You’re out of free articles.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Sign In or Create an Account.
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Welcome to Heatmap
Thank you for registering with Heatmap. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our lives, a force reshaping our economy, our politics, and our culture. We hope to be your trusted, friendly, and insightful guide to that transformation. Please enjoy your free articles. You can check your profile here .
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Subscribe to get unlimited Access
Hey, you are out of free articles but you are only a few clicks away from full access. Subscribe below and take advantage of our introductory offer.
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Create Your Account
Please Enter Your Password
Forgot your password?
Please enter the email address you use for your account so we can send you a link to reset your password:
Want to use your gifts to help the climate? Here’s where seven climate advocates are donating.
Fighting for clean air and water. Accelerating the green energy transition. Centering economic and racial justice. Engaging future generations of climate innovators.
Nonprofits across the U.S. and around the world are tackling the problem of climate change in zillions of different ways. In recognition of the scope of their work, we at Heatmap are starting a new tradition for Giving Tuesday — asking some of the most prominent voices in the climate space where they would donate this year.
The answers they gave us are varied, exciting, and urgent, with a cause for every interest and concern. Learn how to donate or get involved with an effort close to your own heart, below.
What UPROSE does: Organizes the multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural population of Sunset Park, Brooklyn to promote sustainability and climate justice.
How you can support UPROSE: Get involved or donate here.
Where Yeampierre would donate this year: NYC Environmental Justice Alliance; NY Renews Climate; and Climate Justice Alliance.
Why: “All three of these organizations have a long and continued track record of shaping policy, base building, and operationalizing a just transition. All are frontline-led and center racial justice and equity in all aspects of their operations. All have changed the landscape and are central to decision-making on all things climate.”
What Generation180 does: Mounts public campaigns for electrification with relentless positivity.
How you can support Generation180: Donate here.
Where Wertz would donate this year: Hollywood Climate Summit.
Why: “This holiday season, I’d consider giving to Hollywood Climate Summit for their important climate communications work. Hollywood is an extremely powerful industry, and for the past four years, the annual Hollywood Climate Summit has served as an urgent call to action for the entertainment industry to address the climate emergency through a compilation of think tanks, workshops, and activities. The climate movement needs to change hearts and minds, and HCS is encouraging the entertainment community to help us achieve the cultural shift we need to advance an equitable, sustainable future.”
What the Indigenous Environmental Network does: Draws on the history of indigenous peoples to empower Native groups working to protect their homelands.
How you can support the IEN: Donate here or explore other ways to support the IEN.
Where White would donate this year: Tonatierra
Why: “We would love to spotlight the incredible work of Tonatierra. They are a family-based organization lifting up the grassroots from the local work on the ground to the United Nations. Sadly, they recently lost their co-founder, Tupac [Enrique Acosta].
“The work of Tonatierra in lifting up Indigenous communities over the past decades has been tireless and selfless. They fight for Indigenous Peoples community empowerment bringing together Indigenous people from the north and south in the fight for justice and human rights all within the framework of the protection of Mother Earth as we are all connected to the land.”
What the Rainforest Alliance does: Leverages business incentives to protect irreplaceable ecosystems — and the communities that rely on them.
How you can support the Rainforest Alliance: Get involved or donate here.
Where Katz would donate this year: Fundación Proyecto Tití and The Billion Oyster Project
Why: “Fundación Proyecto Tití works to stop deforestation and protect the cotton-top tamarin monkey. Also known as the tití, these one-pound primates are only found in the forests of Colombia, but deforestation is destroying their already diminished habitat. Only about 7,000 titís remain in the wild. The organization is effective in part because it works so well with the local community to protect endangered forests and replant degraded lands. The group has a U.S. sponsor, so all gifts are tax-deductible.
“The Billion Oyster Project is a growing New York-based conservation organization working alongside the Harbor School on Governor’s Island to clean up the New York estuary, once home to the largest number of oysters in the world. The Billion Oyster project not only grows oysters, [it] also helps everyone better understand the connection between clean water, biodiversity, and the food we eat. If Billon Oyster is successful — and they are well on the way — in the near future, all New Yorkers will have cleaner rivers and more wildlife thriving throughout the area.”
What SELC does: Defends the local environment in court, using the law to help move the U.S. South toward a more sustainable future.
How you can support SELC: Get involved or donate here.
