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A conversation with Frank Maisano of Bracewell
Today’s Q&A is with Frank Maisano, one of the most sought-after energy lobbyists in Washington. Maisano, a Beltway veteran who has worked in Congress as well, has a long history with me that goes back to the earliest days of my environmental reporting career. So when I helped author a story for Heatmap this week about the budget risks to the Inflation Reduction Act, he reached out and asked if he could give me his take: that our reporting missed the mark.
Naturally, I asked if I could publish the whole thing in my newsletter, because what good is a lobbyist’s words if they aren’t written down? The following is an abridged version of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity.
Frank, once again, thanks for taking the time to reach out and tell us why we’re wrong. Let’s start with my burning question: tell me why?
Well I don’t know that everything you wrote about is wrong, but I think historical perspective is important here. Unfortunately when you’re as old as I am, and have been involved in this game as long as I have, you know from things that happened before that everything is not new again.
When I worked on the Appropriations Committee in 1994, 1995 and Republicans took over with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, many of these types of budget-cutting plans were in place. At the time, Republicans didn’t have total control because Clinton was president, but Project 2025 isn’t just Project 2025. It was Project 2005. It was Project 1985. The Heritage Foundation has been making these proposals every year for the 40 years I’ve been around. I’d just want to remind people of the operational historical context for how Congress works and how folks have been trying to do this for years.
I was talking to somebody the other day and I said, Talk to me in December of this year. Because in December of this year, a lot of this hyperbolic symbolism and walking people out of agencies — all of this will be over. Congress will have spoken and we’ll have a better sense of the true direction they’re going in.
I’m not going to say there won’t be significant cuts. I suspect there will be reductions in government spending. But it’s certainly not going to be as harried, frantic, and news-splashed as we’re seeing now.
Do you actually think these Republicans who signed onto a letter defending the Inflation Reduction Act will stand by these statements when a final bill comes for a vote?
Are you asking if the 21 will stand by the statements?
Yeah, I mean, the point of our story was to say the budget math matters more than that and there’ll be a choice between tax cuts and saving more of the IRA.
Like I said, when we went through this in 1994, you would think the budget math mattered more, but it never does. Once people start lobbying and start advocating for their own constituencies, local projects, I think you’re going to see a significant trimming of the attitude.
There’s a few people who, budget be damned, will be in the ‘let’s cut everything’ book. I don’t think that’s a majority of the [Republican] caucus, though, especially when you look at provisions of the IRA. There are many provisions of the IRA that are how Republicans have done energy policy for years. There were provisions in the bipartisan infrastructure law that were how Republicans have done energy policy for years.
Has every Republican supported it? No. Are there certain loud voices on the budget hawk side? Absolutely. Do either of those sides have a full measure of support that’s going to pull someone like a tug of war over to the other side? Most likely not. There’s going to have to be an internal party agreement but also an internal congressional agreement which I think will tend to pull this budget hawk-ness further away from the absolute spending cuts they want to impose.
Do you think the administration’s views on wind, solar, or battery storage deployment will matter when it comes to the fate of the IRA?
They may have a specific view. But a lot of it is out of their hands. The market has made decisions already. Utilities, investor-owned, even rural co-op utilities have made decisions already in balancing their generation sources.
I don’t think any sort of administration policy to X one off or close it out is probably that viable. Especially in the sense where we need all the energy we can get.
Demand takes control of the policy levers. We saw this with the Biden administration on oil and gas where they tried mightily to reduce our output, but then 2022 came around and they felt compelled to push more development and then we had record development under the Biden administration.
I think we’re going to see similar energy trends in this administration with the policy levers the administration is less interested in. Let me give you an example: I think offshore wind is going to still be able to play a role in meeting that energy demand. Look at what’s happening in the Northeast, and in Virginia, where they have incredible energy demand projections. Offshore wind along with natural gas along with some nuclear are [together] going to play a role in how we meet that demand in the future. Even if the administration pushes back on offshore wind, [Republican Virginia Gov.] Glenn Youngkin sees it as a part of his mix and that is a powerful force. I see that offsetting some of the policy push preferences this administration might have.
I know in the ‘90s you were involved in navigating this, but I’m still wondering after all this if the budget math we brought up in our story and parliamentary procedure will matter…
It certainly does matter and it’s certainly one way to look at it. But Congress has a way of coming to a deal.
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Plus, what a Texas energy veteran thinks is behind the surprising turn against solar and wind.
I couldn’t have a single conversation with a developer this week without talking about Texas.
In case you’re unaware, the Texas Senate two days ago passed legislation — SB 819 — that would require all solar and wind projects over 10 megawatts to receive a certification from the state Public Utilities Commission — a process fossil fuel generation doesn’t have to go through. The bill, which one renewables group CEO testified would “kill” the industry in Texas, was approved by the legislature’s GOP majority despite a large number of landowners and ranchers testifying against the bill, an ongoing solar and wind boom in the state, and a need to quickly provide energy to Texas’ growing number of data centers and battery manufacturing facilities.
But that’s not all: On the same day, the Texas Senate Business and Commerce Committee approved a bill — SB 715 — that would target solar and wind by requiring generation facilities to be able to produce power whenever called upon by grid operators or otherwise pay a fine. Critics of the bill, which as written does not differentiate between new and existing facilities, say it could constrain the growth of Texas’ energy grid, not to mention impose penalties on solar and wind facilities that lack sufficient energy storage on site.
Renewable energy trades are in freak-out mode, mobilizing to try and scuttlebutt bills that could stifle what otherwise would be a perfect state for the sector. As we’ve previously explained, a big reason why Texas is so good for development is because, despite its ruby red nature, there is scant regulation letting towns or counties get in the way of energy development generally.
