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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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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.