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Current conditions: The windiest April in 50 years is causing problems for farmers in the Midwest and Southern Plains • New Delhi marked its hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures breaking 106 degrees Fahrenheit • It was mild and sunny in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park today, where tens of thousands celebrated Earth Day.
Elon Musk is “ready to exit” the government because “he is tired of fielding what he views as a slew of nasty and unethical attacks from the political left,” The Washington Postreports. Though a timeline isn’t clear, much less confirmed, Musk’s special government employee status expires at the end of May.
Musk has dramatically reshaped the federal workforce during his short tenure of influence. His Department of Government Efficiency has been responsible for deep cuts to agencies like the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as we’ve covered at Heatmap. The efficiency agency’s work is not expected to cease if or when Musk exits, the Post adds. The Tesla CEO has repeatedly rubbed political insiders the wrong way by “failing to coordinate” with President Trump’s Cabinet and making embarrassing mistakes in his accounting of his team’s success, The New York Timesnotes.
Image: David Ryder/Getty Images
Speaking of Musk, in a week jam-packed with first-quarter earnings calls, none is more anticipated than Tesla’s on Tuesday. Dan Ives, an analyst for Wedbush Securities and one of Tesla’s most devoted bulls, has warned that CEO Elon Musk is staring down a “code red” moment due to his unpopular dallying in federal policy. “Anyone that thinks the brand damage Musk has inflicted is not a real thing, spend some time speaking to car buyers in the U.S., Europe, and Asia,” Ives wrote in a report to clients per CNN. Musk is also expected to face questions on “volume sales for 2025, progress on autonomous driving and plans for a robotaxi network, and how tariffs will impact profitability,” Bloombergwrites.
Here’s a look at other key Q1 earnings calls happening this week:
Environmental groups are bracing for executive orders aimed at rescinding their nonprofit status — orders that may be timed to coincide with Earth Day, Bloomberg and Inside Climate News report. Trump has suggested he’d soon be making statements about groups that are “so rich, so strong, and then they go so bad.” Although the available information is still largely based on rumors, insiders have suggested that nonprofits involved in legal work may be particularly vulnerable to targeting by the Trump administration. On Monday, however, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told the press that he does not support the government “broadly” reconsidering the tax-exempt status of climate groups, journalist Antonia Juhasz shared on Bluesky.
On Monday, the U.S. finalized tariffs on solar imports from Southeast Asia, setting duties as high as 3,521%. The decision follows a “year-old trade case brought by American manufacturers that accuse their overseas rivals of flooding the market with unfairly cheap goods,” Reuters reports, though PV Magazinecalled the numbers released by the Commerce Department “unexpectedly high.” The four countries targeted in the decision include Vietnam, which faces rates as high as 395.9%; Thailand, with rates as high as 375.2%; Malaysia, as high as 34.4%; and Cambodia, with 3,521%, inflicted partially because of “the country’s decision to stop participating in the investigation,” Bloombergreports. The American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee celebrated the decision, with lead counsel Tim Brightbill saying, “It’s been a big day for U.S. solar manufacturing. We’re really happy with the results.”
Saudi state-owned oil company Aramco announced Monday that it has partnered with Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD to collaborate on “the development of innovative technologies that enhance efficiency and environmental performance.” The decision will enable Aramco to broaden its investments in clean energy alternatives and support BYD’s global expansion, according to OilPrice.com. The agreement also includes “access to extensive R&D and operational infrastructure in the Middle East” for the EV-maker. BYD opened its first store in Saudi Arabia in February 2024; the Saudi government, meanwhile, has stated its intent to hit a 30% target for new energy vehicle technologies by 2030.
New England recorded its lowest ever electricity demand on its six-state regional grid on Sunday, thanks in part to the region’s many “behind-the-meter” rooftop solar resources.
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Meta’s deal with Constellation is a full circle moment for an Illinois nuclear plant.
America’s nuclear fleet remains its largest source of emissions-free power. America’s biggest technology companies are its largest voluntary buyers of emissions-free power. Only in the past few years have these two facts managed to mingle with each other.
The latest tech nuclear deal is in Central Illinois; Meta on Tuesday unveiled a 20-year power purchase agreement for the electricity produced by the Clinton Clean Energy Center, an 1,100-megawatt nuclear plant run by Constellation Energy. The deal will “guarantee that Clinton will continue to run for another two decades,” Constellation said in its announcement. The deal allows the company to look at extending its existing early site permit for a new plant, the announcement said — or apply for a new one to “pursue development of an advanced nuclear reactor or small modular reactor,” although it made no specific development commitments.