Seeking to best understand why anti-renewables bills are sailing through the Lone Star State, I phoned Doug Lewin, a Texas energy sector veteran, on the morning of the votes in the Texas Senate. Lewin said he believes that unlike other circumstances we’ve written about, like Oklahoma and Arizona, there really isn’t a groundswell of Texans against renewable energy development. This aligns with our data in Heatmap Pro, which shows 76% of counties being more welcoming than average to a utility-scale wind or solar farm. This is seen even in the author of the 24/7 power bill – state Senator Kevin Sparks – who represents the city of Midland, which is in a county that Heatmap Pro modeling indicates has a low risk of opposition. The Midland area is home to several wind and solar projects; German renewables giant RWE last month announced it would expand into the county to power oil and gas extraction with renewables.
But Lewin told me there’s another factor: He believes the legislation is largely motivated by legislators’ conservative voters suffering from a “misinformation” and “algorithm” problem. It’s their information diets, he believes, which are producing fears about the environmental impacts of developing renewable energy.
“He’s actively working against the interests of his district,” Lewin said of Sparks. “It’s algorithms. I don’t know what folks think is going on. People are just getting a lot of bad information.”
One prominent example came from a hailstorm during Hurricane Uri last year. Ice rocks described like golfballs rained down upon south-east Texas, striking, among other things, a utility-scale solar farm called Fighting Jays overseen by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. The incident went viral on Facebook and was seized upon by large conservative advocacy organizations including the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
What’s next? Honestly, the only thing standing between these bills and becoming law is a sliver of hope in the renewables world that the millions of dollars flowing into Texas House members’ districts via project investments and tax benefits outweigh the conservative cultural animus against their product. But if the past is prologue, things aren’t looking great.
And more of the week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Westchester County, N.Y. – Residents in Yonkers are pressuring city officials to renew a moratorium on battery storage before it expires in July.
2. Atlantic County, New Jersey – Sorry Atlantic Shores, but you’re not getting your EPA permit back.
3. St Clair County, Michigan – We may soon have what appears to be the first-ever county health regulations targeting renewable energy.
4. Freeborn County, Minnesota – Officials in this county have rejected a Midwater Energy Storage battery storage project citing concerns about fires.
5. Little River County, Arkansas – A petition circulating in this county would put the tax abatement for a NextEra solar project up for a vote county-wide.
6. Van Zandt County, Texas – Officials in this county have reportedly succeeded in getting a court to impose a restraining order against Taaleri Energy to halt the Amador battery storage project.
7. Gillespie County, Texas – Peregrine Energy’s battery storage proposal in the rural town of Harper is also facing a mounting local outcry.
8. Churchill County, Nevada – Battery storage might be good for Nevada mining, but we have what appears to be our first sign of revolt against the technology in the state.
A conversation with Mike Barnwell of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights
Today’s conversation is with Mike Barnwell at the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, a union organization more than 14,000 members strong. I reached out to Barnwell because I’d been trying to better understand the role labor unions could play in influencing renewables policy decisions, from the labor permitting office to the fate of the Inflation Reduction Act. So I called him up on my way home from the American Clean Power Association’s permitting conference in Seattle, where I gave a talk, and we chatted about how much I love Coney Island chili in Detroit. Oh, and renewable energy, of course.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
I guess to start, we covered Michigan’s new permitting and siting law. What role did your union play in that process?
Locally, with the siting laws, we were a big part of that from the local level all the way to the state. From speaking at the Capitol down to city council and building authority meetings about projects happening in areas and cleaning out some of the red tape to make these possible.
It’s created jobs for our members current and future.
So you see labor as being helpful in getting permitting done faster?
Being labor maybe I’m biased but I think it is. I say labor collectively, we’ve got a pretty good coalition here in Michigan.
Do you think unions like yours will be similarly influential in the future of the Inflation Reduction Act back in Washington, D.C.?
Let me put it this way: the requirements of registered apprenticeships being on site come back to creating jobs for our members. Otherwise it’s just hiring anybody off the street – unskilled and unsafe workplaces. We train our folks through our apprenticeships and that legislation is ensuring safety on the jobs for one, let alone letting them build careers and pensions.
We’re a carpenter-centric union but this all falls under the work of what we do. We’ve been implementing our four-year apprenticeship program — every kind of renewable energy training you can think of, we’ve implemented it into our programs. It’s hands on. We have mockups at our training centers where [projects] get built and torn down and built and torn down. When you talk about a utility-scale solar project, it’s an average of 160-170 individuals working on that project. Without proper skills training they can’t work in coordination with each other.
How are you feeling about the future of the tax credits?
Uneasy.
The current leadership, they obviously have different views than the past leadership did. Lookit – when you talk about the IRA that has done nothing but create jobs for the blue collar working man in not just our state but around the nation. Here in Michigan, it almost went from zero to sixty in 10 seconds. It was miraculous what they did for us. We went from scratching and clawing in trying to procure these projects to now the IRA requiring skill training and prevailing wage and benefits and health care, which what as a union we’re all about.
Just in the last year, we’ve brought on over 300 new members just for solar alone. That’s all because of the federal tax credit and the language in the IRA.
Last question – what role do you see labor playing in the process of getting individual projects permitted and built?
Our role in that, I’ve been to plenty of these community meetings myself but it’s the actual working guy, the guy who is using his tools every week, who goes and speaks up to their county or town leadership about the benefits of these projects.
That big BlueOval battery plant in Marshall, Michigan – I don’t know if that would’ve been permitted without the work of our members being at those meetings, letting their voices be heard. There was obviously an opposition voice as well, but ours were a bit louder in the room. People want to hear the voices that say yes we want it and here’s why. This is how I support my family from the work on these projects. Otherwise it would’ve never gotten off the ground.