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Policy Watch

Washington Goes Wild, Wyoming Pipelines Win

And more of the week’s top policy news around renewable energy.

Burgum and Musk
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Catching Up With the Trumps – You’d be forgiven if you’ve been confused by the news firehose that has been the early days of Trump 2.0. Here’s a quick breakdown of what matters most for developers…

  • DOE Secretary Chris Wright last night issued his first order decrying net-zero but supporting nuclear and hydropower energy generation. Unlike Trumpian comms, Wright’s order did not decry wind or solar energy.
  • Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued his own flurry of orders earlier this week that open doors to lots more public lands going to resource extraction. Given the situation at BOEM and what we’re hearing is happening at the Fish and Wildlife Service, the jury’s still out on whether his entry into Interior will ease any permitting hardships for renewable energy.
  • At the EPA, crucial funding for renewables and other decarb projects remains on ice. Oh, and they’ve gutted the environmental justice office. It is unclear how any of this will impact permitting, though.
  • The next shoe we’re waiting to drop? Changes to IRA tax guidance from the Treasury Department, which has begun to pull back from promoting ESG in the investor community.
  • For these reasons, I believe it is worth it for anyone in the developer space to be watching how Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency interact with agencies overall, from any reductions in permitting staff size to changes in Treasury’s payment systems, which govern subsidies.

We’re Watching Wyoming – Business groups successfully killed an effort in Wyoming to inhibit eminent domain powers in the name of stopping CO2 pipelines.

  • Republican lawmakers had introduced legislation undercutting state regulations laying the groundwork for CO2 pipeline construction, targeting Governor Mark Godron’s support for an “all of the above” approach to energy that has room for decarb strategies preferred by the oil and gas sector.
  • But the bills have floundered amidst opposition from mining as well as coal interests who say they’ve invested too much in CO2 capture to turn back now, according to the news outlet WyoFile.
  • This is the most optimistic case study I can possibly point to that laws like the Inflation Reduction Act could stick around in a fully GOP federal government. Industry’s invested quite a bit. Guess we’ll see soon if Washington is like Wyoming.
  • Republican lawmakers had introduced legislation undercutting state regulations laying the groundwork for CO2 pipeline construction, targeting Governor Mark Godron’s support for an “all of the above” approach to energy that has room for decarb strategies preferred by the oil and gas sector.
  • But the bills have floundered amidst opposition from mining as well as coal interests who say they’ve invested too much in CO2 capture to turn back now, according to the news outlet WyoFile.
  • This is the most optimistic case study I can possibly point to that laws like the Inflation Reduction Act could stick around in a fully GOP federal government. Industry’s invested quite a bit. Guess we’ll see soon if Washington is like Wyoming.

Oh, and local control legislation in Virginia we’ve told you about has failed to advance in the Senate.


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Spotlight

Is the California Battery Fire an East Palestine Moment?

Moss Landing is turning into a growing problem for the energy storage industry.

Moss Landing in the crosshairs.
Heatmap Pro/Getty Images

The Moss Landing battery fire now may be the storage industry’s East Palestine moment – at least in California.

In the weeks since Vistra’s battery plant south of San Francisco caught fire on January 16, at least two lawsuits have been filed against Vistra, PG&E, and battery manufacturer LG Chem by people and business owners claiming damages from the blaze. I have learned at least one more will be filed by individuals who’ve conducted headline-grabbing soil samples that found toxic metals.

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Hotspots

The Vineyard Wind Lawsuit 2.0

And more of the week’s top conflicts around renewable energy.

The Vineyard Wind Lawsuit 2.0

1. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – Welcome to the Vineyard Wind lawsuit 2.0.

  • Fishermen represented by a conservative legal group – the Texas Public Policy Foundation – filed a petition to the Supreme Court this week asserting that the justices can now reconsider approvals for the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project because of the high court’s decision to overturn the Chevron doctrine, a now-defunct judicial precedent that courts defer to agencies on statutory interpretation.
  • It’s not entirely clear whether overturning Chevron will produce a different outcome than the Court’s decision to ignore the last petition from fisherman about Vineyard Wind’s permits. But the argument is definitely different, as the new petition argues a lower court wrongly deferred to agency interpretation of federal laws used to approve the project.
  • The Texas Public Policy Foundation did not respond to requests to discuss this case.

2. Carroll County, Maryland – Carroll County commissioners are intervening in the state permitting fight over two relatively small solar projects, in what has become a wider proxy battle between the county and the state over solar on farmland.

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Q&A

The Case for Agrivoltaics

A conversation with Samantha Levy of American Farmland Trust

The Case for Agrivoltaics

Today’s conversation is with Samantha Levy, senior policy manager for conservation and energy at American Farmland Trust, an agriculture and energy advocacy organization I became familiar with through covering the conflict over solar on farmland. I reached out to Levy after the organization released new recommendations for agrivoltaics policy last week – just before a large agrivoltaics project was canceled in Ohio over local opposition. I wanted to ask: are there any bright spots for the future of solar and farms commingling?

Today’s conversation was lightly edited for clarity.

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