EFFICIENCY:
• Missouri lawmakers look to open energy efficiency subsidies to owners of thousands of mutli-family buildings who have blocked from doing so under state law. (Midwest Energy News)
• Federal appliance efficiency standards signed into law under President Reagan save Ohio residents hundreds of dollars annually, and advocates hope Congress and President Trump will hold them in place. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
PIPELINES:
• Enbridge officials deny a report on the company website saying its Straits of Mackinac oil and gas pipeline is losing its protective coating. (Detroit Free Press)
• The Army formally ends an environmental review of the Dakota Access pipeline. (Associated Press)
• A North Dakota judge dismisses trespassing charges against three Dakota Access pipeline protesters. (Bismarck Tribune)
• South Dakota is still owed hundreds of thousands of dollars for sending law enforcement help to pipeline protests in North Dakota. (Associated Press)
WIND:
• Iowa’s growing wind industry is driving the need for skilled technicians to maintain wind farms nationwide. (Cedar Rapids Gazette)
• Residents in northwest Iowa speak out against the proliferation of wind turbines there. (Sioux City Journal)
RENEWABLES: Farmers from the Midwest visit California’s Central Valley to learn how to power their operations from on-site renewables. (Biofuels Digest)
OIL AND GAS:
• The owner of two natural gas plants under development in Ohio says the projects will have billions of dollars of local economic impact, though it is concerned about major utilities’ efforts to return Ohio to a regulated electric market. (Millbury Press, Youngstown Vindicator)
• Two West Michigan congressmen are facing criticism from Democrats over their support of a new law that eliminates a transparency requirement for oil, gas and mining companies. (MLive)
SOLAR: Illinois firefighters raise concerns about the presence of solar panels on structures and look to use them as a training tool. (Belleville News-Democrat)
COAL: Outspoken Ohio-based coal executive Robert Murray likes what he sees so far out of the Trump administration. (Greenwire)
STORAGE: The chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio says energy storage is no longer “on the fringe.” (RTO Insider)
UTILITIES: Residents in downtown Columbus, Ohio are the latest to join in the fight against submetering companies, calling the high bills “very much an economic-development issue.” (Columbus Dispatch)