OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Energy giant hit with $102M fine in pollution case

GUILTY ON NINE COUNTS: Duke Energy Corp. pleaded guilty to nine federal criminal charges Thursday and will pay a $102 million penalty stemming from a February 2014 coal ash spill in North Carolina.

The guilty pleas mean Duke will pay $68 million in federal fines and another $34 million for environmental and conservation programs.

Four of the charges were directly related to the spill, in which tens of thousands of tons of coal ash spilled from a Duke coal-fired power plant into North Carolina’s Dan River. The remaining charges came from the federal investigation into Duke’s practices at other facilities.

{mosads}”The massive coal ash spill into North Carolina’s Dan River last year was a crime and it was the result of repeated failures by Duke Energy’s subsidiaries to exercise controls over coal ash facilities,” John Cruden, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s environmental division, said in a statement. The Environmental Protection Agency launched the investigation.

“The terms of these three plea agreements will help prevent this kind of environmental disaster from reoccurring in North Carolina and throughout the United States by requiring Duke subsidiaries to follow a rigorous and independently verifiable program to ensure they comply with the law.”

Read more here. 

ON TAP FRIDAY I: Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will speak at the Mashable-United Nations Foundation Digital Beltway conference. 

ON TAP FRIDAY II: The House Energy Committee’s environment and economy subcommittee will hold a hearing on nuclear waste disposal. Yucca Mountain stands to be on the agenda: Josephine Piccone, the director of the Yucca Mountain Directorate at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Andrew Fitz, senior counsel at the office of Washington state’s attorney general, are scheduled to testify. 

Rest of Friday’s agenda …

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) member Cheryl LaFleur will speak Friday about FERC’s agenda at an event hosted by consulting firm ICF International.

AROUND THE WEB:

Supporters say a bill in the Oregon Legislature is only making a “technical fix” to a state land-use law, but the environmental community is worried, the Statesman Journal reports.

The Vermont Senate passed a bill to set a statewide renewable energy standard, reports the Burlington Free Press.

The amount of energy produced by coal and natural gas will converge briefly this year for only the second time ever, according to an Energy Information Administration report. 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Check out Thursday’s stories … 

-Utility agrees to pay $102 million penalty for water pollution 

-Oil lobby launches ads against EPA ozone rule

-Energy regulators move to protect electric grid from solar storms 

-Utility company to expand solar power production in SC

-China’s coal use declining

Please send tips and comments to Timothy Cama, tcama@digital-staging.thehill.com; and Devin Henry, dhenry@digital-staging.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @Timothy_Cama, @dhenry, @thehill