  If $L$ is a list assignment of $r$ colors to each vertex of an $n$-vertex
graph $G$, then an equitable $L$-coloring of $G$ is a proper coloring of
vertices of $G$ from their lists such that no color is used more than $\lceil
n/r\rceil$ times. A graph is equitably $r$-choosable if it has an equitable
$L$-coloring for every $r$-list assignment $L$. In 2003, Kostochka, Pelsmajer
and West (KPW) conjectured that an analog of the famous Hajnal-Szemer\'edi
Theorem on equitable coloring holds for equitable list coloring, namely, that
for each positive integer $r$ every graph $G$ with maximum degree at most $r-1$
is equitably $r$-choosable.
  The main result of this paper is that for each $r\geq 9$ and each planar
graph $G$, a stronger statement holds: if the maximum degree of $G$ is at most
$r$, then $G$ is equitably $r$-choosable. In fact, we prove the result for a
broader class of graphs -- the class ${\mathcal{B}}$ of the graphs in which
each bipartite subgraph $B$ with $|V(B)|\ge3$ has at most $2|V(B)|-4$ edges.
Together with some known results, this implies that the KPW Conjecture holds
for all graphs in ${\mathcal{B}}$, in particular, for all planar graphs.