Where Campaigne would donate this year: Memphis Community Against Pollution
Why: “Memphis Community Against Pollution has done some of the most impressive organizing around in its quest for environmental justice for Black communities in Southwest Memphis. The organization played David as it slayed the Goliath Byhalia crude oil pipeline, then worked successfully to force the closure of another facility that had been releasing toxic, cancer-causing pollution for more than four decades. MCAP has now focused its fierce attention on a climate behemoth: the quasi-federal utility TVA, which is proposing one of the largest methane gas buildouts in the country, a move that would lock the region into fossil fuels for decades to come.”
What Rewiring America does: Teaches U.S. homeowners about the tangible benefits of clean electricity.
How you can support Rewiring America: Get involved or donate here.
Where Young would donate this year: Community-based organizations like Baltimore’s Civic Works
Why: “Changing a handful of machines in our homes and driveways is one of the most important things you can do for the planet. The Inflation Reduction Act and climate philanthropists are accelerating this work at the national level, but for Giving Tuesday, we say go local. Community-based organizations with longstanding, personal connections and deep knowledge of the local landscape are often some of the best-positioned to advance electrification thoughtfully and equitably. This giving season, find an organization working to increase resiliency and improve the quality of life for their community by weatherizing low-income homes, providing financial assistance to install heat pumps, or advocating for local government action to help strengthen building codes and gain access to solar or EV charging.”
What the CATF does: Advocates for climate technologies to decarbonize the global energy system.
How you can support the CATF: Donate here or explore other ways to support CATF.
Who Shaheen would donate to this year: Western Resource Advocates, the Center for Applied Law and Policy, and ClearPath
Why: “We appreciate the work the following organizations are doing to advance effective, pragmatic solutions to climate change. In the U.S., we'd like to showcase Western Resource Advocates, which drives evidence-based solutions to the climate crisis, protecting and sustaining the environment, economy, and people of the interior West; the Center for Applied Law and Policy, which seeks to further innovation in environmental law and policy; and ClearPath, which develops and advances policies that accelerate innovations to reduce and remove global energy emissions.”
What RMI does: Brings cutting-edge research and analysis to business, governments, and the public to build a carbon-free future.
How you can support RMI: Explore ways to give here.
Where Singh would donate this year: Relp
Why: “Relp’s work not only addresses the pressing energy challenges in developing nations but also holds the potential to revolutionize the renewable energy landscape, forging a path toward a greener and more sustainable future for all. Their mission creates a ripple effect in the renewable energy sector, offering a way to scale renewable investments in regions that need them the most. Their comprehensive grasp of renewable energy markets combined with their ability to generate investment opportunities [that were] previously thought infeasible transforms what was once seen as unattainable into achievable milestones.”
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
And more on the week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy projects.
1. Lawrence County, Alabama – We now have a rare case of a large solar farm getting federal approval.
2. Virginia Beach, Virginia – It’s time to follow up on the Coastal Virginia offshore wind project.
3. Fairfield County, Ohio – The red shirts are beating the greens out in Ohio, and it isn’t looking pretty.
4. Allen County, Indiana – Sometimes a setback can really set someone back.
5. Adams County, Illinois – Hope you like boomerangs because this county has approved a solar project it previously denied.
6. Solano County, California – Yet another battery storage fight is breaking out in California. This time, it’s north of San Francisco.
A conversation with Elizabeth McCarthy of the Breakthrough Institute.
This week’s conversation is with Elizabeth McCarthy of the Breakthrough Institute. Elizabeth was one of several researchers involved in a comprehensive review of a decade of energy project litigation – between 2013 and 2022 – under the National Environment Policy Act. Notably, the review – which Breakthrough released a few weeks ago – found that a lot of energy projects get tied up in NEPA litigation. While she and her colleagues ultimately found fossil fuels are more vulnerable to this problem than renewables, the entire sector has a common enemy: difficulty of developing on federal lands because of NEPA. So I called her up this week to chat about what this research found.
The following conversation was lightly edited for clarity.
So why are you so fixated on NEPA?
Personally and institutionally, [Breakthrough is] curious about all regulatory policy – land use, environmental regulatory policy – and we see NEPA as the thing that connects them all. If we understand how that’s functioning at a high level, we can start to pull at the strings of other players. So, we wanted to understand the barrier that touches the most projects.
