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Policy Watch

The Climate Election’s Big Local Votes

What happened this week in climate and energy policy, beyond the federal election results.

Map of South Dakota for the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline.
Heatmap illustration.

1. It’s the election, stupid – We don’t need to retread who won the presidential election this week (or what it means for the Inflation Reduction Act). But there were also big local control votes worth watching closely.

  • South Dakotans at the ballot box successfully defeated a law intended to expedite approvals and construction of the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline, my colleague Emily Pontecorvo writes.
  • In Morro Bay, California, almost 60% of voters weighed in to support stopping a battery energy storage facility. Developer Vistra announced plans for an alternative permitting pathway a day before voting commenced.
  • In Oregon, voters in two coastal counties overwhelmingly voted to reject offshore wind in a non-binding resolution.
  • In Maine, the small town of Harpswell might’ve gone for vice president Kamala Harris – but it also rejected opening land to a small solar farm.
  • Heatmap did a full accounting of climate and energy races across the country. Take a gander!

2. Michigan lawsuit watch – Michigan has a serious lawsuit brewing over its law taking some control of renewable energy siting decisions away from municipalities.

  • The law firm Foster Swift last month announced it would file a lawsuit on behalf of Michigan towns challenging implementation of PA 233, a law that gave the Michigan Public Service Commission authority over some siting decisions.
  • Foster Swift requested municipalities join their efforts before a legal deadline to file suit on November 8. Some townships have publicly announced their involvement. We’re on the lookout to see when this case is ultimately filed to state court.

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Q&A

Senator John Hickenlooper on Renewable Energy in a Trump 2.0 Era

A conversation with Colorado's junior senator on the 2024 election, permitting reform, and what might happen with the IRA.

Hickenlooper.
Heatmap Illustration

This week we’re talking to Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado who joined me yesterday at Heatmap’s Election Post-Game event in Washington, D.C., for a spirited chat about the 2024 election, permitting, and support for renewable energy in a Trump 2.0 era. We also talked about beer and The Fray, but we’ll spare you those details. The following is an abridged version of our conversation.

So you’ve said in your time in the Senate there needs to be a “business plan” for climate change. What’s the business plan now that Trump is going to be president again?

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Policy Watch

Nothing Is Safe from Trump

The week’s top news around renewable energy policy.

Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Forget about the IRA – As the dust has settled post-election, it’s becoming clearer far more than the IRA is at stake in the coming Trump 2.0 administration – namely, whether what people expect in the normal course of governing will resume at all.

  • Case in point: Massachusetts electeds just learned they will not be able to complete talks on new offshore wind procurement contracts until after Trump takes office. Will any of these projects even be able to pursue federal permits?
  • Or take statutes and agencies once considered sacrosanct. Overnight, The Washington Post reported Trump may seek to unilaterally cut programs with expired authorizations. That includes the Energy Policy Act of 2005 – and the statute creating NOAA.
  • I covered Trump from the day he was sworn in, with most of my time spent in Congress. And I’ve kept tabs with some in his braintrust over the years. So I can tell you confidently: expect the unexpected, and don’t count on your permits.

2. Money and time – Biden agencies are (predictably) starting to get rules out the door to wrap up whatever they can before Trump takes office.

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Hotspots

The Renewable Energy Project Trump Might Kill on Day 1

And more news on the biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.

Map.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Magic Valley, Idaho – Sen. Jim Risch, one of the state’s loudest opponents of the Lava Ridge wind farm, said he believes Donald Trump will stop the project on Day 1.

  • In a newly-aired interview with TV outlet KTVB, Risch said the matter has been presented to the incoming president and that the proposal from LS Energy would be targeted by an order similar to Biden’s stopping the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
  • “When Biden took office, he walked in there [and] signed an executive order and that was the end of the Keystone pipeline. When Donald Trump walks into that president’s room, waiting for him is going to be a keystone pipeline-like executive order that says Lava Ridge ain’t no more.”
  • Lava Ridge has faced fierce backlash for a long time, for cultural and environmental reasons. That’s why we at Heatmap put it at the very top of our list of 10 at-risk projects to watch in the energy transition.
  • The Bureau of Land Management released a federal environmental review for Lava Ridge in June and it sliced the project’s scope in half, from 400 turbines to a little north of 200. The next and final step would be a record of decision formally approving it but it’s unclear when – or if – the record of decision for the wind project may be released before Trump leaves office.
  • Keep an eye out for more reporting on this potential move.

2. Hardin County, Kentucky – Lightsource, a subsidiary of bp, is going to the mat against a chapter of prominent anti-renewables network Citizens for Responsible Solar over a project in the small Kentucky city of Elizabethtown.

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