Volkswagen’s Tennessee workers call for union vote

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, petition for a vote to align with the United Auto Workers after a supermajority reportedly signed union cards in the last 100 days, marking the union’s first test in a larger push to organize nonunion factories in the Southeast. (Chattanooga Times Free Press, Associated Press)

ALSO: Nissan considers investing in struggling electric vehicle maker Fisker to adopt its electric pickup for construction at Nissan plants in Mississippi and Tennessee. (Reuters)

CARBON CAPTURE: A new report notes roughly 120,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in Louisiana pose a leakage risk to plans to store carbon dioxide underground. (Inside Climate News)

OVERSIGHT:

• A Democratic Virginia lawmaker questions Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s five appointments to a state environmental council. (Virginia Mercury)
• Georgia lawmakers debate whether to resurrect a counsel to advocate for consumers before state regulators, with some arguing the direct election of regulators makes it unnecessary. (Capitol Beat News Service)

SOLAR:

• FirstEnergy’s West Virginia subsidiaries begin construction of a 5.5 MW solar farm on an abandoned brownfield that was the site of a former power plant’s coal ash disposal site. (WV News, West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
• A study finds Georgia cities rank relatively low for ​“solar friendliness,” largely based on metrics measuring policies toward renewables. (Augusta Chronicle)

PIPELINES:

• Pipeline company Enbridge plans to add capacity to a Texas pipeline that runs between the Permian Basin and a Gulf Coast port. (Reuters)
• Anti-pipeline activists protest outside a Virginia regulatory office, complaining the agency isn’t addressing water quality violations by the Mountain Valley Pipeline. (WDBJ)

OIL & GAS: Texas regulators who oversee the oil and gas industry impose $3.1 million in fines in 775 enforcement dockets against operators and businesses. (Odessa American)

WIND: Dominion Energy says it won’t do anything about a possible bald eagle’s nest on a transmission line that’s intended to transmit power from the utility’s planned offshore wind farm. (WAVY)

NUCLEAR: A study suggests southwestern Virginia could benefit by taking part in a small modular nuclear reactor supply chain. (Cardinal News)

GRID: Virginia Tech researchers receive a $2.5 million federal grant to research ways to move power lines underground in a cost-effective manner. (news release)

POLITICS: Fourteen Democratic Congress members who received more than $735,000 from the oil and gas industry since 2022 have either signed letters of opposition or voted with Republicans to stop the Biden administration’s pause on permitting liquified natural gas export facilities. (The Lever)

COMMENTARY:

• Kentucky legislation to create a commission to review utilities’ plans to retire power plants won’t just add an extra layer of bureaucracy to prop up the coal industry, but make energy prices more expensive for state ratepayers, writes a renewables advocate. (Lexington Herald-Leader)
• South Carolina must add additional sources of power generation because its growing population and new economic developments will add even more heft to demand spikes during extreme weather, writes the head of electric cooperatives. (Post and Courier)