Washington Goes Wild, Wyoming Pipelines Win

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.