Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Economy

Trump Signs Executive Order to Modernize Permitting

On modernizing permitting, IRA funds, and a revolt at BP

Trump Signs Executive Order to Modernize Permitting
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Central and northeast New Mexico will face “extremely critical fire conditions” over the next two daysThousands of Iraqis are suffering from respiratory problems caused by a severe sandstorm Temperatures could hit 120 degrees Fahrenheit in Balochistan, Pakistan, during a heat wave this week.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump signs executive order modernizing environmental permits

On Tuesday, President Trump signed a memorandum ordering the “maximum use of technology in environmental review and permitting process for infrastructure projects of all kinds.” The order also directed the Council on Environmental Quality, which oversees the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act, to put together a process for modernizing technology in environmental reviews. Thomas Hochman, the director of infrastructure policy at the Foundation for American Innovation, a center-right think tank, celebrated the move by the Trump administration, writing on Twitter “it’s high time to eliminate paper-based reviews, modernize permitting technology (which is often as old as the laws themselves), and experiment with different permitting tools.”

In February, Trump also signed an executive order that gutted CEQ’s authority to oversee NEPA, a move Sierra Club’s senior attorney Nathaniel Shoaff called “rash, unlawful, and unwise.” As my colleague Katie Brigham has written, in theory that order would expedite “projects such as solar farms and clean energy manufacturing facilities; in reality, under the Trump administration, the benefits could redound to fossil fuel infrastructure first and foremost.”

2. Judge orders Trump administration to unpause IRA, IIJA money

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to immediately lift its freeze on billions of dollars tied to the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In her ruling, Judge Mary McElroy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, a Trump appointee, called the pause “arbitrary and capricious,” and added that federal agencies such as the White House’s Office of Management and Budget “do not have unlimited authority to further a president’s agenda, nor do they have unfettered power to hamstring in perpetuity statutes passed by Congress during the previous administration.”

The lawsuit was brought by conservation and nonprofit groups that had received grants under the two laws, although McElroy’s order will apply to all frozen IRA and IIJA grants in the country. “Today’s ruling marks a crucial victory for the rule of law and ensures these vital resources will flow to the people and projects Congress intended to support,” Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

3. BP shareholders threaten to oppose company’s chair, citing about-face on climate

A group of BP shareholders, including UK pension provider National Employment Savings Trust and the financial services company Legal & General, announced they will vote in opposition to the re-election of the company’s chairman, Helge Lund, later this week. The move follows BP’s retreat from its goal of dramatically cutting oil and gas production after the company recorded its highest profits ever.

“While it’s disappointing to see BP rowing back on their climate pledges, what’s particularly worrying is they haven’t gone back to shareholders and given us a chance to vote on such a significant decision,” Diandra Soobiah, NEST’s head of responsible investment, told The Guardian last year. L&G, a 1.8% stakeholder in BP, added that it is “deeply concerned” about the retreat toward oil and gas and away from renewables investment. The decision to oppose Lund is, however, “largely symbolic,” Net Zero Investor writes, noting that the chairman has already announced plans to step down next year. BP’s annual general meeting will be held on Thursday.

4. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin zeroes in on geoengineering

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced Tuesday that the EPA is launching a probe into the geoengineering startup Making Sunsets, citing alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. The small South Dakota-based company uses balloons to release sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere in order to reflect the sun and offset warming caused by carbon dioxide; it finances the operation by selling credits for each gram of released SO2. Geoengineering — and Making Sunsets more specifically — remain highly controversial, with many environmental experts calling it a “bad idea.” But Daniele Visioni, a climate scientist specializing in aerosols, wrote on Bluesky that while Making Sunsets’ “stunt was silly … I won’t enjoy seeing them attacked by a government that, at the same time, pretends ‘clean coal’ is a thing while pearl-clutching about ‘polluting our air’ with 10 grams of sulfate.”

5. How Trump’s tariffs could prove ‘ironically disastrous’ for oil and gas

The United States’ exports of petrochemical feedstocks to China are at risk due to the trade war touched off by President Trump — “yet another example of how Trump’s second term could prove ironically disastrous for the oil and gas industry,” my colleague Matthew Zeitlin wrote for Heatmap yesterday. The U.S. exported 83 million barrels of the natural gas product ethane to China in 2024, which the country processes into plastics that are often exported back to the United States. But “U.S. energy flows to China are done unless Beijing and D.C. come to an agreement,” Gregory Brew, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, told Zeitlin. “China is already looking to buy more crude from OPEC states to make up for losing U.S. [imports]” — and natural gas liquids, including ethane, “are sure to follow.”

THE KICKER

ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

Humans have observed a colossal squid in its natural habitat for the first time ever. Though science has known about Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni’s existence since discovering arm fragments in the stomach of a sperm whale in 1925, researchers captured the first images of a foot-long juvenile in its home waters nearly 2,000 feet below the surface of the southern Atlantic Ocean.

Yellow

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Sparks

Rewiring America Slashes Staff Due to Trump Funding Freeze

The nonprofit laid off 36 employees, or 28% of its headcount.

Surprised outlets.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Trump administration’s funding freeze has hit the leading electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, which announced Thursday that it will be cutting its workforce by 28%, or 36 employees. In a letter to the team, the organization’s cofounder and CEO Ari Matusiak placed the blame squarely on the Trump administration’s attempts to claw back billions in funding allocated through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

“The volatility we face is not something we created: it is being directed at us,” Matusiak wrote in his public letter to employees. Along with a group of four other housing, climate, and community organizations, collectively known as Power Forward Communities, Rewiring America was the recipient of a $2 billion GGRF grant last April to help decarbonize American homes.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Spotlight

The National Park Service is Fighting a Solar Farm

A battle ostensibly over endangered shrimp in Kentucky

Mammoth Cave.
Heatmap Illustration/Library of Congress, Getty Images

A national park is fighting a large-scale solar farm over potential impacts to an endangered shrimp – what appears to be the first real instance of a federal entity fighting a solar project under the Trump administration.

At issue is Geenex Solar’s 100-megawatt Wood Duck solar project in Barren County, Kentucky, which would be sited in the watershed of Mammoth Cave National Park. In a letter sent to Kentucky power regulators in April, park superintendent Barclay Trimble claimed the National Park Service is opposing the project because Geenex did not sufficiently answer questions about “irreversible harm” it could potentially pose to an endangered shrimp that lives in “cave streams fed by surface water from this solar project.”

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Hotspots

Ben Carson vs. the Anti-Solar Movement

And more on the week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Dukes County, Massachusetts – The Supreme Court for the second time declined to take up a legal challenge to the Vineyard Wind offshore project, indicating that anti-wind activists' efforts to go directly to the high court have run aground.

  • The more worthwhile case to follow now is the Democratic state-led challenge to Trump’s executive order against offshore wind, which was filed earlier this week.
  • That lawsuit argues, among other things, that the order violated the Administrative Procedures Act and was “contrary to and in excess of” existing environmental and coastal energy leasing laws. One can easily assume the administration and Democratic states may take this case all the way to the high court depending how the federal district court judge rules in the case.

2. Brooklyn/Staten Island, New York – The battery backlash in the NYC boroughs is getting louder – and stranger – by the day.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow