Energy news in brief

** The CEO of American Electric Power expects final state regulatory decisions this month on the company’s 1,500 MW wind project in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

** As the state phases out net metering, Vectren is the first Indiana utility to file a request to compensate customers less for excess solar power they send to the grid.

** Michigan regulators tell Enbridge to consider more alternatives and environmental impacts in response to the company’s application to build a tunnel for the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac.

** The developer being sued over its role in the demolition of a former coal plant in Chicago is fined for allowing runoff into a nearby waterway.

** A public hearing is scheduled next week on a proposal to lease 320 acres of federally owned land in North Dakota for coal mining.

** Oil production declines in rural Illinois due to low prices and decreased demand from the pandemic.

** Xcel  Energy expects a 6% decrease in electricity use for 2020 by commercial and industrial customers in Colorado because of the coronavirus pandemic.

** Legislation to block the Grain Belt Express transmission project is “bad public policy and worse for the progress of Missouri’s economy,” says the head of a renewable energy group.

** Tesla is suing Alameda County over its shelter-in-place directive and threatening to move its operations out of California.

** Republicans from Alaska and Wyoming are among those accusing some major financial institutions of stopping fossil fuel investments to “placate the environmental fringe.”

** The U.S. Department of Energy has renewed a grant for a New Mexico research facility to monitor a nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad.

** A Democratic-led subcommittee asks an Arizona-based national transportation and alternative fuel services company to return federal coronavirus aid meant for small businesses.

** The CEO of a Colorado-based renewable energy development company says the state’s clean energy workers are hurting badly from the coronavirus crisis and Congress needs to act now.