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 TOP FIVE
1. The Department of Energy is facing a bloodbath
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.
2. Trump’s pick to lead BLM abruptly withdraws
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.
3. EPA expected to scale back emissions reporting
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.
4. What the Republican budget plan means for the IRA
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.
5. Tesla stops taking orders in China for some vehicles as trade war escalates
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 KICKER
The American Society of Magazine Editors announced this week that Heatmap’s Decarbonize Your Life section won the National Magazine Award for Service Journalism. 🎉
