GM backtracks on EVs in Michigan

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• General Motors’ $4 billion plan to move vehicle production from Mexico to the U.S. includes making gasoline-powered vehicles at a Michigan plant that was previously retooled to produce electric vehicles. (Detroit News)

CLEAN ENERGY

• Minnesota clean energy advocates worry that quickly repealing federal tax credits would decimate the state’s burgeoning wind and solar industries at a time when electricity demand is growing. (MPR News)

• An Ohio labor union’s new ad campaign calls on congressional lawmakers to preserve tax credits that have led to job creation in the state’s clean energy sector. (Solar Builder)

COAL

• Consumers Energy asks federal regulators for the ability to collect costs from 11 states in MISO’s territory for operating a Michigan coal plant that the Trump administration ordered to stay online. (MLive)

GRID

• MISO submits a revised proposal to fast track its interconnection process after federal regulators rejected its initial plan last month. (Utility Dive)

MINING

• A U.S. Senate committee removes a provision from a federal budget bill that would have restored leases for a copper-nickel mine adjacent to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. (Star Tribune)

SOLAR

• A company seeks requests for proposals to build solar projects at two landfills outside Cleveland, Ohio, as part of the county’s broader climate strategy. (Solar Power World)

EFFICIENCY

• A Detroit public-private partnership deploys its first drone technology to scan buildings for energy efficiency potential and ways to cut energy use. (Crain’s Detroit)

BIOFUELS

• A company considers adding a sustainable jet fuel operation to a North Dakota ethanol plant it bought to help bring down production costs. (North Dakota Monitor)

COMMENTARY

• Strong wind and solar production in Republican-voting Midwestern states shows that renewable energy can transcend political polarization and should continue to benefit from federal tax credits, an environmental advocate writes. (Kansas City Star)

• Line 5 represents an immediate threat to both the Great Lakes as well as the sovereignty of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, a retired Wisconsin farmer writes. (Wisconsin Examiner)

NEW FROM CANARY

• Prominent solar companies, including residential provider Sunnova and lender Solar Mosaic, have filed for bankruptcy amid mounting challenges for the industry, Jeff St. John reports.

• Southern California regulators reject rules to encourage adoption of electric heat pumps and water heaters, and which would’ve helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the smog-plagued area, Alison F. Takemura reports.

• A new survey finds support for renewable energy has fallen among both Republicans and Democrats over the last five years, while backing for expanding fossil fuels and nuclear production has grown, Pam Radtke reports.