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A conversation with Geoff Cooper, head of the Renewable Fuels Association
Today’s conversation is with Geoff Cooper, head of the Renewable Fuels Association, the most powerful biofuels trade organization in D.C. And he’s not happy.
In Cooper’s view, the Biden administration left the IRA’s tax credit supporting lower-carbon jet fuel unfinished despite releasing guidance days before Trump entered office (here’s an explainer on that problem). Not to mention the chaos of Trump’s early days has, as Cooper put it, thrown the brakes on the American biofuels sector’s foray into aviation. Cooper and I have a history going back years, and almost a month into Trump 2.0, I thought it was time we had a chat about how solar and wind aren’t the only sectors left out in the cold right now.
The following conversation was lightly edited and abridged for clarity.
We’ve been telling our readers what’s happening in the renewable energy space under Trump. But what’s happening in the renewable fuels space?
I think what we’re seeing right now is lots of businesses hitting the pause button and waiting for more certainty, waiting for more clarity on where everything is headed. There is, of course, always uncertainty and unpredictability at the beginning of any new administration. But this one in particular there has been more than usual because we were sort of in the middle of getting rules finalized on some of those key tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act. We had good clarity, and I’d say understanding of where some of those programs were going, like 45Q, but on others like 45Z, literally, it was the last week of the Biden administration that we began to see the necessary pieces of that program we’d been waiting on, and what the administration put out was incomplete and unfinished, so now it falls to the Trump administration to decide whether and how to move forward with that. So all of that uncertainty and confusion and the timing of all of that has resulted in many companies in the renewable fuels space just calling a time out on any investment plans and strategies that they have been considering to lower carbon intensity. I think there’s a real hesitancy to dive head first into some of those investments right now when it just isn’t clear where the bottom is.
What do you mean by a pause on investment? Can you give some examples?
Under 45Z and under the initial modeling the Biden administration put out in early January, I’d say probably three-quarters of the ethanol industry is just barely on the outside of generating 45Z credit, so the carbon intensity of their ethanol is just above that threshold that would be required to generate that credit on the low end of that scale.
There are a number of technologies that producers could adopt to get them on the other side of that threshold into the position where they can begin claiming some value from 45Z — combined heat and power, installing wind or solar behind the meter at these facilities so they can enjoy the benefit of renewable electricity, using biogas in lieu of natural gas. These are all things most producers were considering, and had in some cases had deals ready to go and projects ready to go. But they’re on hold now because again, nobody’s quite sure what the future looks like for 45Z.
Are any companies saying this out loud, or is this mostly private board room chatter?
This is mostly internal conversations during board meetings and other meetings we’ve had as an association. But there have been public statements.
Is the uncertainty surrounding government funding also a factor here?
It has been. If you look at USDA — for example, the [Rural Energy for America Program] REAP program — funding was paused for that program. And it isn’t just for on-farm renewable projects. There’s some ethanol plants that had successfully applied and received commitments for REAP funding for projects they were doing and that’s been put on hold. More broadly, things have slowed down in terms of making investments and commitments to efficiency and lower carbon intensity in the industry as a result of just the broader freeze and slowdown on all of these programs at the federal level.
And again, you expect some of that is going to occur any time there’s a new administration and you go through a transition like this. But this one has been, I would say, particularly acute so far.
Do you believe that given his history supporting biofuel infrastructure in North Dakota as governor, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum will be more deferential to your members when it comes to permitting?
I should say the industry is confident that everything that’s paused right now — or, not everything, but a lot of the important programs that have been frozen or paused right now — will eventually be unstuck and the door will open back up. Certainly we see carbon capture and sequestration projects in that way, permitting for those projects. Obviously there’s a couple of carbon pipeline projects that we do expect will move forward, and the 45Q tax credit seems to be on firmer ground than 45Z at this moment. So we do expect that those things will move forward.
It’s just a matter of how long things are delayed and how long things are frozen as the new administration is reviewing things and formulating their own strategy and plans for how they want to move forward.
Do you have any idea how that’ll shake out?
I don’t think there is any indication of how it’ll shake out at this point.
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Today’s conversation is with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications, a D.C.-based communications firm that focuses on defending zero- and low-carbon energy and federal investments in climate action. Moyer, a veteran communications adviser who previously worked on Capitol Hill, has some hot takes as of late about how he believes industry and political leaders have in his view failed to properly rebut attacks on solar and wind energy, in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act. On Tuesday he sent an email blast out to his listserv – which I am on – that boldly declared: “The Wind Industry’s Strategy is Failing.”
