Environment

April 12, 2019 - North Carolina is now the third state in the South to order utilities to excavate all of their coal ash pits and move the toxic material to lined landfills. Duke Energy wants to charge its customers for the work, but some state lawmakers are trying to prevent that from happening. Meanwhile, the company is challenging the order.

March 28, 2019 - In 2001, the U.S. nuclear industry began hyping plans for new commercial reactor construction, which had skidded to a halt after the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear disaster. But utilities' ambitious and expensive plans have fallen apart, leaving ratepayers in some Southern states forking over millions of dollars for nothing.

March 1, 2019 - A new coalition seeks to end Duke Energy's electric monopoly in North Carolina in hopes of hastening the shift to clean energy. There's also an effort underway to bring competition to the electricity market in Florida, where Duke operates as a regional monopoly.

February 15, 2019 - Groups funded by Big Oil and other special interests are reviving a scheme — refined by a Koch brothers associate in the 1990s — to evaluate judges in Louisiana and Mississippi based on whether they rule in favor of corporations. It's the latest effort to stack the judiciary.

February 8, 2019 - Energy efficiency is the lowest-cost way to meet people's energy needs, yet utilities in the Southeast lag behind the rest of the nation in efficiency performance. The federal Green New Deal plan released this week could change that, with its call to upgrade all existing buildings to meet efficiency standards.

December 14, 2018 - The trade associations representing seismic testing firms have doubled their lobbying expenditures since 2016. The move appears to have paid off — but lawsuits filed this week show the fight to block the permits is not over yet.

November 27, 2018 - Two environmental advocacy groups have filed a petition with the N.C. Utilities Commission calling on regulators to bar the electric utility monopoly from spending millions of dollars a year collected from captive customers to promote its political interests.

November 13, 2018 - They ended racist Jim Crow-era policies in two states and raised the minimum wage in another. But elsewhere, Southern voters embraced racially discriminatory voter ID laws and took steps to restrict reproductive rights. The ballot measures that passed this year reflect a politically divided region.

October 26, 2018 - Voters in Southern states are weighing in on ballot measures to expand voting rights, raise the minimum wage, and protect the environment.