SE (AL AR FL GA KY LA MS NC PR SC TN)

"Workers at a rural Georgia factory that builds electric school buses under generous federal subsidies voted to unionize on Friday, handing organized labor and Democrats a surprise victory in their hopes to turn huge new infusions of money from Washington into a union beachhead in the Deep South."

"Roads in Florida could soon include phosphogypsum — a radioactive waste material from the fertilizer industry — under a bill lawmakers have sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis."

"The latest effort to create a public warning system for spikes in air pollution was snuffed out by a Senate committee."

"Even as the $21 billion effort unfolds, officials realize that its water infrastructure cannot contend with rising seas, violent storms and Florida’s non-stop influx of residents."

"Biden’s EPA offers support to Guayama residents after decades of environmental injustice, but residents say they won’t be satisfied until the plant is closed and all its coal ash removed."

"Leaders in North Port St. Joe had big plans for tourism, real estate, even a Black history museum. Then they found out, almost by accident, that elected officials had been pushing the LNG terminal for years without telling them."

"A divided Fifth Circuit panel ruling to halt an EPA decision to disapprove key ozone plans in Texas and Louisiana foreshadows similar decisions across regional circuit courts that threaten to upend established precedent."

"After residents of America’s “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana put a national spotlight on their fight for a healthy environment, the state’s economic interests and petrochemical giants are backing the creation of a new “sustainability council” to counter grassroots activists, documents show."

"Officials in Alabama discriminated against Black residents in a rural county by denying them access to adequate sanitation systems, imposing burdensome fines and liens and ignoring the serious health risks plaguing the community, according to a landmark environmental justice agreement announced Thursday by the Biden administration."

"The Gulf Coast insurance crisis has hit a new low as two state-chartered insurance associations are being forced to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars for the first time in three decades to pay the hurricane claims of insolvent insurers."