Good morning! For years, North Carolina has had a goal of cutting its carbon emissions 70% by 2030. Duke Energy recently jeopardized that goal with its plan to build more natural gas and extend the life of coal plants to meet soaring demand projections. Now, Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill to drop the climate goal altogether. They’re one vote short of a supermajority, though, so expect a political battle.
In Houston, meanwhile, the oil and gas industry is meeting in a large conference, where some companies have already announced they’ll drop their clean energy initiatives and return their focus to fossil fuels.
Read on for those stories and more.
TODAY'S TOP NEWS
EMISSIONS
A North Carolina lawmaker files a bill to eliminate the state’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by 2030, which would allow Duke Energy to scale back plans for wind and solar in favor of natural gas and coal. (Raleigh News & Observer, Inside Climate News)
A Virginia judge temporarily suspends his order that found the state’s decision to leave a regional carbon market was “unlawful, and therefore null and void” while the attorney general appeals the decision. (Roanoke Times)
FOSSIL FUELS
Oil and gas companies announce they’ll shift investments away from clean energy and back into fossil fuels as they celebrate the Trump administration’s dismantling of climate policy and approval of permits for new petro infrastructure. (Washington Post)
Even as the oil and gas industry cheers on Trump’s shift toward fossil fuels during a Houston conference, some companies are wary of his emphasis on tariffs and their potential effects on global oil prices. (Reuters)
A Texas energy company builds a 42-mile conveyer belt to move sand from Texas into New Mexico for a fracking operation. (Associated Press)
SOLAR
Solar company Suniva will make solar cells at a Georgia factory as part of an agreement with another solar company and a chipmaker to produce solar modules in the U.S. (Utility Dive)
Georgia broke its record last year by installing 1.5 GW of solar energy, more than twice what it installed in 2023. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
GRID
An energy company that makes high-capacity conductors announces it will invest $134 million and hire more than 460 people for a new South Carolina factory. (South Carolina Daily Gazette)
Virginia’s booming data center divides localities, as some places try to attract the facilities because of the tax revenue they bring, while others have soured on the industry due to its high energy demands and consumption of farmland. (WVTF)
Residents of a southern Virginia county worry that a proposed data center campus would irrevocably change the area’s rural character and quality of life. (Cardinal News)
NUCLEAR
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin calls for the U.S. to accelerate its development of nuclear fusion technology to compete with China. (Reuters)
CLIMATE
Virginia residents who survived severe flooding last month still await a disaster declaration from Trump to allow them to file individual assistance claims, even after hundreds of workers have been fired from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. (WVTF)
Western North Carolina residents worry about a “very high” risk of wildfires this spring due to government cuts, dry weather and the accumulation of woody debris after Hurricane Helene. (Asheville Watchdog)
COMMENTARY
South Carolina legislation to ease utility regulation in an attempt to fast-track a gas-fired power plant would open the door for utilities to charge customers for frivolous costs that have nothing to do with power generation, writes a Sierra Club legislative director. (Post and Courier)
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