Of course after getting that email, it shouldn’t surprise readers of The Fight to hear I had to understand what he meant by that, and share it with all of you. So here goes. The following conversation has been abridged and lightly edited for clarity.
What are you referencing when you say, ‘the wind industry’s strategy is failing’?
Anyone in the climate space, in the clean energy space, the worst thing you can do is go silent and pretend that this is just going to go away. Even if it’s the president and the administration delivering the attacks, I think there’s an important strategy that’s been lacking in the wind and other sectors that I don’t think has been effective. There was a recent E&E News story that noted a couple of wind developers when asked for comment just say, “No comment.” This to me misses a really big opportunity to not get in a fight with people but talk about the benefits of wind.
Not taking advantage of milestones like ground breaking or construction starting is a missed opportunity to drive public opinion. If you lose support in public opinion, you’re going to lose support from public officials, because they largely follow public opinion.
And there’s no way that’s going to change if you don’t take the opportunities to talk about the benefits that wind can provide, in terms of good-paying local jobs or supplying more electrons to the grid. By almost any measure the strategy employed so far has not really worked.
Okay, but what is the wind industry strategy that isn’t working? What are they doing to rebut attacks on the technology, on property values, on the environment?
We’re not hearing them. We’re not hearing those arguments.
You can’t let criticisms go unanswered.It would better serve the industry and these companies to push back against criticisms. It’s not like you can’t anticipate what they are. And what do you have to lose? You’re in the worst position of any energy sector in this political moment. It would be nice to see some fight and sharp campaign skills and strategic effort in terms of communication. And there’s no strategic value from what I can tell in [being silent].
I understand not wanting to pick a fight with folks who hold your fate in their hands, but there’s a way to thread a needle that isn’t antagonizing anybody but also making sure the facts have been heard. And that’s been missing.
You’d specifically said the industry should stop ‘being paralyzed in fear and start going on offense.’ What does that look like to you?
Taking every opportunity to get your message out there. The lowest hanging fruit is when a reporter comes and asks you, What do you think about this criticism? You should definitely reply. It’s lifting up third-party voices that are benefiting from a specific project, talking about the economic impacts more broadly, talking about the benefits to the grid.
There’s a whole number of tools in the toolbox to put to use but the toolboxes remain shut thus far. Targeted paid media, elevating the different voices and communities that are going to resonate with different legislators, and certainly the facts are helpful. Also having materials prepared, like validators and frequently asked questions and answers.
You’re trying to win. You’re trying to get your project to be successful and deliver jobs and tax revenue. And I think it would be wise for companies to look at the playbooks of electoral campaigns, because there’s lots of tools that campaigns use.
How do renewable energy developers get around the problem of partisanship? How do you get outta that through a campaign approach?
These projects are decided locally. It’s deciding who the decision-makers are and not just letting opponents who are getting talking points through right-wing media show up and reiterate these talking points. Oftentimes, there’s no one on the pro side even showing up at all, and it makes it really easy for city councils to oppose projects. They’re losing by forfeit. We can’t keep doing that.
And more on this week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Chautauqua, New York – More rural New York towns are banning renewable energy.
2. Virginia Beach, Virginia – Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project will learn its fate under the Trump administration by this fall, after a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department must come to a decision on how it’ll handle a court challenge against its permits by September.
3. Bedford County, Pennsylvania – Arena Renewables is trying to thread a needle through development in one of the riskiest Pennsylvania counties for development, with an agriculture-fueled opposition risk score of 89.
4. Knox County, Ohio – The Ohio Power Siting Board has given the green light to Open Road Renewables’ much-watched Frasier Solar project.
5. Clay County, Missouri – We’ll find out next week if rural Missouri can still take it easy on a large solar project.
6. Clark County, Nevada – President Trump’s Bureau of Land Management has pushed back the permitting process for EDF Renewables’ Bonanza solar project by at least two months and possibly longer .
7. Klickitat County, Washington – Washington State has now formally overridden local opposition to Cypress Creek’s Carriger solar project after teeing up the decision in May.
It’s governor versus secretary of state, with the fate of the local clean energy industry hanging in the balance.
