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A conversation with Colorado's junior senator on the 2024 election, permitting reform, and what might happen with the IRA.
This week we’re talking to Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado who joined me yesterday at Heatmap’s Election Post-Game event in Washington, D.C., for a spirited chat about the 2024 election, permitting, and support for renewable energy in a Trump 2.0 era. We also talked about beer and The Fray, but we’ll spare you those details. The following is an abridged version of our conversation.
So you’ve said in your time in the Senate there needs to be a “business plan” for climate change. What’s the business plan now that Trump is going to be president again?
I said from the moment I got to Washington that I could not understand how we got so far down the road without any kind of plan. No one has mapped it out – and at this point it has to change – but there’s no sense of a plan.
Right now we have to look at the possibility of dramatic rollbacks from a lot of legislation that got passed in 2023. The Inflation Reduction Act, the largest financial commitment to addressing climate change in the history of the world. I think the CHIPS and Science Act has a lot of stuff in it that over time is going to have dramatic benefits in terms of addressing climate. Rolling back those efforts for the simple purpose of giving another tax break to the publicly traded stocks of America doesn’t seem constructive.
One thing that’ll make that difficult is many of the people who worked so hard to elect Donald Trump are receiving those benefits and those jobs. A lot of those tax credits are being spent in red states.
Faced with that rollback, which I think is really an interruption and which slows down the momentum – you want to disrupt the business plan, you want to throw a wrench in the gears, one way to do that is to create unpredictability. That anything agreed to [isn’t] going to stay the same for more than two years.
I’ve heard the argument a lot before, the past few years, that a lot of the money being spent is going to red states. Why was that not an election winning argument in these states?
My impression is people basically felt that the elites – Democrats and Republican elites – are looking down on them. They’re being judged by a woke culture. They’re being bossed around. Well over 2/3rds of the people who start business aren’t doing it to make a lot of money. They’re doing it because they can’t stand having a boss. They’re doing it because they want to be in control of their lives, their job, their work, their hours, their mission. And we Democrats did a piss poor disappointing job of communicating that way.
There’s a whole bunch of reasons why this happened like it did. Hearing the war stories the past couple of days, the kinds of ads that were used as a way of taking down Democrats were pretty outrageous.
What’s to come with permitting reform?
I think we’re seeing an alignment of self interest around permitting reform. Most of the large environmental organizations recognize that if we’re going to successfully address climate change, we’ve got to get transmission lines – you can’t spend 20 years permitting transmission lines. We’ve got to go faster. The time, sense of urgency we have, is not really sufficient. The same thing is true about critical minerals. We’re going to need so much of them and we haven’t really identified where they’re going to come from.
The bill that’s sitting there right now, I think we can get that passed. I’m not saying we’re going to. But I’m saying we have a very good chance of Republicans and Democrats lining up and saying, alright I don’t like a lot of this, but we need it.
So you think the first place people are going to go is the Manchin-Barrasso bill?
Yeah I think in the short-term I think that’s where they’re going to give their best shot.
Both sides have certain parts of that bill they are really unhappy with, and they modified certain parts of it, so [we’ll] come back from recess and everyone’ll [be] taking a fresh look at it and say well I still don’t like this but it’s not as bad as it was before.
There’s some worry in some corners of climate advocacy spaces that they’ll have less of an ear from members of Congress in light of the election results. In listening to more progressive environmentalists who’ve been critical of the bill, is listening to them a politically smart idea? Practically smart idea?
I don’t think it’s a smart idea politically or practically because I do feel this sense of urgency that we’ve got to go now.
With the Barrasso-Manchin bill, we’re still going to have to do all this work. We’re just going to do it in six months or a year or two years down the road and it takes us further and further away from dealing with the issue. The costs are asymptotic.
What climate gains will be made this Congress aside from permitting reform?
I think this great transition’s going to continue. It might slow down a little bit.
There is genuine factual basis that this transition makes sense on so many levels. Politically, it’s not something you want to talk about. But we as a country have to move in that direction. Maybe talk a little less, do a little more? I heard that advice in the musical Hamilton – talk less, smile more. We have to do the opposite, do more and smile less.
What do you mean by the transition being something you don’t want to talk about?
As you’re describing the cost of waiting for people, they can get into the nits and gnats where they can go back to who they represent and say hey, there’s a problem. The same thing happens when we talk about it. Try to talk about the issues in the broadest, most fundamental ways, because that’s the hardest way for it to be attacked. Just having the broad statement is going to be more effective with a large group of people.
So I asked if progress will be made on climate in Congress besides permitting and you didn’t say yes…
No, I’ll say yes. The great thing about the Inflation Reduction Act is that it put a lot of things in play. Carbon capture, there’s a bunch of research projects and a couple of implementations in red states where they are making great progress in terms of how they can get carbon out of the air in an increasingly cost-effective way. I haven’t seen it make any kind of economic sense, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to get there. Hydrogen is a huge thing. Looking at some of the new nuclear reactors, where they’re looking at types of fusion reactors, small and large. Climate change is not going to allow us to go and pick out our favorite treats.
