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A conversation with Ryan Murphy of Climate Jobs Massachusetts
Today we’re chatting with Ryan Murphy, executive director of the labor-enviro coalition group Climate Jobs Massachusetts. Last week his group along with labor organizations in Rhode Island and Connecticut released a report detailing how they envision the offshore wind industry moving forward in the near term — which Murphy was quick to tell me was in the works before Trump won the election. The report’s conclusion? Labor’s support is going to be necessary for the industry to stand a chance at maintaining growth. You can read it in full here.
The following is an abridged version of our conversation…
Simply put – why’d you do this?
It’s become clear over time that we need a strong, coordinated regional approach that’s led by the states and people in those states, especially in New England, because this is a regional industry [there]. Vineyard Wind 1 was built by workers and residents in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. There are state lines involved, and there are also federal lines involved. We wanted to make sure there’s a coordinated approach, that we’re all working together to move this industry forward and make sure we can finish the job.
Coming on the heels of the election, did that have an influence on this work?
This report has been researched for many, many months. We feel regardless of the federal landscape this was a really important time to draw attention to this.
How do you develop an offshore wind industry given the federal landscape?
We think state leadership is very important here. Since the beginning of the industry, states have led the way to lift this industry up. We think it takes everybody. It’ll take the people building these projects to move it forward, the good union workers in construction and other industries. It takes developers moving these projects forward. It takes the state governments and regional officials. It takes environmental groups to advocate for the completion of these projects. It’s a team effort across the board.
I think we wait and see what happens. We are going to keep moving forward in every way that we can. It’s not a black-and-white issue and I think its going to take a lot of coordination, a lot of conversations. We know this industry employs thousands and thousands of working class people that make these projects run. It’s important for American energy independence. We think it’s important for lifting up manufacturing and construction jobs. And we hope to work with people who are going to support those issues.
In the event the administration is particularly unkind in spite of all that, how do states push forward on offshore wind independent of federal support?
There’s already fully leased offshore wind areas in federal waters that will support up to 15 gigawatts of offshore wind. We plan to move forward with the projects that are already planned.
As far as future plans, this is an industry that didn’t just get off the ground, it’s been in the works for a very long time in all different phases of planning.
We’re just going to have to see what happens when it comes to different issues at the federal level if any arise.
How does the labor constituency help with getting support on the ground for building offshore wind projects?
Union workers are the ones who actually build projects. Vineyard Wind 1 could not have and would not have been built without union workers. What we’re hoping to see is construction and operation and maintenance of supply chain facilities, manufacturing facilities for offshore wind cables, for cement that’s needed to build them, and to actually build out the ports and build vessels that are going to be able to support these projects. When it comes to building policy, I think labor has an absolutely critical role and is positioned to be extremely helpful.
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Did a battery plant disaster in California spark a PR crisis on the East Coast?
Battery fire fears are fomenting a storage backlash in New York City – and it risks turning into fresh PR hell for the industry.
Aggrieved neighbors, anti-BESS activists, and Republican politicians are galvanizing more opposition to battery storage in pockets of the five boroughs where development is actually happening, capturing rapt attention from other residents as well as members of the media. In Staten Island, a petition against a NineDot Energy battery project has received more than 1,300 signatures in a little over two months. Two weeks ago, advocates – backed by representatives of local politicians including Rep. Nicole Mallitokis – swarmed a public meeting on the project, getting a local community board to vote unanimously against the project.
According to Heatmap Pro’s proprietary modeling of local opinion around battery storage, there are likely twice as many strong opponents than strong supporters in the area:
Heatmap Pro
Yesterday, leaders in the Queens community of Hempstead enacted a year-long ban on BESS for at least a year after GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, other local politicians, and a slew of aggrieved residents testified in favor of a moratorium. The day before, officials in the Long Island town of Southampton said at a public meeting they were ready to extend their battery storage ban until they enshrined a more restrictive development code – even as many energy companies testified against doing so, including NineDot and storage developer Key Capture Energy. Yonkers also recently extended its own battery moratorium.
This flurry of activity follows the Moss Landing battery plant fire in California, a rather exceptional event caused by tech that was extremely old and a battery chemistry that is no longer popular in the sector. But opponents of battery storage don’t care – they’re telling their friends to stop the community from becoming the next Moss Landing. The longer this goes on without a fulsome, strident response from the industry, the more communities may rally against them. Making matters even worse, as I explained in The Fight earlier this year, we’re seeing battery fire concerns impact solar projects too.
“This is a huge problem for solar. If [fires] start regularly happening, communities are going to say hey, you can’t put that there,” Derek Chase, CEO of battery fire smoke detection tech company OnSight Technologies, told me at Intersolar this week. “It’s going to be really detrimental.”
I’ve long worried New York City in particular may be a powder keg for the battery storage sector given its omnipresence as a popular media environment. If it happens in New York, the rest of the world learns about it.
I feel like the power of the New York media environment is not lost on Staten Island borough president Vito Fossella, a de facto leader of the anti-BESS movement in the boroughs. Last fall I interviewed Fossella, whose rhetorical strategy often leans on painting Staten Island as an overburdened community. (At least 13 battery storage projects have been in the works in Staten Island according to recent reporting. Fossella claims that is far more than any amount proposed elsewhere in the city.) He often points to battery blazes that happen elsewhere in the country, as well as fears about lithium-ion scooters that have caught fire. His goal is to enact very large setback distance requirements for battery storage, at a minimum.
“You can still put them throughout the city but you can’t put them next to people’s homes – what happens if one of these goes on fire next to a gas station,” he told me at the time, chalking the wider city government’s reluctance to capitulate on batteries to a “political problem.”
Well, I’m going to hold my breath for the real political problem in waiting – the inevitable backlash that happens when Mallitokis, D’Esposito, and others take this fight to Congress and the national stage. I bet that’s probably why American Clean Power just sent me a notice for a press briefing on battery safety next week …
And more of the week’s top conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Queen Anne’s County, Maryland – They really don’t want you to sign a solar lease out in the rural parts of this otherwise very pro-renewables state.
2. Logan County, Ohio – Staff for the Ohio Power Siting Board have recommended it reject Open Road Renewables’ Grange Solar agrivoltaics project.
3. Bandera County, Texas – On a slightly brighter note for solar, it appears that Pine Gate Renewables’ Rio Lago solar project might just be safe from county restrictions.
Here’s what else we’re watching…
In Illinois, Armoracia Solar is struggling to get necessary permits from Madison County.
In Kentucky, the mayor of Lexington is getting into a public spat with East Kentucky Power Cooperative over solar.
In Michigan, Livingston County is now backing the legal challenge to Michigan’s state permitting primacy law.
On the week’s top news around renewable energy policy.
1. IRA funding freeze update – Money is starting to get out the door, finally: the EPA unfroze most of its climate grant funding it had paused after Trump entered office.
2. Scalpel vs. sledgehammer – House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled Republicans in Congress may take a broader approach to repealing the Inflation Reduction Act than previously expected in tax talks.
3. Endangerment in danger – The EPA is reportedly urging the White House to back reversing its 2009 “endangerment” finding on air pollutants and climate change, a linchpin in the agency’s overall CO2 and climate regulatory scheme.