Podcast
The Least-Noticed Climate Scandal of the Trump Administration
Rob and Jesse catch up on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund with former White House official Kristina Costa.
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Rob and Jesse catch up on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund with former White House official Kristina Costa.
Rob and Jesse talk with a former Meta energy executive, Near Horizon Group’s Peter Freed.
Rob quizzes Jesse on the latest research from the REPEAT Project.
Rob and Jesse talk with Heatmap senior reporter Jael Holzman.
Rob and Jesse visit Intersolar and Energy Storage North America.
Rob and Jesse sort through their feelings after Trump's second first month in office.
Rob and Jesse get real on energy prices with PowerLines’ Charles Hua.
The most important energy regulators in the United States aren’t all in the federal government. Each state has its own public utility commission, a set of elected or appointed officials who regulate local power companies. This set of 200 individuals wield an enormous amount of power — they oversee 1% of U.S. GDP — but they’re often outmatched by local utility lobbyists and overlooked in discussions from climate advocates.
Charles Hua wants to change that. He is the founder and executive director of PowerLines, a new nonprofit engaging with America’s public utility commissions about how to deliver economic growth while keeping electricity rates — and greenhouse gas emissions — low. Charles previously advised the U.S. Department of Energy on developing its grid modernization strategy and analyzed energy policy for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk to Charles about why PUCs matter, why they might be a rare spot for progress over the next four years, and why (and how) normal people should talk to their local public utility commissioner. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Robinson Meyer: I want to pivot a bit and ask something that I think Jesse and I have talked about, something that you and I have talked about, Charles, is that the PUCs are going to be very important during the second Trump administration, and there’s a lot of possibilities, or there’s some possibilities for progress during the Trump administration, but there’s also some risks. So let’s start here: As you survey the state utility landscape, what are you worried about over the next four years or so? What should people be paying attention to at the PUC level?
Charle Hua: I think everything that we’re hearing around AI data centers, load growth, those are decisions that ultimately state public utility commissioners are going to make. And that’s because utilities are significantly revising their load forecasts.
Just take Georgia Power — which I know you talked about last episode at the end — which, in 2022, just two years ago, their projected load forecast for the end of the decade was about 400 megawatts. And then a year later, they increased that to 6,600 megawatts. So that’s a near 17x increase. And if you look at what happens with the 2023 Georgia Power IRP, I think the regulators were caught flat footed about just how much load would actually materialize from the data centers and what the impact on customer bills would be.
Meyer:And what’s an IRP? Can you just give us ...
Hua: Yes, sorry. So, integrated resource plan. So that’s the process by which utilities spell out how they’re proposing to make investments over a long term planning horizon, generally anywhere from 15 to 30 years. And if we look at, again, last year’s integrated resource plan in Georgia, there was significant proposed new fossil fuel infrastructure that was ultimately fully approved by the public service commission.
And there’s real questions about how consumer interests are or aren’t protected with decisions like that — in part because, if we look at what’s actually driving things like rising utility bills, which is a huge problem. I mean, one in three Americans can’t pay their utility bills, which have increased 20% over the last two years, two to three years. One of the biggest drivers of that is volatile gas prices that are exposed to international markets. And there’s real concern that if states are doubling down on gas investments and customers shoulder 100% of the risk of that gas price volatility that customers’ bills will only continue to grow.
And I think what’s going on in Georgia, for instance, is a harbinger of what’s to come nationally. In many ways, it’s the epitome of the U.S. clean energy transition, where there’s both a lot of clean energy investment that’s happening with all of the new growth in manufacturing facilities in Georgia, but if you actually peel beneath the layers and you see what’s going on internal to the state as it relates to its electricity mix, there’s a lot to be concerned about.
And the question is, are we going to have public utility commissions and regulatory bodies that can adequately protect the public interest in making these decisions going forward? And I think that’s the million dollar question.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Download Heatmap Labs and Hydrostor’s free report to discover the crucial role of long duration energy storage in ensuring a reliable, clean future and stable grid. Learn more about Hydrostor here.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
Rob and Jesse talk Trump, contracts, and climate messaging with the lawmaker from Hawaii.
The first few weeks of the new Trump administration have seen an onslaught of anti-climate actions: an order punishing the wind industry, an attempted reversal of the Environmental Protection Administration’s climate authority, and a brazen — and possibly unconstitutional — attempt to freeze all spending under Biden’s climate laws. Democrats’ climate legacy seems to be under assault. How will they respond?
Senator Brian Schatz has represented Hawaii in the U.S. Senate since 2010. He is the chief deputy whip for the Democratic Party. A self-described climate hawk, he helped shape what became the Inflation Reduction Act, and he has emerged as an early voice of opposition to the second Trump administration. He was previously Hawaii’s lieutenant governor and a state lawmaker.
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk to Schatz about congressional Democrats’ plan to push back against Trump, what the clean energy industry needs to do for the next four years, and whether this climate backlash to Trump should be different than the last one. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Jesse Jenkins: What can Democrats or others in opposition do to shorten that timeline, so that there is a political cost that’s felt more expediently and they do pull back from this kind of effort?
Brian Schatz: Look, I think there is strength in numbers, and so I think everyone has to — like, we can’t do this in secret, because everybody’s too afraid of being targeted. And you know, I’ve just experienced this over the last two weeks. Everyone is … you know, doesn’t want to poke their head up because the nail that stands up is pounded down. And that’s how autocrats work, right? Is that if you stand up for the rule of law, if you stand up and say, hey, I don’t think this is a good decision, then you are putting your own personal, professional safety at risk. And so there is strength in numbers.
And I’ll just also … I really strongly encourage anybody who listens to this podcast who is in the business of being a clean energy developer, do not plead with the monarch for mercy on your own project. That is what they want. They want you to come in and treat the federal government like it’s the Ford Foundation, or the Pew Charitable Trust, or whomever. And you’re basically saying, I know you don’t want to do DEI, but let me explain to you why this isn’t DEI. I know this says climate, but in fact, really, it’s severe weather adaptation.
Listen, listen, what’s happening is unlawful. What’s happening is impermissible. And the more we get people individually pleading for mercy, the more screwed we all are. We all have to hang together. It’s the American Clean Power Association. It’s the energy company that does both clean and fossil energy. It’s the transmission and distribution companies. It’s the manufacturers. It’s labor. It’s Wall Street. It’s K Street. Like, everyone has to hang together and say, not only is this good for business, but there’s something that is foundationally worse for business than any individual policy decision. And that is the idea that a president can come in and ignore the law. Because once you believe that it depends on an election whether or not a law is going to stick, the United States ceases to be as investable as it once was.
And one of the things that makes us the most powerful economy in the world is, whatever else is going on, if you’re an international investor, you have a number of factors — you know, how are you going to get your money out. But you’re always looking for political and policy stability. And the United States is always able to say, on rule of law, on political and policy stability, we rank number one, two, three, or four. And right now, it is fair to question whether or not we’re an investable place if we believe that a president can come in and just ignore a duly enacted statute.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Download Heatmap Labs and Hydrostor’s free report to discover the crucial role of long duration energy storage in ensuring a reliable, clean future and stable grid. Learn more about Hydrostor here.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.