SOLAR:
• A community solar project in a predominately Black Cleveland neighborhood seeks to be a model for building wealth in historically disadvantaged communities. (Energy News Network)
• An Illinois municipal utility begins formulating plans for a large-scale solar buildout in light of sweeping changes coming under the state’s new clean energy law. (Illinois Times)
CLEAN ENERGY: Ohio Democrats plan to emphasize the potential economic benefits of a new bill calling for 100% clean energy by 2050 as they seek to gain support from Republican lawmakers. (Energy News Network)
PIPELINES: Tribal officials say an ongoing environmental review of the Dakota Access pipeline is “gravely off track” and should start over after federal officials contracted with a firm that has ties to the oil industry. (Bismarck Tribune)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announces a series of plans this week to boost electric vehicle pilot projects, charging infrastructure along Lake Michigan and job training programs. (Bridge Michigan)
OIL & GAS:
• A pipeline operator pleads guilty in federal court in North Dakota and will pay $36.3 million to settle criminal water pollution charges stemming from what prosecutors called the largest-ever land-based spill from oil drilling. (Reuters)
• The Ohio Supreme Court approves a controversial 14-mile natural gas pipeline corridor in metro Cincinnati that Duke Energy says is necessary to upgrade aging infrastructure. (Cincinnati Enquirer)
WIND: A developer agrees to move a planned large-scale wind and solar project in southwestern Minnesota farther from a historically significant petroglyph site. (Star Tribune)
TRANSMISSION: The Wisconsin Supreme Court agrees to hear an appeal over whether a former regulator’s relationship with utility executives created a conflict of interest that could thwart a proposed controversial transmission project. (Wisconsin State Journal)
EFFICIENCY: An Ohio House committee begins work on a bipartisan bill that would restore some components of the state’s energy efficiency law that was gutted in the state’s power plant bailout law at the center of a bribery scandal. (Ohio Capital Journal)
RENEWABLES: Indiana Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch says policy discussions over wind and solar siting will likely continue in the upcoming legislative session. (WKVI)
COAL: Federal regulators continue an investigation of an underground fire that has been burning at a prominent underground coal mine in Illinois for more than a month. (E&E News, subscription)
CLEANTECH: The chairman of DTE Energy and a national investor-owned utility trade group says Congress should continue investing in fledgling clean technologies to help companies meet climate change targets. (Daily Energy Insider)
COMMENTARY:
• A Minnesota conservation advocate says rural communities need to be included in major transformations involving infrastructure and the clean energy transition. (Minnesota Reformer)
• Illinois’ new sweeping clean energy law is “one of the most environmentally ambitious, worker-friendly, justice-focused energy bills of any state in the country” and a model for how diverse groups can reach consensus, writes David Roberts. (Canary Media)
• A Minnesota clean energy advocate says a federal clean energy bill backed by U.S. Sen. Tina Smith shouldn’t include trash-burning incinerators as a favored energy source. (Star Tribune)