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A conversation with Tim Brightbill of Wiley Rein LLP
Today we’re talking with Tim Brightbill, a trade attorney at Wiley Rein LLP and lead counsel for a coalition of U.S. solar cell and module manufacturers – the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee. Last week, his client won a massive victory – fresh tariffs on south Asian solar panel parts – on the premise that Chinese firms are dumping cheap products in the region to drive down prices and hurt American companies. It’s the latest in a long series of decadal trade actions against solar parts with Chinese origin.
We wanted to talk to Tim about how this move could affect developers, if an America-first strategy could help insulate solar from political opposition, and how this could play out in next year’s talks over the future of the IRA. The following conversation was lightly edited for clarity.
If you were talking to a developer, what would you tell them should be their takeaway?
I think the takeaway is that these determinations appear to go a long way toward addressing the unfair trade that’s been present in solar panels, solar cells, for more than a decade. And I think these duties do send a signal that will help build up domestic manufacturing. We’ve seen historic investment next to the Inflation Reduction Act in U.S. solar manufacturing facilities – in places like Georgia with QCells, in Ohio for First Solar – and we’re at a critically important point here.
Those investments were being undercut by this unfair trade by these Chinese-owned companies. We think now hopefully that will be addressed and that should lead to a bright future for solar deployment, the growth of solar power in the United States.
How does the pursuit of a fairer trade landscape globally in the broader sense impact support for solar energy in the U.S.? I hear often that a “made without China” approach can shore up support for renewables. Do you find that to be the case?
Definitely, I find that to be the case.
The U.S. industry invented solar technology and perfected it. And then unfortunately, it was virtually wiped out due to the unfair trade practices of China and these Chinese-owned companies. If we want to have solar and not be dependent on other countries for renewable energy needs, the best way to do that is to have a strong manufacturing base and a strong supply chain.
What do you think the direction of this is going to be under the next administration? Even more ratcheting up of trade measures?
Well the trade laws are a calculation, right? They’re based on rules, they’re not political. I don’t expect this administration to necessarily change individual trade cases. But I do think trade policy will change in a way that tries to address these Chinese-owned companies that undercut the rest of the world.
For example, the IRA provides right now potential benefits for any company that sets up shop here, even if they are owned by a foreign entity of concern. That seems like something this administration is going to address. If you’re going to receive IRA money, you should not be affiliated with a foreign entity of concern.
Given the potential for an impact on pricing, combined with the impacts on limiting the tax credits in that way – wouldn’t that make it harder to build projects in the U.S. short term?
I don’t think so. The solar panels themselves are not anywhere close to the majority of the cost of a project. There are so many other things that impact project cost, from permitting to the land. I don’t think this will impact the costs of deployment of solar. It will just give us a more secure supply chain that is either here in the United States or at least more regional in nature, which is going to be better for the industry.
With foreign entities of concern – are you referring to 45X? You’re anticipating that tax credit will change with respect to the IRA?
I expect the Trump administration will focus on that. There are already other related products under IRA where “foreign entity of concern” participation is not allowed for those tax credits. So it seems like a ready fix to ensure that is the same for solar technologies.
Is that bad news, or is that saving the credit?
I don’t think it’s bad news. I think it’s good news. It means more of the credit will be available to U.S. companies and our allies who might want to set up here as well.
If Chinese companies want to come here and set up in the United States, that’s great, but they shouldn’t also receive subsidies because those are the same companies that have harmed our industry with unfair trade for more than a decade.
Okay enough serious talk. Can I ask you a fun question: what was the last band you listened to?
It’s sort of dad rock-ish right now: Spoon. When I get my Spotify Wrapped, it’s going to be Spoon. That’s my favorite rock band right now.
And more of the week’s biggest news around renewable energy policy.
Sourcing requirements – As we explain in our Q&A today, there’s momentum building in Washington, D.C., to attach new sourcing requirements to an IRA credit for advanced manufacturing known as 45X.
Virginia’s planning – The state of Virginia is looking at its own plans to override local objections, which would make it one of the few GOP-led states to do so.
Here’s what else we’re watching…
And more of the week’s news around renewable energy conflicts.
Queens County, New York – TotalEnergies’ first Attentive Energy offshore wind project might be the canary in the Trumpy renewables coal mine.
Clinton County, Michigan – EV manufacturing news in Michigan is showing that fallout from Trump’s election may not be limited to offshore wind, and could creep into other projects facing grassroots opposition.
Linn County, Iowa – Even carbon pipelines facing opposition are getting canceled right now, after Wolf Carbon Solutions rescinded its project application to the Iowa Utilities Board.
Here’s what else we’re watching right now …
In California, the city of Escondido has extended its moratorium against the Seguro battery storage project. (Consider us shocked.)
In Illinois, an Acconia Energy solar farm’s application with the Will County government is being delayed over local opposition.
In Nebraska, NextEra is facing resistance to a new 2,400 acre solar farm in Lancaster County.
In Oklahoma, momentum for a moratorium is building in Lincoln County, an area once friendly to wind development.
In New York, the small town of Glenville rejected a small solar project proposed by a Nexamp subsidiary.