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Policy Watch

Power Line Planning

And more of the week’s top policy news.

Power Line Planning
Olivie Strauss / Severin Demchuk / Heatmap

Transmissions on transmission – The Energy Department last week released a must-read national planning study for transmission to connect renewables to the grid through 2040.

  • The takeaway? We could reduce billions of tonnes of CO2 emissions with interregional transmission and constraining development would require new nuclear and hydrogen energy to meet emission reduction targets, instead of solar, wind, and batteries.
  • The lengthy report didn’t go into the permitting challenges at all though and the mapping does read aspirational if you know the context.
  • Regardless, we hope to see you on DOE’s webinar on the study next Wednesday.

SCOTUS shrugs for once – The Supreme Court declined to stay challenges to the EPA’s methane and mercury air pollution regulations, meaning at least two Biden regulatory tailwinds for renewables developers remains in play.

  • This means those challenges will have to weave their way through the appeals process while remaining in effect for companies.
  • There’s still an outstanding request for the high court to stay EPA’s CO2 regulations for power plants though, so stay tuned.
  • Meanwhile, the court has asked the U.S. solicitor general to weigh in on fossil fuel climate liability cases.

Big Oil wants IRA credits – Executives for oil majors have asked former President Donald Trump to keep at least some of the Inflation Reduction Act in place, reports the Wall Street Journal.

  • However, don’t be fooled: the WSJ reporting indicates a priority for oil executives is carbon capture – not renewables. I first suggested this might be a possibility over the summer in my first story for Heatmap.
  • Simply put, if you’re a developer, now’s the time to ask yourself: what’s my government affairs strategy if Trump wins?

Here’s what else I’m watching…

The U.S. International Trade Commission has received a patent protection complaint from Chinese solar manufacturer Trina Solar against Runergy and Adani Green Energy

 In Wyoming, state lawmakers are trying to pass legislation allowing temporary radioactive storage for nuclear power.

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Hotspots

Judge, Siding With Trump, Saves Solar From NEPA

And more on the week’s biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Jackson County, Kansas – A judge has rejected a Hail Mary lawsuit to kill a single solar farm over it benefiting from the Inflation Reduction Act, siding with arguments from a somewhat unexpected source — the Trump administration’s Justice Department — which argued that projects qualifying for tax credits do not require federal environmental reviews.

  • We previously reported that this lawsuit filed by frustrated Kansans targeted implementation of the IRA when it first was filed in February. That was true then, but afterwards an amended complaint was filed that focused entirely on the solar farm at the heart of the case: NextEra’s Jeffrey Solar. The case focuses now on whether Jeffrey benefiting from IRA credits means it should’ve gotten reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act.
  • Perhaps surprisingly to some, the Trump Justice Department argued against these NEPA reviews – a posture that jibes with the administration’s approach to streamlining the overall environmental analysis process but works in favor of companies using IRA credits.
  • In a ruling that came down on Tuesday, District Judge Holly Teeter ruled the landowners lacked standing to sue because “there is a mismatch between their environmental concerns tied to construction of the Jeffrey Solar Project and the tax credits and regulations,” and they did not “plausibly allege the substantial federal control and responsibility necessary to trigger NEPA review.”
  • “Plaintiffs’ claims, arguments, and requested relief have been difficult to analyze,” Teeter wrote in her opinion. “They are trying to use the procedural requirements of NEPA as a roadblock because they do not like what Congress has chosen to incentivize and what regulations Jackson County is considering. But those challenges must be made to the legislative branch, not to the judiciary.”

2. Portage County, Wisconsin – The largest solar project in the Badger State is now one step closer to construction after settling with environmentalists concerned about impacts to the Greater Prairie Chicken, an imperiled bird species beloved in wildlife conservation circles.

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Spotlight

Renewables Swept Up in Data Center Backlash

Just look at Virginia.

A data center.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Solar and wind projects are getting swept up in the blowback to data center construction, presenting a risk to renewable energy companies who are hoping to ride the rise of AI in an otherwise difficult moment for the industry.

The American data center boom is going to demand an enormous amount of electricity and renewables developers believe much of it will come from solar and wind. But while these types of energy generation may be more easily constructed than, say, a fossil power plant, it doesn’t necessarily mean a connection to a data center will make a renewable project more popular. Not to mention data centers in rural areas face complaints that overlap with prominent arguments against solar and wind – like noise and impacts to water and farmland – which is leading to unfavorable outcomes for renewable energy developers more broadly when a community turns against a data center.

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Q&A

How the Wind Industry Can Fight Back

A conversation with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications

The Q&A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

Today’s conversation is with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications, a D.C.-based communications firm that focuses on defending zero- and low-carbon energy and federal investments in climate action. Moyer, a veteran communications adviser who previously worked on Capitol Hill, has some hot takes as of late about how he believes industry and political leaders have in his view failed to properly rebut attacks on solar and wind energy, in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act. On Tuesday he sent an email blast out to his listserv – which I am on – that boldly declared: “The Wind Industry’s Strategy is Failing.”

Of course after getting that email, it shouldn’t surprise readers of The Fight to hear I had to understand what he meant by that, and share it with all of you. So here goes. The following conversation has been abridged and lightly edited for clarity.

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