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Q&A

Do Trump’s Attacks on Renewables Make a Permitting Deal Pointless?

A conversation with Jared Huffman, ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Jared Huffman
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Today’s chat is with House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the most important committee for land use in the House of Representatives. This week, Huffman and other Democrats spoke out against efforts by the Trump administration to lay off staff at four publicly backed power grid planners and operators known as Power Marketing Administrators, or PMAs. This led me to ask Huffman’s office if I could chat with the congressman about the eroding independence of these historically insulated government bodies, as well as permitting staff.

Our conversation left me feeling mostly hopeless on solutions coming anytime soon, with a dash of gratitude that at least someone in government cares about this.

Here’s an edited transcript of our conversation:

Walk me through how, in the minority, you’re trying to deal with the politicization of and disruption to ordinarily independent agencies and entities that operate our government?

We don’t have the tools I’d like, but we’re not entirely powerless. We have our public platforms and communication opportunities. And our votes are still needed from time to time, even in a Republican Congress. So it’s a combination of that and working with outside litigants where we can and trying our best to drive public opinion. That’s pretty much the toolbox.

Do you envision this issue — given how much trouble there was getting folks to appreciate the IRA — being something that really gets the public’s attention?

PMAs are pretty abstract for most Americans. I don’t know that we are going to get them to understand what all of these entities do or how they’re funded or why they’re important. But this clown car exercise with DOGE doing a ready-set-aim exercise with the PMAs could be a learning moment.

What do you mean by that?

These guys are running roughshod through a whole bunch of federal agencies that they don’t even really understand, and they’re pretending to cut things and lay off people in some cases that don’t even affect the federal treasury or deficit. So the levels of ignorance and recklessness are stunning and could help us explain to the American people what’s wrong with this out of control process.

What are you hearing in terms of how the government is interacting with energy developers, especially those in renewables?

I hear a lot of concern and confusion. I don’t know that this PMA episode is particularly revealing in terms of where we’re going with energy development and the grid. But it’s definitely a cautionary tale about allowing a bunch of bozos in hoodies to have the authority to cut budgets they don’t understand.

But with respect to the PMAs, those are usually independent. Do you or anyone you speak to have concern about this independence eroding and it trickling down to renewables?

Oh, of course I am concerned about that. But I am concerned about that across the spectrum of independent agencies. From the DOJ to the FTC to the SEC to the Postal Service and everything else. This is fundamentally a bad idea to try to bring every entity on the federal org chart under the direct authority of Donald Trump.

Another place we’ve seen staff shakeup is in environmental agencies tasked with permitting projects.

You and other lawmakers gave agencies more money to hire staff to process permits and my reporting has revealed how that money and staff time has been impacted by Trump’s return to the White House. Walk me through how you see the situation with permitting, staff and the layoffs?

What we did was real permitting reform. What they want to do is talk about permitting reform and then actually getting rid of environmental laws. So you’re going to see them do things — they’ve already started — that actually slow down permitting and environmental reviews. And this is something they claim they care about. It’s all in service of a bigger objective: to clear away environmental laws so things like fossil fuel development don’t even have to get permits. They just happen.

Do you think we’re about to be in a world where fossil fuel permits flow from the federal agencies like water but renewables struggle to get their go-aheads?

I think that’s clearly where they want to go.

Does that make it harder to pass legislation to deal with the permitting process?

I think it makes it pointless. To have an intelligent conversation about permitting reform when these guys won’t even follow legislation — they won’t even keep the things we have already done that are achieving permitting reform.

If you were talking to an energy executive, one of these renewables developers who still wants to build projects, what would you say to them?

I’d say, work with state and local governments.

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Q&A

How the Wind Industry Can Fight Back

A conversation with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications

The Q&A subject.
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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.

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Hotspots

A New York Town Bans Both Renewable Energy And Data Centers

And more on this week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.

The United States.
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1. Chautauqua, New York – More rural New York towns are banning renewable energy.

  • Chautauqua, a vacation town in southern New York, has now reportedly issued a one-year moratorium on wind projects – though it’s not entirely obvious whether a wind project is in active development within its boundaries, and town officials have confessed none are being planned as of now.
  • Apparently, per local press, this temporary ban is tied to a broader effort to update the town’s overall land use plan to “manage renewable energy and other emerging high-impact uses” – and will lead to an ordinance that restricts data centers as well as solar and wind projects.
  • I anticipate this strategy where towns update land use plans to target data centers and renewables at the same time will be a lasting trend.

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.

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Spotlight

The Wind Projects Breaking the Wyoming GOP

It’s governor versus secretary of state, with the fate of the local clean energy industry hanging in the balance.

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon.
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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.

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