While neither Meta nor Constellation disclosed the value of the deal, Mark Nelson, founder of Radiant Energy Group, estimated that it would cost around $17 billion, of which between $7 billion to $9 billion would be profit for Constellation, enough to fund the building of a new plant. Either way, the announcement represents the “first time a nuclear customer is proposing another nuclear reactor in the state,” Nelson told me.
These types of deals are not exactly novel anymore (Microsoft struck a deal with Constellation last year to resurrect Three Mile Island), but they demonstrate a shift in mindset among tech companies, which are finally showing some respect for the emissions benefits of nuclear energy — albeit about a decade late.
The 2010s were a dark time for the nuclear industry. Cheap natural gas threatened the economic viability of aging plants, while the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan combined with rising enthusiasm for renewable power had left the industry politically isolated. Between 2012 and 2022, 12 nuclear reactors closed in the U.S. Those 12 plants represented over 9,000 megawatts of capacity, about a 10th of the total capacity of the American nuclear fleet.
Nuclear plants suffered most in “restructured” electricity markets like Illinois’, where utilities generally purchase power from independent power producers. In these markets, power that’s cheap on an hourly basis, i.e. renewables and natural gas, sets the price for the whole system, which can disadvantage nuclear power.
At the same time, big technology companies were ramping up purchases of low-carbon power — typically wind and solar — with Google doing its first power purchase agreement in 2010. Many state and federal programs to support alternative energy usage were aimed at wind and solar, i.e. were no help to struggling nuclear generators. Environmental groups were largely either indifferent or outright opposed to nuclear power.
Eventually states had to do what the market couldn’t and big tech wouldn’t and step in and keep plants alive. A broader Illinois clean energy law from 2016 included a program to support nuclear power plants by paying for what the market had historically ignored: the fact that their electricity is generated without carbon dioxide emissions. The zero emission credits were part of a larger climate law that provided 10 years of support for downstate nuclear plants. The Illinois bill followed on similar efforts in New York to keep upstate plants open.
(The push and pull between the economic and environmental concerns on both sides of the nuclear argument also led to some bizarre political inversions: At the same time New York was working to keep the upstate plants open, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo joined with Riverkeeper, the environmental group long associated with Cuomo’s ex-brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to close the Indian Point nuclear plant closer to New York City.)
Environmental groups supported the New York and Illinois clean energy programs, but they were at best cool to the nuclear provisions, illustrating the political hole nuclear power plants had fallen into. Touting the pollution benefits of the Illinois law, the Natural Resources Defense Council claimed that “nuclear energy does not represent a clean energy resource.” In New York, the NRDC filed a brief supporting the state’s legal authority to set up a zero emission credit system — “not because it supports the nuclear support program,” but rather because it supported the broader principle of paying for zero-emissions attributes.
The Environmental Defense Fund likewise supported the Illinois law, but with assurances that the nuclear credits “only represents a small fraction of the more-than-500-page bill.” The Union for Concerned Scientists hailed the bill but also made clear that it was “much more than a nuclear subsidy.”
The balance changed in earnest with the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included generous subsidies for new and existing nuclear power, reflecting both its lack of emissions and the industry’s longstanding sway in Washington. Then tech companies’ demand for energy started to climb with the advent of large language models and the immense power needed to train and operate them.
Energy policy experts at the big tech companies were also rethinking how best to decarbonize their operations. They had “run out of baseload,” Nelson told me, referring to always-on power sources as opposed to intermittent sources like wind and solar, and so would need to start supporting options like nuclear in order to truly decarbonize. With the arrival of a new breed of artificial intelligence, Nelson said, these companies realized that they were, in fact, industrial electricity purchasers and would have to act like it.
The past year has seen a flurry of big tech and nuclear tie-ups.
Amazon acquired a data center adjacent to a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in March, 2024, although the company’s subsequent efforts to use it as a “behind the meter” power source soon faced regulatory opposition. Google, along with Microsoft and Nucor, announced a plan to work together to buy and advance the development of non-carbon-emitting power, including nuclear. Microsoft announced its Three Mile Island deal later last year, while Amazon started investing in small modular reactors and Google said it would buy power from plants built by the advanced nuclear company Kairos. And in December, Meta released a request for proposals for nuclear energy developers to deliver at least 1 gigawatt and up to 4 gigawatts of clean power by “the early 2030s,” which the company said today it was “still advancing.”