What aspects of zero-carbon energy generation are most affected by NEPA?
Anything with a federal nexus that doesn’t include tax credits. Solar and wind that is on federal land is subject to a NEPA review, and anything that is linear infrastructure – transmission often has to go through multiple NEPA reviews. We don’t see a ton of transmission being litigated over on our end, but we think that is a sign NEPA is such a known obstacle that no one even wants to touch a transmission line that’ll go through 14 years of review, so there’s this unknown graveyard of transmission that wasn’t even planned.
In your report, you noted there was a relatively small number of zero-carbon energy projects in your database of NEPA cases. Is solar and wind just being developed more frequently on private land, so there’s less of these sorts of conflicts?
Precisely. The states that are the most powered by wind or create the most wind energy are Texas and Iowa, and those are bypassing the national federal environmental review process [with private land], in addition to not having their own state requirements, so it’s easier to build projects.
What would you tell a solar or wind developer about your research?
This is confirming a lot of things they may have already instinctually known or believed to be true, which is that NEPA and filling out an environmental impact statement takes a really long time and is likely to be litigated over. If you’re a developer who can’t avoid putting your energy project on federal land, you may just want to avoid moving forward with it – the cost may outweigh whatever revenue you could get from that project because you can’t know how much money you’ll have to pour into it.
Huh. Sounds like everything is working well. I do think your work identifies a clear risk in developing on federal lands, which is baked into the marketplace now given the pause on permits for renewables on federal lands.
Yeah. And if you think about where the best places would be to put these technologies? It is on federal lands. The West is way more federal land than anywhere else in the county. Nevada is a great place to put solar — there’s a lot of sun. But we’re not going to put anything there if we can’t put anything there.
What’s the remedy?
We propose a set of policy suggestions. We think the judicial review process could be sped along or not be as burdensome. Our research most obviously points to shortening the statute of limitations under the Administrative Procedures Act from six years to six months, because a great deal of the projects we reviewed made it in that time, so you’d see more cases in good faith as opposed to someone waiting six years waiting to challenge it.
We also think engaging stakeholders much earlier in the process would help.
The Bureau of Land Management says it will be heavily scrutinizing transmission lines if they are expressly necessary to bring solar or wind energy to the power grid.
Since the beginning of July, I’ve been reporting out how the Trump administration has all but halted progress for solar and wind projects on federal lands through a series of orders issued by the Interior Department. But last week, I explained it was unclear whether transmission lines that connect to renewable energy projects would be subject to the permitting freeze. I also identified a major transmission line in Nevada – the north branch of NV Energy’s Greenlink project – as a crucial test case for the future of transmission siting in federal rights-of-way under Trump. Greenlink would cross a litany of federal solar leases and has been promoted as “essential to helping Nevada achieve its de-carbonization goals and increased renewable portfolio standard.”
Well, BLM has now told me Greenlink North will still proceed despite a delay made public shortly after permitting was frozen for renewables, and that the agency still expects to publish the record of decision for the line in September.
This is possible because, as BLM told me, transmission projects that bring solar and wind power to the grid will be subject to heightened scrutiny. In an exclusive statement, BLM press secretary Brian Hires told me via e-mail that a secretarial order choking out solar and wind permitting on federal lands will require “enhanced environmental review for transmission lines only when they are a part of, and necessary for, a wind or solar energy project.”
However, if a transmission project is not expressly tied to wind or solar or is not required for those projects to be constructed… apparently, then it can still get a federal green light. For instance in the case of Greenlink, the project itself is not explicitly tied to any single project, but is kind of like a transmission highway alongside many potential future solar projects. So a power line can get approved if it could one day connect to wind or solar, but the line’s purpose cannot solely be for a wind or solar project.
This is different than, say, lines tied explicitly to connecting a wind or solar project to an existing transmission network. Known as gen-tie lines, these will definitely face hardships with this federal government. This explains why, for example, BLM has yet to approve a gen-tie line for a wind project in Wyoming that would connect the Lucky Star wind project to the grid.
At the same time, it appears projects may be given a wider berth if a line has other reasons for existing, like improving resilience on the existing grid, or can be flexibly used by not just renewables but also fossil energy.
So, the lesson to me is that if you’re trying to build transmission infrastructure across federal property under this administration, you might want to be a little more … vague.