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Policy Watch

What I’m Watching in Washington

A rundown of key policy moves from the past week.

capitol hill.
Heatmap Illustration/Wiki Commons

China, China, China – Republicans in Congress are trying to pressure the U.S. into an even more hawkish stance against Chinese battery supply chains ahead of the November election.

  • The top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Marco Rubio, wrote the Defense Department last week requesting the Defense Department blacklist the world’s largest battery manufacturer CATL, a Chinese company.
  • The House of Representatives is also scheduled to vote next week on a bill requiring the Homeland Security Department to blacklist CATL and other Chinese-owned battery manufacturers.
  • I’ve written a lot of stories about how many Republicans are trying to get the U.S. to entirely decouple its commercial enterprises from Chinese companies – a wholly different objective than building up U.S. industries so the nation can compete with and wean off China. (Like what the IRA did.)
  • No matter the national security justifications, forcibly decoupling from China would take essential supplies off the table for an energy transition.
  • What I’m watching for is if the Republican pressure influences how Kamala Harris approaches this topic, and whether she’ll differ from the Biden administration’s approach to China and batteries.

BLM’s solar plan The Bureau of Land Management last week released its long-awaited programmatic environmental impact statement for solar development across the Southwest, opening 31 million acres to potential projects across almost a dozen states.

  • The Biden administration says its steering development away from “wildlife and land conflicts,” but it already faces pushback from conservation activists. One of the most likely plaintiffs against the plan – the Center for Biological Diversity – released a statement critical of the document that noted it would impact a sizable amount of desert tortoise habitat.

Trump’s energy whisperer The Trump campaign told Reuters last week the former president would ax the EPA’s climate-minded power plant rules if elected… but that’s not what caught my eye.

  • No, what’s most notable is that the campaign official who made this news was former Trump administration Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who is now a key figure at the MAGA-aligned America First Policy Institute.
  • I’ve covered Bernhardt for years and interviewed him last year upon the release of his book, “You Report to Me.” It’s my belief he is angling for an even more influential role in a future Trump administration that would leverage his expertise in the administrative state to make Trump far more successful at undoing energy and climate rules. (OMB?)

Other policy moves worth watching…

Nevada’s new plan Joe Lombardo, the Republican governor of Nevada, released a new statewide climate plan after the one put forward by his Democratic predecessor vanished. It’s getting panned.

‘Greenwashing’ push — The Agriculture Department launched an initiative aimed at combating misleading climate claims in the meat and poultry industries.

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Hotspots

Fox News Goes After a Solar Farm

And more of this week’s top renewable energy fights across the country.

Map of U.S. renewable energy.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Otsego County, Michigan – The Mitten State is proving just how hard it can be to build a solar project in wooded areas. Especially once Fox News gets involved.

  • Last week, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources said it wanted to lease more than 400 acres of undeveloped state-owned forestland for part of a much larger RWE Clean Energy solar project near the northern Michigan town of Gaylord.
  • Officials said they were approached by the company about the land. But the news sparked an immediate outcry, as state elected Republicans – and some Democrats – demanded to know why a forest would be cleared for ‘green’ energy. Some called for government firings.
  • Then came the national news coverage. On Friday, Fox News hosted a full four-minute segment focused on this one solar farm featuring iconoclastic activist Michael Shellenberger.
  • A few days later, RWE told the media it would not develop the project on state lands.
  • “[D]uring the development process, we conducted outreach to all landowners adjacent to the project location, including the Michigan Department of Natural Resources,” the company said in a statement to the Petoskey News-Review, adding it instead decided to move forward with leasing property from two private landowners.

2. Atlantic County, New Jersey – Opponents of offshore wind in Atlantic City are trying to undo an ordinance allowing construction of transmission cables that would connect the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project to the grid.

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Policy Watch

How to Solve a Problem Like a Wind Ban

And more of this week’s top policy news around renewables.

Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Trump’s Big Promise – Our nation’s incoming president is now saying he’ll ban all wind projects on Day 1, an expansion of his previous promise to stop only offshore wind.

  • “They litter our country like paper, like dropping garbage in a field,” Trump said at a press conference Tuesday. “We’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are built.”
  • Is this possible? It would be quite tricky, as the president only has control over the usage of federal lands and waters. While offshore wind falls entirely under the president’s purview, many onshore wind projects themselves fall entirely on state lands.
  • This is where the whole “wind kills birds” argument becomes important. Nearly all wind projects have at least some federal nexus because of wildlife protection laws, such as the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
  • Then there are the cables connecting these projects to the grid and interstate transmission projects that may require approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
  • I’m personally doubtful he will actually stop all wind in the U.S., though I do think offshore wind in its entirety is at risk (which I’ve written about). Trump has a habit of conflating things, and in classic fashion, he only spoke at the press conference about offshore wind projects. I think he was only referring to offshore wind, though I’m willing to eat my words.

2. The Big Nuclear Lawsuit – Texas and Utah are suing to kill the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authority to license small modular reactors.

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Q&A

Are Anti-Renewables Activists Going Unchallenged?

A conversation with J. Timmons Roberts, executive director of Brown University’s Climate Social Science Network


J. Timmons Roberts
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s interview is with Brown University professor J. Timmons Roberts. Those of you familiar with the fight over offshore wind may not know Roberts by name, but you’re definitely familiar with his work: He and his students have spearheaded some of the most impactful research conducted on anti-offshore wind opposition networks. This work is a must-read for anyone who wants to best understand how the anti-renewables movement functions and why it may be difficult to stop it from winning out.

So with Trump 2.0 on the verge of banning offshore wind outright, I decided to ask Roberts what he thinks developers should be paying attention to at this moment. The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

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