Minnesota, Illinois lose $1 billion from Trump energy cuts

This roundup of energy news headlines comes from our Midwest Energy News newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.

GRID

• Illinois and Minnesota are among the 16 Democratic-led states where the Trump administration plans to claw back Biden-era grants to boost electric grid resiliency, in what opponents call a blatantly political move. (Canary Media)

• Nearly $600 million of the canceled funding was slated for Illinois to curb methane emissions, capturing carbon and improving grid performance. (Chicago Sun-Times)

• A $50 million grant for Minnesota Power was meant to offset the costs of a $940 million project that’s already underway to modernize a transmission line through northern Minnesota. (Duluth News Tribune)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Minnesota consumer and environmental groups say moving from gas-powered building heating to electric will be a more effective step to achieving the state’s net-zero emissions goal by 2050 than various strategies proposed by gas utilities. (MinnPost)

DATA CENTERS

• The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that $4.3 billion in transmission expansion costs were passed on to customers in seven PJM states to meet data centers’ needs. (E&E News)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• ComEd begins piloting a vehicle-to-grid program to collect data with three Illinois school districts on how bidirectional electric school bus charging can help reduce energy costs and grid load. (Inside Climate News)

• U.S. EV sales hit a record over the past three months as buyers rushed to secure federal tax credits before they disappeared at the end of September. (E&E News)

NUCLEAR

• Residents and farmers living near the site of a shuttered Wisconsin nuclear plant raise concerns as WEC Energy Group and EnergySolutions look to buy hundreds of acres to potentially generate nuclear power again. (Wisconsin Watch)

SOLAR

• The Trump administration’s move to cancel the Solar for All program could limit thousands of low-income Illinois ratepayers from accessing electric bill savings. (Chicago Sun-Times)

• Boston-based solar developer Nexamp nearly triples the size of its second headquarters in Chicago to meet growing demand in Illinois. (Chicago Sun-Times)

CLIMATE

• The Trump administration asks a federal judge to hear its lawsuit seeking to block Michigan from joining other Democratic-led states in suing the fossil fuel industry over climate change-related costs. (E&E News)

COAL

• Iowa officials finalize a coal plant’s new discharge permit that had drawn opposition from environmental groups concerned about wastewater containing byproducts from burning coal. (Iowa Capital Dispatch)

OIL & GAS

• Large Texas oil and gas company EOG Resources buys a corporate office campus in central Ohio to support the company’s Utica shale operations. (Columbus Dispatch)

NEW FROM CANARY 

• Chart: Global investment in renewables hits record even as US falters — Dan McCarthy

• Duke Energy backs off renewables after North Carolina cuts climate goal — Elizabeth Ouzts

• Trump’s tariffs spur US aluminum industry to boost recycling — Maria Gallucci

• Pennsylvania’s solar ambitions face high federal and state hurdles — Audrey Carleton