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Climate

Here Comes the ‘Green Bank’

On EPA grants, sluggish heat waves, and more

Briefing image.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: April is off to a stormy start across the U.S., with severe weather expected from Texas to Pennsylvania • “Red flag” fire warnings were issued throughout the Great Plains over the weekend • Extreme drought continues to destroy crops in southern Africa.

THE TOP FIVE

1. “Green bank” grants are likely coming soon

The Environmental Protection Agency is poised to announce which nonprofit groups will receive $20 billion in grants aimed at spurring private investments in clean technology projects, according to E&E News. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion program created by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, is intended to function as a “green bank” that provides affordable financing to initiatives addressing climate change. Two to three grants under the program’s $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund will go to clean financing “hubs” that can distribute the money to deserving projects and lenders. Another two to seven grants from the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator will direct funding and technical assistance to nonprofits already serving disadvantaged communities.

2. Contamination fears in Baltimore

Environmental experts are concerned that the ongoing removal of wreckage from Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge could cause oil or other hazardous materials to spill into the Patapsco River. Authorities have deployed nearly a mile’s worth of protective and absorbent barriers into the water, the Associated Press reports, though a U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson said Friday that “no immediate threat to the environment” had been identified. The cargo ship that struck the bridge was carrying at least 56 containers with hazardous materials, 14 of which were destroyed. A breach of the ship’s hull at any point during the cleanup process could leak fuel oil into the water, but at present, the hull looks to be intact.

3. Vermont could be the first state to pass a climate superfund bill

The Vermont Senate approved amendments on Friday to a bill that would seek compensation from fossil fuel companies for the impacts of climate change, Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reports. Vermont’s climate superfund bill — one of several to have been introduced in state legislatures in recent years — would authorize the state to determine the cost it has borne from the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels over the past three decades and then ask responsible parties to pay up. (Vermont plans to focus its efforts on the world’s biggest emitters.) Modeled after federal Superfund law that keeps companies on the hook for cleaning up contamination, Vermont’s bill and others like it face an uncertain future and inevitable legal challenges.

4. Study: Climate change is making heat waves sluggish

Heat waves are moving slower, traveling farther, and lasting longer, a new study found. Scientists have known for a long time that climate change is exacerbating heat waves, but the new study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, determined that heat waves’ movement has slowed by 20% since 1979 — a decline of about 5 miles per day each decade. They’ve also gotten longer and more frequent. Wei Zhang, a climate scientist at Utah State University and one of the study’s authors, is particularly concerned about the effects of prolonged heat waves on urban areas. “If those heat waves last in the city for much longer than before, that would cause a very dangerous situation,” Zhang told The New York Times.

5. Republican attorneys general take aim at Biden’s LNG moratorium

Sixteen Republican-led states asked a federal court late last week to block the Biden administration’s suspension of approvals for new liquefied natural gas export terminals. The U.S. Department of Energy paused its review of new LNG projects in January amid mounting pressure from environmental groups. The motion, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on Thursday evening, argues that Louisiana and 15 other states will be harmed by the pause.

THE KICKER

800,000: The number of fish estimated to have been killed when liquid nitrogen fertilizer leaked into Iowa’s East Nishnabotna River in early March.

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Energy

AM Briefing: Power Hungry

On the IEAs latest report, flooding in LA, and Bill Gates’ bad news

Global Electricity Use Is Expected to Soar
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Severe thunderstorms tomorrow could spawn tornadoes in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama • A massive wildfire on a biodiverse island in the Indian Ocean has been burning for nearly a month, threatening wildlife • Tropical Cyclone Zelia has made landfall in Western Australia with winds up to 180mph.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Breakthrough Energy to slash climate grantmaking budget

Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap’s Katie Brigham has learned. Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella organization for Gates’ various climate-focused programs, alerted many nonprofit grantees earlier this month that it would not be renewing its support for them. This pullback will not affect Breakthrough’s $3.5 billion climate-focused venture capital arm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funds an extensive portfolio of climate tech companies. Breakthrough’s fellowship program, which provides early-stage climate tech leaders with funding and assistance, will also remain intact, a spokesperson confirmed. They would not comment on whether this change will lead to layoffs at Breakthrough Energy.

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Climate Tech

Breakthrough Energy Is Slashing Its Climate Grantmaking Budget

Grantees told Heatmap they were informed that Bill Gates’ climate funding organization would not renew its support.

Bill Gates.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap has learned.

Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella organization for Gates’ various climate-focused programs, alerted many nonprofit grantees earlier this month that it would not be renewing its support for them. This pullback will not affect Breakthrough’s $3.5 billion climate-focused venture capital arm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funds an extensive portfolio of climate tech companies. Breakthrough’s fellowship program, which provides early-stage climate tech leaders with funding and assistance, will also remain intact, a spokesperson confirmed. They would not comment on whether this change will lead to layoffs at Breakthrough Energy.

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Spotlight

Anti-Wind Activists Have a Big Ask for the Big Man

The Trump administration is now being lobbied to nix offshore wind projects already under construction.

Trump and offshore wind.
Getty Images / Heatmap Illustration

Anti-wind activists have joined with well-connected figures in conservative legal and energy circles to privately lobby the Trump administration to undo permitting decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to documents obtained by Heatmap.

Representatives of conservative think tanks and legal nonprofits — including the Caesar Rodney Institute, the Heartland Institute and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT — sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dated February 11 requesting that the Trump administration “immediately revoke” letters from NOAA to 11 offshore wind projects authorizing “incidental takes,” a term of regulatory art referencing accidental and permissible harassment, injury, or potential deaths under federal endangered species and mammal protection laws. The letter lays out a number of perceived issues with how those approvals have historically been issued for offshore wind companies and claims the government has improperly analyzed the cumulative effects of adding offshore wind to the ocean’s existing industrialization. NOAA oversees marine species protection.

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