FERC auditors say Duke Energy improperly classified up to $130 million in costs from its merger with Progress Energy, calling for the company’s wholesale customers to get refunds of up to $1.3 million.

The auditors say the refunds are due only to wholesale customers, including other electric utilities or those that used Duke’s transmission system. Retail customers are not affected, according to the company.

Although the company disputed three of the auditors’ eight findings, it will not challenge the audit. A company official promised a “refund analysis” within 60 days and will then issue the rebates.

More: Greensboro News & Record

Inhofe Calls for NRC Chief To Cut Agency Inefficiencies

Sen. Jim Inhofe invoked 20th century history lessons when he called for Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Stephen Burns to cut waste and inefficiency, just as former Chairman Shirley Ann Jackson did during her reign in the 1990s.

“It appears that many of the inefficiencies that plagued the NRC in the 1990s have returned,” Inhofe said during a  hearing on NRC’s fiscal year 2017 budget request. He said Jackson, back in her day, held stakeholder meetings to help identify areas that needed improvement.

“The nuclear industry once again faces challenges in the market place and, once again, the need for the NRC to be an objective, safety-focused and responsive regulator is imperative,” Inhofe said.

More: Morning Consult

McCarthy: Tougher Regs Will Drive Sustainable Development

EPA Director Gina McCathy says that new rules governing methane emissions in the oil and gas industry will help drive development in those sectors and not retard exploration.

“Moving on [methane] will reaffirm our leadership on climate,” she said in a speech in Canada. “It also will happen to make sure that our ability to continue to rely on fossil fuel will be done in a way that is sustainable as well.”

EPA has formulated rules to cut methane emissions by up to 45% from 2012 levels. The new rules covering oil and gas development are due out this spring.

More: The Hill

Virgin Islands AG Subpoenas CEI Records

As part of an expanding investigation into whether fossil fuel companies illegally worked to undermine climate change research, the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands is subpoenaing records of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Attorney General Claude Walker is seeking 10 years’ worth of communications, emails, statements and drafts from 1997 to 2007. Several states and other parties are seeking similar documents from energy companies to determine whether they undermined climate science.

Walker’s subpoena is among the first directed at a third party such as CEI. The institute said it will fight the subpoena.

More: Inside Climate News

Solar Farm Planned for NJ Naval Weapons Station

The U.S. Navy plans to erect 32.8 MW of solar panels on six sites across 227 mostly forested acres at Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey.

Environmentalists oppose the project because trees will need to be cleared. The activists also recently fought a 21-MW solar facility approved for 90 wooded acres at an amusement park in central New Jersey.

The project does not require an environmental impact report, nor does it need to be approved by the local planning board, because it is at a federal military facility. The Navy aims to procure or produce half of its land-based energy from alternative sources by 2020.

More: Asbury Park Press

US Civil Rights Commission To Join NC Coal Ash Fray

The chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights told a crowd in Walnut Grove, N.C., that he supports their fight against Duke Energy’s plans to dispose of coal ash.

“It’s happening in North Carolina, it’s happening in Alabama, it’s happening in Waukegan, [Ill.,] it’s happening in Chicago,” Martin Castro said about coal ash storage and disposal issues. “There’s something wrong with the system, and we need to figure out how we can change that system.”

Castro’s comments came during an advisory panel hearing on the possible dangers of coal ash on community water supplies. Walnut Cove is near Duke’s largest coal ash basin, which holds 12 million tons of coal-combustion byproduct.

More: Winston-Salem Journal