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On residential solar dims, New Jersey makes history, and Brazil’s challenge
On abandoning Antarctica, an EV milestone, and this week’s big earnings
On Fervo’s megadeal tease, steel’s coal gamble, and Norway’s CO2 milestone
On the NRC, energy in Pennsylvania, and Meta AI
On the Texas floods, wind and solar restrictions, and an executive order
On sparring in the Senate, NEPA rules, and taxing first-class flyers
On mercury rising, climate finance, and aviation emissions
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Andrea has become the first named Atlantic storm of 2025 • Hundreds of thousands are fleeing their homes in southwest China as heavy rains cause rivers to overflow • It’s hot and humid in New York’s Long Island City neighborhood, where last night New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani delivered his victory speech after defeating former governor and longtime party power broker Andrew Cuomo in the race’s Democratic primary.
The brutal heat dome baking the eastern half of the United States continues today. Cooler weather is in the forecast for tomorrow, but this heat wave has broken a slew of temperature records across multiple states this week:
In Washington, D.C., rail temperatures reached a blistering 135 degrees, forcing the city’s Metro to slow down train service. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the heat sickened more than 150 people attending a high school graduation ceremony. As power demand surged, the Department of Energy issued an energy emergency in the Southeast to “help mitigate the risk of blackouts.”
As Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin pointed out on Tuesday, in terms of what is on the grid and what is demanded of it, this may be the easiest summer for a long time. “Demands on the grid are growing at the same time the resources powering it are changing,” Zeitlin writes. “Electricity load growth is forecast to grow several percent a year through at least the end of the decade. At the same time, aging plants reliant on oil, gas, and coal are being retired (although planned retirements are slowing down), while new resources, largely solar and batteries, are often stuck in long interconnection queues — and, when they do come online, offer unique challenges to grid operators when demand is high.”
A group of 21 Democrat-led states including New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Arizona, and California, is suing the Trump administration for cutting billions of dollars in federal funding, including grants related to climate change initiatives. The lawsuit says federal agencies have been “unlawfully invoking a single subclause” to cancel grants that the administration deems no longer align with its priorities. The clause in question states that federal agencies can terminate grants “pursuant to the terms and conditions of the federal award, including, to the extent authorized by law, if an award no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.” The states accuse the administration of leaning on this clause for “virtually unfettered authority to withhold federal funding any time they no longer wish to support the programs for which Congress has appropriated funding.”
The rollback has gutted projects across states and nonprofits that support diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as climate change preparation programs and research. The states say the clause is being used unlawfully, and hope a judge agrees. “These cuts are simply illegal,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. “Congress has the power of the purse, and the president cannot cut billions of dollars of essential resources simply because he doesn’t like the programs being funded.”
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A brief update from the Bonn Climate Change Conference in Germany: A group of 44 “Least Developed Countries” have called for rich countries to triple the financing goal for climate change adaptation by 2030 compared to 2022 levels. The current target sits at $40 billion a year by 2025, a number set back in 2021 at COP26. According to Climate Home News, tripling the financing goal on 2022 levels would bring in a little less than $100 billion annually. That’s far short of the $160 billion to $340 billion that the United Nations estimates will be needed by 2030. The Indian Express also reports that developing countries have “managed to force a reopening of discussions on the obligations of developed nations to ‘provide’ finance, and not just make efforts towards ‘mobilising’ financial resources, for climate action.” The issue will also be discussed at COP30 in Brazil later this year. The Bonn conference has been running since June 16 and ends tomorrow.
In the UK, aviation is now a bigger source of greenhouse gas emissions than the power sector, according to a new report from the Climate Change Committee. The independent climate advisors say that demand for leisure travel is boosting demand for international flights, and “continued emissions growth in this sector could put future targets at risk.” Meanwhile, the UK power sector has been rapidly decarbonizing, and is now the sixth largest source of emissions. (In the U.S., electricity production is the second-largest source of emissions, behind transportation.) The report also found that heat pump installations increased by 56% in 2024, and that nearly 20% of new vehicles sold were electric. UK emissions were down 50% last year compared to 1990.
The committee applauded the progress but urged more action from the government to cut electricity prices to help speed up the transition to clean technologies. “Our country is among a leading group of economies demonstrating a commitment to decarbonise society,” said Piers Forster, interim chair of the committee. “This is to be celebrated: delivering deep emissions reduction is the only way to slow global warming.”
Voters in North Carolina want Congress to leave the Inflation Reduction Act well enough alone, a new poll from Data for Progress finds. The survey, which asked North Carolina voters specifically about the clean energy and climate provisions in the bill, presented respondents with a choice between two statements: “The IRA should be repealed by Congress” and “The IRA should be kept in place by Congress.” (“Don’t know” was also an option.) The responses from voters broke down predictably along party lines, with 71% of Democrats preferring to keep the IRA in place compared to just 31% of Republicans, with half of independent voters in favor of keeping the climate law. Overall, half of North Carolina voters surveyed wanted the IRA to stick around, compared to 37% who’d rather see it go — a significant spread for a state that, prior to the passage of the climate law, was home to little in the way of clean energy development.
