PIPELINES:
• Proposed pipeline regulations in North Dakota are pitting environmental groups and landowners against an oil industry that says the rules would be too onerous in challenging times. (EnergyWire) 
• Ongoing legal challenges to Keystone XL are directed at President Obama’s authority to reject the pipeline. (Washington Post)

OHIO: State regulators open the door for another round of hearings as FirstEnergy now pursues surcharges to pay for its uneconomic plants. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

RENEWABLES: Exelon officials say a “drafting error” caused a major drop in renewable energy funding in its legislation to save struggling nuclear plants in Illinois. (Crain’s Chicago Business)

SOLAR:
• AEP begins soliciting information from developers to help the utility develop up to 400 megawatts of new solar in Ohio. (Columbus Business First)
• A Wisconsin-based company is looking to capitalize on the solar-plus-storage market in areas with high electricity prices. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

OIL AND GAS:
• The Bakken emits 275,000 tons of methane a year, according to new research, which is less than some previous estimates. (Forum News Service)
• Local officials in a North Dakota county want state inspectors stationed in their area to monitor the oil and gas industry’s dumping of waste products in landfills. (Bismarck Tribune)

COAL:
• The Energy Information Administration projects 2016 to see the largest annual decline in coal usage since record keeping began in 1949. (SNL / Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis)
• Lawmakers, energy companies and environmental groups all give different explanations for the recent wave of coal plant closures in southern Illinois. (McClatchy)
• Indiana advocates rally to defend the U.S. EPA’s two-year-old on coal-ash disposal. (WIBC)

UTILITIES: Chicago-based ComEd expands a program that helps customers pay electric bills to those who face extended hospital visits. (CBS Chicago)

CLIMATE: The idea of cap-and-trade started as a modest proposal by an economist in the late 1960s. (ClimateWire)

FRACKING:
• Anti-fracking advocates are setting up to try for a sixth time to ban fracking in Youngstown, Ohio. (Youngstown Vindicator)
• Insurers move to limit their exposure as they grow increasingly concerned about the spike in the number of earthquakes linked to fracking in Oklahoma. (Reuters)

BIOFUELS: The industry objects to proposed federal legislation that would cap ethanol blends in the U.S. at no more than 9.7 percent by volume. (Biofuels Digest)

COMMENTARY:
• Ohio’s faith community makes the case for reinstating clean-energy standards there. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
• A new renewable portfolio standard would give Kansas’ growing wind industry even more momentum. (Topeka Capital-Journal)