GREEN ECONOMY: A new report questions Walmart’s clean-energy credentials, finding the company’s proportion of energy from renewables is actually decreasing. (InsideClimate News)

OHIO: The legislature’s Energy Mandates Study Committee might meet on Monday. Or maybe it won’t. (Columbus Business First)

CLIMATE:
• State officials say Minnesota is not on track to meet federal carbon targets. (Minnesota Public Radio)
• Rural advocates in Minnesota push for approval of the Clean Power Plan. (Public News Service) 
• A study commissioned by Peabody Energy claims carbon rules will increase utility bills by hundreds of dollars in Iowa. (Cedar Rapids Gazette)
• A poll finds most Americans are willing to pay more to cut carbon emissions. (ClimateProgress)
• NRG Energy announces plans to cut its emissions 90 percent by 2050. (New York Times)

EFFICIENCY: Michigan’s utility regulator hopes to “set an example” by using PACE to finance energy upgrades for its new facility, upgrades at GM’s Flint assembly plant are expected to save $900,000 a year, and a new LED “Edison” bulb can make a popular design trend more efficient. (Midwest Energy News, MLive, Treehugger)

NUCLEAR: An industry-backed program aims to recruit college students into the nuclear field, and a new license doesn’t mean an Ohio nuclear plant expansion is likely in the near future. (Midwest Energy News, Toledo Blade)

OIL:
• BNSF pledges to spend $6 billion to relieve rail congestion. (Omaha World-Herald)
• An oil merger creates a powerful new player in North Dakota. (Reuters)
• Bakken producers push back against proposed conditioning requirements. (Platts)
• The new leader of the Three Affiliated Tribes wants to accelerate the process for a pipeline to alleviate natural gas flaring. (Associated Press)

WIND: Arguing for extension of the production tax credit, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley urges Congress not to “pull the rug out from under domestic energy producers.” (The Hill)

FRAC SAND: A Minnesota frac sand facility is fined for a second time for pollution violations. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

TECHNOLOGY: Researchers tout electrolysis as a way to soften renewable energy peaks and produce hydrogen for fuel-cell cars. (ClimateWire)

COMMENTARY: Why distributed generation doesn’t eliminate the need for a new Wisconsin transmission line, and if you think Ohio’s failure to release its clean energy jobs report is a coincidence, “you also have no sense of smell.” (Madison Capital Times, Cleveland Plain Dealer)