North Carolina now has a lot to lose with the potential repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, as Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo has pointed out. The IRA brought more than 17,000 jobs to the state, along with $20 billion in investment spread out over 34 clean energy projects. Electric vehicle and charging manufacturers in particular have flocked to the state, with Toyota investing $13.9 billion in its Liberty EV battery manufacturing facility, which opened this past April.
As a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran takes hold, oil prices are now lower than they were before the conflict began on June 13.
Talking to legislators from New York, Washington, Massachusetts, and New Jersey about what’s under threat, what’s safe, and the strain of it all.
State lawmakers around the country are negotiating budgets for the coming year amid unprecedented uncertainty. Any decisions they make now about how to spend state money may need to be revisited after Congress finishes its budget reconciliation bill, which could hollow out Medicaid, the largest pot of federal funds that most states receive.
On the climate and clean energy front, the Trump administration has been trying to claw back money allocated to states for electric vehicle charging, home energy retrofits, electric school buses, utility bill assistance, and more. Even longstanding tax credits that states rely on to transition to renewable energy are at risk. On top of all this, the president has threatened to sic his attorney general on states with ambitious climate policies.
I wanted to know how all of this was affecting the way the most forward-thinking state leaders on climate were contemplating their next steps. States passed some of their most ambitious policies to fight climate change during Donald Trump’s first term as president, and they are the best chance the U.S. has to continue making progress over the next four years. But if last time the administration was throwing sand in the gears of climate action, this time it’s trying to tear up the road entirely.
After talking to state senators and representatives in Washington, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, it was clear that every faced its own unique set of considerations and challenges, but there were a few recurring themes.
“We’re in this weird no-man’s land,” New York State Senator Liz Krueger told me. Between losing access to funds the state was relying on and uncertainty around how the Trump administration will reshape environmental protection and clean energy tax credits, “the agenda we might have set out for ourselves a year ago does not necessarily jive with the reality we must now confront.”
Krueger was frustrated because New York has been in the process of developing a new revenue-raiser to help pay for climate programs called Cap-and-Invest, but it’s behind schedule. Eventually it will place a cap on carbon emissions from major polluters and charge them fees when they surpass it — but draft rules for the program are more than a year overdue. Governor Kathy Hochul has not said when her administration will get them out, and environmental groups are now suing the state for putting its climate targets at risk.
The delay has been “quite aggravating,” Krueger told me. But at the same time, she’s worried that if and when the regulations are out, the Trump administration will try to shut down the program. Trump signed an executive order in early April directing his attorney general to identify and “stop the enforcement” of state climate programs that “are or may be unconstitutional.” The order specifically called out California’s carbon cap and trade program, which is similar to the one New York is developing.
“I don’t think we should stop moving forward as planned. But I think hanging over us is the concern that the feds will try to stop us,” Krueger said. She hasn’t sensed much appetite in the legislature to propose new climate programs this session, but she said she’s still hoping to get through a bill that she’s sponsored for the past few years requiring utility regulators to develop a strategy to transition buildings away from using natural gas for heating — although again, she wondered aloud if Trump would quickly try to shut it down.
Washington State, on the other hand, already has a cap-and-invest program in place. Representative Joe Fitzgibbon, of Seattle was the most optimistic of the state legislators I spoke to. “Our legal framework for fighting climate change was not predicated on federal dollars,” he told me. Last year, the state spent nearly half a billion dollars raised through that program on a wide range of projects to enhance wildfire prevention, improve energy efficiency in schools and homes, install electric vehicle chargers, and electrify buildings and vehicles. “We’re not backing off on any of our policies or any of our targets,” he said.
Fitzgibbon was unconcerned about the executive order. Legal experts are skeptical that the courts would side with the White House in any challenges to state climate laws. Trump also went after California’s cap and trade law during his first term and lost. “We think it’s bluster. We think it’s him trying to get headlines, and we’re just not inclined to fan the flames,” he told me.
Instead, Fitzgibbon is pushing forward with a bill this session to strengthen the state’s clean fuel standard. Current law requires a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from on-road transportation by 2034, and his amendment would increase that to between 45% and 55% by 2038.
New York is also behind on its goal to procure 9 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035. The state only has power purchase agreements with three offshore wind farms — the small South Fork project, which is already operating, and two larger ones under construction — for a total of 1.8 gigawatts. Then shortly after Krueger and I spoke, the Trump administration issued a stop work order on one of those bigger projects, Empire Wind. Since Trump has also paused federal permitting for new offshore wind projects, Krueger wasn’t sure whether New York officials would even try to solicit for additional contracts. “There’s no good answers,” she said, with a sigh.
Offshore wind is a major element of New Jersey’s plans to cut emissions, as well. But the Trump administration recently pulled the permits for the Atlantic Shores wind farm, the only project serving New Jersey that had said permits.
