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AM Briefing: NOAA Climate Hubs, Databases Go Dark
On NOAA’s disappearing websites, Penn Station plans, and PJM reforms
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On NOAA’s disappearing websites, Penn Station plans, and PJM reforms
On California’s cap-and-trade, Empire Wind, and a new Subaru
On modernizing permitting, IRA funds, and a revolt at BP
While they’re confident in the accuracy of this year’s predictions, the future looks a lot murkier.
On China’s export pause, BrightDrop demand, and fighting wildfires
On greenhouse gas data, the GOP’s budget plan, and tariffs
Current conditions: Unseasonably heavy rains killed at least 100 people in India and Nepal • Parts of Southern California could see triple-digit temperatures today as a heat wave peaks • This year’s La Nina is officially over.
The Trump administration is overseeing a chaotic set of changes at the U.S. Department of Energy that could gut its in-house bank and transform one of the government’s key scientific and technology development agencies, Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer reports. In the coming days, the department could see thousands of its employees — nearly one-fifth of its staff — resign in one of the largest headcount reductions in memory. At the same time, it could cancel billions of dollars in next-generation energy R&D projects in Ohio and other states.
Some of these changes have been planned for weeks. But in recent days, department officials have appeared to grow anxious behind the scenes about the scale of the transformation. Some Trump officials have reached out to individuals, offering them financial incentives in order to discourage them from taking the buyout, according to administration documents and accounts from multiple department employees who were not authorized to speak publicly. “If the full set of changes goes through, the Department of Energy may be so depleted that it will be unable to carry out the Trump administration’s goals, such as bolstering the power grid or building new power plants,” Meyer explained.
Kathleen Sgamma, a fossil fuel lobbyist and President Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, took herself out of the running for the role Thursday ahead of her confirmation hearing. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Mike Lee of Utah announced the news as the hearing was set to begin. Sgamma did not give a reason for her decision, but it follows the Tuesday release of a 2021 letter in which she criticized Trump’s actions connected to the January 6 Capitol riot. Sgamma was previously the head of the oil and gas industry trade group Western Energy Alliance and has called for the BLM, which oversees 245 million acres of public lands, to open more areas to energy exploration and development.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to dramatically scale back the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, according toProPublica. The program has been in place since 2010, and requires around 8,000 facilities to monitor and report their planet-warming pollution, accounting for the vast majority of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. This data helps inform policy and “constitutes a significant portion of the information the government submits to the international body that tallies global greenhouse gas pollution,” ProPublica explained. “Losing the data will make it harder to know how much climate-warming gas an economic sector or factory is emitting and to track those emissions over time.” EPA officials want to eliminate reporting requirements for all but one of the 41 categories currently submitting data, according toThe New York Times.
House Republicans passed a budget blueprint Thursday that lays the groundwork for the party to begin drafting legislation to enact President Trump’s agenda. Now the fight over the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits begins in earnest. As Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo explains, the blueprint is a set of instructions for writing the eventual budget bill, laying out topline numbers for tax cuts and spending reductions — it doesn’t contain any actual policies. Trump’s biggest priorities are to extend the tax cuts he enacted in 2017, pass new tax cuts on tips and overtime pay, and to boost spending on immigration control and defense.
The resolution Republicans passed allows for all of the above. In total, it enables Congress to craft a bill that would increase the national debt over the next decade by more than $5 trillion. “The good news for the IRA tax credits is that the framework only requires lawmakers to craft legislation that would produce $4 billion in savings,” says Pontecorvo. “The bad news is that Senate Republicans have given their word to budget hawks in the House that they will aim to produce a minimum $1.5 trillion in savings. House Republicans are eager to find at least $2 trillion in deficit reductions.”
On Thursday, Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Curtis of Utah sent a letter to their party’s leadership asking them to preserve IRA tax credits that spur manufacturing, reduce energy costs for consumers, and give certainty to businesses that have already made investments in the U.S. based on the credits. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Jerry Moran of Kansas also signed the letter. It was the first major show of support for the tax credits in the Senate, following a similar letter signed by 21 Republicans in the House.
Tesla has halted new orders for its Model S and Model X in China, apparently in response to the trade war instigated by President Trump’s new tariffs, reportedElectrek’s Fred Lambert. These models are produced in the U.S. and imported into China, meaning they now face steep new fees. Trump this week slapped 145% tariffs on imported Chinese goods, and China responded on Friday by hiking its fees on imported U.S. goods to 125%. The decision by Tesla “kills a relatively small market of about 2,000 vehicles for Tesla in China,” Lambert said, “but those are profitable vehicles, which is not the case for most vehicles Tesla sells in the country these days.”