Meta’s deal for the Clinton nuclear plant will essentially replace the Illinois emissions credit program, which runs out in 2027. The announcement of the deal also reflects the volatile and confusing politics of clean power in 2025. While Republicans in Congress are looking to slash the Inflation Reduction Act and its support for clean power investment and production, the House budget reconciliation bill included carve-outs for advanced nuclear power. The Trump administration has also signed a fleet of executive orders looking to streamline nuclear power regulations and encourage new nuclear development, reflecting the high esteem the industry has with the Republican Party despite its lack of interest (at best) in climate change policies, per se.
When Constellation announced the Three Mile Island project less than a year ago, it included a quote from a Biden Energy Department official, as well as a line about how “renewed interest in nuclear energy has spread globally as nations seek to electrify their economies to support the digital economy and address the climate crisis.” This time, Constellation included quotes from Clinton, Illinois’s mayor, as well as three legislators who represent the area, all Republicans, and a local union official. It also mentions climate change zero times, although it does describe the electricity generated by the plant as “emissions free.” (Meta’s release also doesn’t mention climate change specifically.)
On rescissions, a nuclear deal, and a solar lawsuit
Current conditions: Thunderstorms today will span 1,000 miles from Detroit to Dallas • NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters aircrews will begin their 2025 season by gathering weather data from a disturbance off the Southeast coast of the U.S.• Romanian officials are rerouting a stream to prevent the further inundation and collapse of one of Europe’s largest salt reserves following historic floods.
The White House on Tuesday formally asked Congress to rescind $9.4 billion in federal funds to make permanent some of the Department of Government Efficiency’s spending cuts. The 24-page proposal includes clawing back $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR, as well as $8.3 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the African Development Foundation. Congress has 45 days to pass the measure.
Of particular note to Heatmap readers is the proposed recission of $1.7 billion of the $3.6 billion appropriated for the Economic Support Fund which, in the words of the State Department, “promotes the economic and political foreign policy interests of the United States by providing assistance to allies and countries in transition to democracy.” That has historically included working with partners to mitigate the impacts of climate change, although the White House said it aims to “refocus remaining resources on activities that align with an America First foreign policy.” Similarly, the White House asked Congress to rescind $125 million from the Clean Technology Fund, which provides financial resources for developing countries to invest in clean energy projects, arguing that it does “not reflect America’s values or put the American people first.” The White House also asked Congress to pull the full $460 million appropriated to Assistance for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia, which, it argued, has become a “mechanism for funding wasteful programs, including … climate programming.”
Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, has agreed to a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy to purchase the output of its Clinton Clean Energy Center, an Illinois-based nuclear plant. The deal, which begins in June 2027, includes a power purchase agreement that will entitle Meta to roughly 1.1 gigawatts of energy from the plant’s single nuclear reactor. It also allows the company to “buy the clean attributes of the nuclear-power generation to offset its less-green electricity use elsewhere” — including powering natural gas-reliant data centers in other parts of the country, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Though the financial terms weren’t disclosed, Constellation Chief Executive Joe Dominguez said, “It’s billions of dollars of capital that you’re signing up for to run a plant for 20 more years.” Meta will support the continued operation of the plant as well as upgrades and relicensing, which will prevent the facility’s premature closure, the companies said.
The California Supreme Court will hear arguments today brought by environmental groups in a lawsuit against the California Public Utility Commission for slashing the credits customers receive for selling electricity generated by rooftop solar back to the grid. The new financial structure, called NEM 3, went into effect in 2023, and in some cases cut credits by 80%. This has “stymied efforts to expand rooftop solar in the state, particularly in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods and led to huge layoffs in the solar industry,” Solar Power World explains. NEM 3 encouraged customers to use battery storage systems with their rooftop solar installations, a move viewed as friendlier to California utilities.
The Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Working Group, and the San Diego-based Protect Our Communities Foundation attempted to overturn NEM 3 after it went into effect, bringing their case to the California Court of Appeals, which ultimately upheld CPUC’s decision, leading to the California Supreme Court case. “It’s a fight that’s likely to continue, given that the Supreme Court appears poised to rule narrowly — and perhaps not even on the policy debate itself,” Politico’s California Climate newsletter notes.
Texas has removed BlackRock from a list of firms the state says “boycott” the fossil fuel industry, thereby allowing public agencies and pension funds to once again hire the firm, invest in its funds, and purchase shares of the asset manager, Bloomberg reports. State Comptroller Glenn Hegar specifically cited BlackRock’s retreat from climate action as influencing the decision.
BlackRock was first placed on the Texas divestment list in 2022 due to its involvement in the Climate Action 100+ initiative to reduce corporate greenhouse gas emissions, as well as Net Zero Asset Managers. Since then, BlackRock has removed itself from both programs. “We never set out to punish any of these firms, and the hope was always that any firm we included on the list would eventually take steps to ensure they were removed,” Hegar said in his remarks.