State Senator Andrew Zwicker told me the sector was already struggling due to rising costs, supply chain issues, and local opposition. Even before Trump came into office, he said, he’s had to fight to keep renewable energy on the agenda. “There is a narrative that we can’t afford renewables, and that the way to go is you need resiliency and redundancy. And the only way to do that is, in our case, with natural gas,” Zwicker told me. He hears that story from Republicans — but also, increasingly, from Democrats. “That’s being driven by the cost of electricity more than it’s being driven by an executive order from Trump,” he added.
There is one source of funding for climate action that all states have access to that may be more impervious to federal interference. This came up during my call with Michael Barrett, a State Senator in Massachusetts, who asserted that “most of our climate policies don’t require budgeting.” That’s because the legislature has designed many of the state’s clean energy programs — including the buildout of electric vehicle infrastructure, rebates for heat pumps and energy efficiency, and compliance with the state’s renewable energy standard — to be funded by fees on monthly electric and gas bills.
Massachusetts is still really early in its legislative calendar — it operates on a two-year schedule and has barely started holding hearings for bills — but Barrett said there are some strategic shifts the state should make in light of Trump’s actions. For example, Trump has stymied offshore wind development, but Barrett said there was less the president could do to hurt solar. “So if you want to preserve the state’s industrial clean energy capacity,” he said, “you pivot to both behind the meter and in front of the meter solar on the ground, on the roofs, on canopies.” He also advocated for more subsidies for EV charging infrastructure rather than for electric vehicles themselves. “You forgo subsidizing individual drivers,” he said. “Many of them will purchase EVs anyhow, because they can afford to, and you focus on getting the charging infrastructure into the ground.”
All of the other state legislators I surveyed for this piece have similar programs financed through utility bills. In general, utility regulation is an area where state leaders have significant sway. In New Jersey, for example, Senator Zwicker is working on a bill that would require utilities to invest in “grid enhancing technologies,” equipment that enables power lines to transmit more electricity without having to totally replace the line or build a new one. That could go a long way to bringing more renewable energy online in the future. In New York, Krueger’s big priority for this year is to pass her New York Heat Act, which would significantly change how gas utilities are regulated, prioritizing transitioning away from gas to electric heating, and cutting the subsidies that customers pay to expand the gas system.
Though Barrett saw the ability for states to tack the cost of clean energy onto utility bills as reassuring, Zwicker found it concerning. “Every year, I personally have gotten more and more uncomfortable with putting everything on the backs of ratepayers,” he told me. “And we don’t have another model in place right now, so there’s no way to do anything else.”
New Jersey is facing many of the same challenges as New York and Massachusetts. The state’s economy has also taken a downturn, Zwicker told me, and budgets are tight. Governor Phil Murphy has proposed cuts to many areas, including climate spending. Zwicker said one of his big focuses right now is finding money to help low-income customers pay their utility bills, as the Trump administration is attempting to zero out federal funding for a longstanding energy assistance program.
New Jersey does have some money coming in for clean energy through utility bill fees, and it also funds climate action with proceeds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a program that charges power plant operators for their emissions. (Massachusetts and New York participate as well.)
But Zwicker was deeply concerned about the loss of federal funding and support. “New Jersey just can’t afford to do this by itself,” he told me. Electricity costs there are already among the highest in the country. “This is a national emergency, and the federal government has got to be a strong partner. Regardless of the fight over how we’re producing energy, if we can’t transmit it, if we don’t have a robust grid, that is as basic an infrastructure as is a highway or a bridge. Under this administration, it’s far from clear that they’ll put a penny towards anything around energy, period.”
Even Washington is not quite sitting pretty. Like New Jersey, the state is in a “pretty severe budget crisis,” Fitzgibbon said, and not in a position to backfill lost federal dollars. Its economy has taken a downturn after a post-pandemic spike. One thing the legislature is doing in response is re-allocating money in the budget that in the past had been set aside for technical assistance to help households, businesses, and Tribes apply for government grants — since federal dollars will likely be scarce, anyway. While the state can still make progress with its cap and invest funds, which can’t be re-allocated to other budget lines, grant funding from the Inflation Reduction Act would help the state cut emissions faster and more cost-effectively, he said. Washington was in line to get $71 million for electric vehicle charging and $21 million for truck charging, for example, but the Trump administration is trying to claw back that funding.
At the end of my interviews, I asked lawmakers what they wanted people to know about what it’s like to do their jobs right now. Zwicker emphasized the sheer scale of the challenge of putting together a budget — especially one that advances climate action — under these circumstances. “Being part of a committee to put a budget together is always a challenge,” he said, “but when you add the threat of over a billion dollars of cuts to our school children, up to $10 billion to $14 billion of cuts for healthcare for seniors and the poor, and then you say, we need to continue to push on New Jersey’s clean energy goals, and get ourselves off of our addiction to fossil fuels, it’s an incredibly challenging task.”
Barrett wanted to make it clear that climate progress would continue under Trump. He said that even if Medicaid was gutted, the state’s efforts to cut emissions would suffer less than local public education — again, because so much of it is financed and implemented through utility regulation. “He can do a great deal of harm, but he cannot kill the resistance to climate change,” Barrett said of Trump. “We would have to play catch up in a big way after he left, but I suspect that we’re going to have to play catch up anyway.”
