$1.5 billion natural gas pipeline proposed for Ohio

COAL: Recovered strip mines in Illinois and elsewhere have been converted into bargain rural retreats, but at what cost for their new owners? (Midwest Energy News)

ALSO: Officials in an Illinois town say a recent report on soaring power costs from the Prairie State Energy Campus is ​“quite simply false,” and that they anticipate rising market prices to justify their stake in the project. (Winnetka-Glencoe Patch)

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POLITICS: In a questionnaire, Mitt Romney acknowledges that man-made emissions are contributing to climate change, but says he doesn’t believe ​“unilateral” U.S. action is a solution: ​“the problem is called Global Warming, not America Warming,” Romney wrote. Meanwhile, Democrats prepare to go on the offensive on energy issues. (The Hill, Greenwire)

NATURAL GAS: A new $1.5 billion natural gas pipeline is proposed for northern Ohio to connect the Utica Shale to other points in the Midwest, and environmentalists say a plan to convert a Michigan coal plant to natural gas doesn’t consider the potential for renewables or increased energy efficiency. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, MLive.com)

TRANSPORTATION: Plans for complete high-speed rail service connecting Chicago to St. Louis are now delayed until at least 2017. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

OIL: BNSF Railway is bulking up capacity to haul as many as 1 million barrels per day from North Dakota’s oil patch. (Bismarck Tribune)

CLIMATE: Budget cuts force NOAA to halt greenhouse gas monitoring at 12 ground stations. (ClimateWire)

SOLAR: An Iowa lawmaker calls on the state to spend $3.1 million in surplus funds to install solar panels at the University of Iowa., and a northern Minnesota solar manufacturer has missed its first loan payments amid slow sales. (Cedar Rapids Gazette, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME: Drug enforcement officers who thought they were busting a meth lab at an apartment in Hutchinson, Kansas found the occupant was tinkering with a fuel cell instead. (Hutchinson News)

COMMENTARY: The Toledo Blade says the failure of one Ohio company ​“is not an indictment of solar energy’s still-attractive potential,” and the Yankton (S.D.) Daily Press says achieving energy independence will require ​“weaning this nation off its structural addiction to oil.”