
• North Carolina falls from second to seventh in solar energy capacity from 2015 to this year, with an installer blaming the drop on a decrease in solar farms and other large-scale installations. (Daily Tar Heel)

OIL & GAS:
• An energy company announces plans to build a liquified natural gas facility in a Mississippi city on the Mississippi River. (Vicksburg Daily News)
• A chemical company discovers a spill of a corrosive chemical used to refine crude oil in a Virginia city known for a legacy of toxic dumping. (Progress-Index)

PIPELINES:
• Tennessee lawmakers advance legislation to remove local control over pipeline projects, with some exceptions. (Tennessee Lookout)
• A federal court upholds a panel of judges’ decision that is delaying construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. (S&P Global)

WIND:
• Wind farms across Texas and New Mexico provide about 40% of an energy company’s power, and officials see potential for more. (KCBD)
• An energy company breaks ground on a 300 MW wind farm in Oklahoma. (Renewables Now)

NUCLEAR: Kentucky, West Virginia and other states explore the idea of expanding nuclear power, but previous projects in Georgia and South Carolina have been delayed by cost overruns or canceled altogether. (S&P Global)

POLITICS:
• U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin hires a former natural gas lobbyist to work on the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee as he continues to negotiate a climate package. (Business Insider)
• In their latest session, Virginia lawmakers upheld landmark clean energy laws while also pulling environmental regulatory power from two citizen boards. (Bay Journal)

COAL:
• Dominion Energy agrees to study how it can make a hybrid coal plant in southwestern Virginia more economically viable as the Sierra Club calls for its closure by 2023. (Virginia Mercury)
• West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice signs into law a bill to use $50 million in taxpayer money to create an insurance company to cover reclamation liabilities for bankrupt coal companies. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

COMMENTARY:
• An earlier change in phrasing about the overlap between energy efficiency and conservation on a federal government website could have opened the door for Duke Energy to utilize metering technology to reduce peak demand for South Carolina customers, a clean energy advocate writes. (Energy News Network)
• Virginia environmental groups celebrate a federal court’s decision upholding the denial of a compressor station permit. (Appalachian Voices)