The American Society of Magazine Editors announced this week that Heatmap’s Decarbonize Your Life section won the National Magazine Award for Service Journalism. 🎉
On the National Climate Assessment, data centers, and tornadoes
Current conditions: Californians who live near the site of January’s devastating Los Angeles wildfires are being urged to get tested for lead poisoning • The Ohio River in waterlogged Louisville, Kentucky, crested at 37 feet on Wednesday • It will be about 60 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny in Brussels today, where European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU is pausing its retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. for 90 days following a similar move from President Trump.
1. Trump takes aim at national climate report
The Trump administration is making moves to gut the program responsible for compiling the National Climate Assessment, a report published every four years examining how climate change is affecting the United States that helps shape government response. The administration is reportedly canceling contracts with the consulting firm that provides most of the staff for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the federal group responsible for coordinating the report across agencies. The report is required by Congress, but “it’s hard to see how they’re going to put out a National Climate Assessment now,” Donald Wuebbles, a professor in the department of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois who has been involved in past climate assessments, toldThe New York Times.
2. IEA: Electricity consumption from data centers to double by 2030
The International Energy Agency published a big report Thursday on how the rise of artificial intelligence will affect energy demand over the next five years. The analysis finds that global electricity consumption from the data centers that power AI will more than double by 2030, and that the U.S. will be the key driver of this growth. “By the end of the decade, the country is set to consume more electricity for data centers than for the production of aluminium, steel, cement, chemicals, and all other energy-intensive goods combined,” the report said. Other key findings as they related to energy and climate:
IEA
3. This year’s tornado reports are off the charts
We’re less than four months into 2025, but already there have been way more tornadoes in the U.S. than what’s considered normal, according to AccuWeather. More than 470 tornadoes have been reported since the start of the year, compared to the historical average of roughly 260. “The frequency and severity of extreme weather in America this year has been alarming,” said Dan DePodwin, AccuWeather’s senior director of forecasting operations. Just two other years in the 16-year record had more tornadoes reported by this time in the season. Tornadoes were reported every day from March 26 through April 7. “A 12-day streak might be typical in May, which is the peak of tornado activity, but it is uncommon for March and early April,” AccuWeather said in a press release.
AccuWeather
4. Trump to New York: End congestion pricing, or else
President Trump’s Department of Transportation escalated its threat this week to retaliate against New York if the state’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA, does not shut down congestion pricing by April 20. The tolling program, which charges a $9 fee for drivers who enter New York City’s central business district, has only been in effect for three months.
“Make no mistake — the Trump Administration and USDOT will not hesitate to use every tool at our disposal in response to non-compliance later this month,” the agency said in a social media post. The post did not say what those tools might be, but a previous post from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on March 20 made a veiled threat to withhold funding from the state if it did not shut down the tolling program. “The billions of dollars the federal government sends to New York are not a blank check,” he said. Duffy notified the MTA on February 19 that he was rescinding federal approval of its congestion pricing program, despite early evidence that it was reducing traffic. The MTA immediately filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York challenging Duffy’s actions.
5. Tapestry and PJM partner on AI for the interconnection queue
Google X’s Tapestry project, which focuses on innovations for the electric grid, and grid operator PJM on Thursday announced a partnership that will use artificial intelligence to develop a unified model of the grid’s electricity network. The model will bring in data from dozens of disparate tools into one simplified “Google Maps for electrons,” Page Crahan, Tapestry’s general manager, told Heatmap’s Katie Brigham. The model will give grid operators and project developers the ability to toggle on and off different layers of grid information — a vast improvement over the technical boondoggle grid planners face today. PJM is facing a slew of retiring fossil fuel resources just as electricity demand is ramping up, largely thanks to AI data centers. Meanwhile, PJM has a years-long waitlist full of wind and solar projects seeking permission to connect to the grid that are languishing in no small part due to its slow approval process. Tapestry plans to deliver solutions that PJM can start rolling out this year. The two entities will work together to develop new processes “over the next several quarters “ and “perhaps even the next several years,” Crahan said.
The largest data center currently under construction could consume as much electricity as 2 million households.