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Policy Watch

What Trump’s NEPA Wrecking Ball Means for Renewables

And more of the week’s top policy news.

Environmental review, mapped.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. New NEPA world – The Trump White House overnight effectively rescinded all implementing rules for the National Environmental Policy Act, a key statute long relied on by regulators for permitting large energy and infrastructure projects.

  • What does this mean for renewables developers? Earthjustice attorney Kristen Boyles told me today that even though fewer regulations sounds nice, Trump’s implementation strategy is unlikely to ease minds on renewables permits.
  • A big reason is confusion. Litigation that anti-renewables advocates filed against Biden’s permits will be considered under the previous NEPA regulations, while Boyles expects regulators to use a new attempt at NEPA implementation in an uneven way that privileges fossil fuels projects.
  • An example is “cumulative impacts,” a term historically used by agencies to look at comprehensive environmental impacts under NEPA. Previous challenges to the cumulative impacts of renewables projects will continue; meanwhile, the new Trump memo scrapped the definition of the term and dissuaded agencies from using it. What Boyles told me is this will simply put more discretion at the hands of political officials in permitting agencies.
  • “When you get rid of the definition, you’re going to still have a fight,” she said. “You now no longer have that common basis of understanding of what is a definition.”
  • When I first asked Boyles to tell me what comes next, she started hysterically laughing: “I’m not laughing because it’s a bad question. I think it’s a question that everybody’s asking.”
  • Heatmap’s Katie Brigham has a deeper dive on the Trump rule withdrawal here.

2. Our hydrogen hero – Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito this week came out against any freeze for a hydrogen hub with projects in her state, indicating that any clampdown on H2 projects from the federal level may get Republican pushback.

  • Capito took to TV this week and told West Virginians the ARCH2 Appalachian hub has received money it needs to keep going but that the future of that financing is uncertain.
  • “I think there is some concern about going forward,” she told local affiliate WTRF. “I’m going to be in there fighting for this money to make sure the hydrogen hub is not just successful but can go forward, and I do have great confidence that that’s what the end result is going to be.”
  • We previously told you the ARCH2 hub and other hubs backed by the Biden administration were experiencing financial and logistical hurdles. Can’t imagine any of this Trump uncertainty is helpful either, but I bet having the top Republican on the Senate’s environmental committee in your corner certainly is.
We’re also closely monitoring the situation at EPA, where new Administrator Lee Zeldin has started to target grant recipients and post some salacious allegations on X

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Q&A

You, Too, Can Protect Solar Panels Against Hail

A conversation with VDE Americas CEO Brian Grenko.

This week's interview subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s Q&A is about hail. Last week, we explained how and why hail storm damage in Texas may have helped galvanize opposition to renewable energy there. So I decided to reach out to Brian Grenko, CEO of renewables engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, to talk about how developers can make sure their projects are not only resistant to hail but also prevent that sort of pushback.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

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Hotspots

The Pro-Renewables Crowd Gets Riled Up

And more of the week’s big fights around renewable energy.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Long Island, New York – We saw the face of the resistance to the war on renewable energy in the Big Apple this week, as protestors rallied in support of offshore wind for a change.

  • Activists came together on Earth Day to protest the Trump administration’s decision to issue a stop work order on Equinor’s Empire Wind project. It’s the most notable rally for offshore wind I’ve seen since September, when wind advocates protested offshore opponents at the Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island.
  • Esther Rosario, executive director of Climate Jobs New York, told me the rally was intended to focus on the jobs that will be impacted by halting construction and that about a hundred people were at the rally – “a good half of them” union members or representing their unions.
  • “I think it’s important that the elected officials that are in both the area and at the federal level understand the humans behind what it means to issue a stop-work order,” she said.

2. Elsewhere on Long Island – The city of Glen Cove is on the verge of being the next New York City-area community with a battery storage ban, discussing this week whether to ban BESS for at least one year amid fire fears.

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Spotlight

How a Carbon Pipeline Is Turning Iowa Against Wind

Long Islanders, meanwhile, are showing up in support of offshore wind, and more in this week’s edition of The Fight.

Iowa.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

Local renewables restrictions are on the rise in the Hawkeye State – and it might have something to do with carbon pipelines.

Iowa’s known as a renewables growth area, producing more wind energy than any other state and offering ample acreage for utility-scale solar development. This has happened despite the fact that Iowa, like Ohio, is home to many large agricultural facilities – a trait that has often fomented conflict over specific projects. Iowa has defied this logic in part because the state was very early to renewables, enacting a state portfolio standard in 1983, signed into law by a Republican governor.

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