The National Weather Service is looking to hire back 125 meteorologists and specialists to its understaffed forecast offices, some of which have ceased around-the-clock monitoring and weather balloon launches due to lack of personnel, CNN reports. The move follows the NWS losing more than 560 employees this year due to the Trump administration’s efficiency cuts and early retirement offers, and functionally means lifting the federal hiring freeze for the agency so it can bolster its workforce heading into the fire, drought, extreme heat, and hurricane seasons. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is also looking to transfer 155 employees from better-staffed offices to “critical” positions at sparser offices, CNN adds.
But as I’ve reported, it is not so simple to restaff federal agencies after major layoffs. In addition to the deep staffing shortages that preceded and were exacerbated by Trump’s layoffs, the government has also damaged the appeal of working in the public sector. Most people don’t want to work for the government for the paycheck, Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, told me last month, but rather for the “opportunity to do meaningful work, and for job stability and security” — both of which have been damaged by the administration’s ongoing hostility toward federal workers.
The American Clean Power Association
The U.S. installed 7.4 gigawatts of utility-scale solar, wind, and energy storage in the first three months of 2025 — the second-strongest quarter on record behind only Q1 of 2024, the American Clean Power Association reports.
Rob and Jesse pick apart Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s latest opinion with University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley.
Did the Supreme Court just make it easier to build things in this country — or did it give a once-in-a-lifetime gift to the fossil fuel industry? Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 against environmentalists who sought to use a key permitting law, the National Environmental Policy Act, to slow down a railroad in a remote but oil-rich part of Utah. Even the court’s liberals ruled against the green groups.
But the court’s conservative majority issued a much stronger and more expansive ruling, urging lower courts to stop interpreting the law as they have for years. That decision, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, may signal a new era for what has been called the “Magna Carta” of environmental law.
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk with Nicholas Bagley, a University of Michigan law professor and frequent writer on permitting issues. He is also Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s former chief legal counsel. Rob, Jesse, and Nick discuss what NEPA is, how it has helped (and perhaps hindered) the environment, and why it’s likely to change again in the near future. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Robinson Meyer: It seems like what the court is doing here is not only basically using this to make a statement, it’s announcing a new jurisprudence on NEPA. We want you to start treating this law really, really differently than you’ve been treating it in the past. And like, we are going to come down into your room and force you to clean up this mess whenever we want to now because of how important we think this is.
Do you think that’s too strong a statement? It seems this is not only declaring what the court’s view on NEPA is, but almost declaring a new plan of action.
Nicholas Bagley: Like many Supreme Court decisions, I think it’s amenable to two competing interpretations. One is exactly as you say: It’s a new era of NEPA jurisprudence, and the basic rule of a NEPA case is now going to be that environmental groups lose. And so I think there’s no way to read the decision except as a walloping loss to environmental groups, at least as a matter of tone and, I think, intention by the Supreme Court.
But there is a narrower reading available, and one that suggests that maybe this decision won’t have as big an effect as maybe the Supreme Court justices want it to. And the reason for that is they didn’t close the door altogether on the judicial evaluation of the reasonableness of its actions. And when a court goes in and says, Hmm, has an agency acted arbitrarily? Again, that’s a multifaceted inquiry. It’s going to involve a lot of different factors. And the court says be deferential, but that’s actually always been the rule.
They use a lot of strident language here, but that strident language is not going to make a lick of difference if you get in front of a highly motivated judge who happens to dislike the project in question in a district court in New Mexico. And that happens. So if you’re an agency and you’re thinking to yourself, Can I cut back on the amount of environmental studies that I do? Can I not investigate these dopey alternatives? You might think to yourself, you know, I have like a 20% or a 30% chance, my odds are a little better than they were before — maybe even a lot better than they were before — at winning if this case is litigated. But they’re also not 100%. So maybe what I ought to do is keep doing what I’ve been doing just to be safe. And I think that’s at least a possibility. We don’t know how it’s going to play out on the ground.
The last thing I’ll say about this is, you said that the Supreme Court is going to act like your mom who’s going to come and tell you to clean up your room.
Meyer: Yeah, exactly. Yes.
Bagley: The trouble is it takes something like, what, 50 cases a year? There are hundreds of these cases brought, and there’s only so much the Supreme Court can do, and in closer cases I think it might just be inclined to let matters lie.
So, you know, I think it is reasonable to think that this is the Supreme Court’s effort to usher in a new era of unique NEPA jurisprudence. It is reasonable to think it is going to have some effects on agency behavior and some effects on lower court behavior. But it may not pretend the revolution that it looks like on its face.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.