I’m seeing signs that the fight over a hydrogen project in Wyoming is fracturing the state’s Republican political leadership over wind energy, threatening to trigger a war over the future of the sector in a historically friendly state for development.
At issue is the Pronghorn Clean Energy hydrogen project, proposed in the small town of Glenrock in rural Converse County, which would receive power from one wind farm nearby and another in neighboring Niobrara County. If completed, Pronghorn is expected to produce “green” hydrogen that would be transported to airports for commercial use in jet fuel. It is backed by a consortium of U.S. and international companies including Acconia and Nordex.
One can guess why investors thought this rural Wyoming expanse would be an easier place to build: it’s an energy community situated in the middle of the Powder River Basin and the state’s Republican governor Mark Gordon has supported wind projects in the state publicly, not just with rhetoric but votes in favor of them on the State Board of Land Commissioners.
Wind is also often proposed on private land in Wyoming, which is supposed to make things easier. You may remember the Lucky Star and Twin Rivers wind farms, a pair of projects whose progress I’ve watched like a hawk because they’re tied to the future of wind permitting at the national level. As we first reported, the Trump administration is proceeding with potentially approving the transmission line for Lucky Star, a project that would be sited entirely on private land, and Twin Rivers received its final environmental review in the last days of the Biden administration, making it difficult for anti-wind advocates to curtail.
Unlike those projects, Pronghorn has created a fork in the road for wind in Wyoming. It’s because the people in its host community don’t seem to want it, the wind projects were on state land, and there’s politics at play.
Despite being considered an energy community, Converse and Niobrara are both areas with especially high opposition risk, according to Heatmap Pro, largely due to its low support for renewable energy, its demographics, and concerns about impacts to the local ranching economy. After Gordon and other members of the state land use board approved two wind facilities for the hydrogen project, a rancher living nearby sued the board with public support from the mayor of Glenrock and the area’s legislators in the statehouse. A member of the Converse County zoning board even published a “manifesto” against the project, detailing local concerns that are myriad and rooted in fears of overburden, ranging from water use and property value woes to a general resentment toward an overall rise in wind turbines across the county and state.
What’s probably most concerning to wind supporters is that this local fight is bubbling up into a statewide political fracture between Gordon and his secretary of state Chuck Gray, who is believed to be a future candidate for governor. Grey was the lone dissenting vote against the two wind projects for Pronghorn, saying he did not support the projects because they would be assisted by federal tax credits Trump is trying to gut. Gray then took to mocking the governor on social media for his stance on wind while posting photos of broken wind turbines. Gordon wound up responding to his secretary of state accusing him of being the “only member of the state land board to vote against individual property rights and Wyoming schools.”
“That is his prerogative to be sure, but it demonstrates his disregard for the duties of his office and a determination to impose his personal preferences on others, no matter the cost,” Gordon stated.
I’ve been reaching out to Pronghorn and its founder Paul Martin to try and chat about what’s happening in Wyoming. I haven’t heard back, and if I do I’ll gladly follow this story up, but there’s a sign here of an issue in Wyoming whether Pronghorn gets built or not – areas of Wyoming may be on the verge of a breaking point on wind energy.
I heard about the Pronghorn project in conversations this week with folks who work on wind permitting issues in Wyoming and learned that the Gordon-Gray feud is emblematic of how the wind industry’s growth in the state is making local officials more wary of greenlighting projects. Whether Gordon’s position on private property wins out over Gray taking up the mantle of the anti-wind conservative critic may be the touchstone for the future of local planning decisions, too.
At least, that’s the sense I got talking to Sue Jones, a commissioner in Carbon County, directly southwest of Converse County. Jones admits she personally doesn’t care for wind farms and that it’s “no secret with the county, or the developers.” But so far, she hasn’t voted that way as a commissioner.
“If they meet all our rules and regs, then I’ve voted to give them a permit,” she told me. “You can’t just say no to anything. It’s a good thing that we value private property rights.”
Jones said the problem in Carbon County and other areas of Wyoming is “saturation level.” Areas of the state where only a handful of landowners hold thousands of acres? That’s probably fine for wind projects because there’s a low likelihood of a neighbor or two having a genuine grievance. But as wind has grown into population-denser areas of the state the dissent is becoming more frequent.
My gut feeling is that, as we’ve seen in many other instances, this resentment will bubble up and manifest as sweeping reform – unless the wind industry is able to properly address these growing concerns head on.