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Inside season 2, episode 3 of Shift Key.
It’s time to start talking about a big year for climate politics and policy: 2025. No matter who wins this fall’s elections, next year’s executive and legislative climate policy will be huge for America’s decarbonization strategy. Congress is all but guaranteed to negotiate over key parts of the country’s tax code, and whoever controls the White House will have to finalize the Inflation Reduction Act’s last few big programs.
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse and Rob are joined by Josh Freed, who leads Third Way’s climate and energy program, to game out the most likely scenarios. If Trump wins with a Republican Congress, will they repeal the Inflation Reduction Act? What if Trump wins but Democrats take the House? And what would Kamala Harris do with a trifecta? Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Jesse Jenkins: Where climate policy succeeds the most, in my view, is where it sits in an intersectional role — where it is not climate policy as purely climate policy, but rather climate policy as something that is tied to a broader agenda. And one that — as you articulated, Josh — at least in rhetoric, is something that is bipartisan. It’s a prior set of priorities, shared across the political divide, to see American companies do well, and to see America play a strong role in the world stage. I think the details of that are obviously very important, and there’s a lot of different ways that could go.
Josh Freed: And Jesse, one other point I think you made that’s really important is, because of the transformative nature of the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and even Justice40 and everything else that we’ve seen, climate policy is an underpinning of so much of whatever the next Democratic administration, a Harris administration, would do that, rhetorically, it may not even be mentioned that much. We didn’t hear Kamala Harris discuss climate change extensively last night in her remarks. However, when she talks about security, when she talks about economic opportunity, when she talks about the strength of the American economy, it is driven in by what we are seeing happen and what happens next on all of the mechanisms that the Inflation Reduction Act created, and on the potential for us to get permitting reform, whether it’s later this year or next year.
It’s this very interesting next step for us in climate and clean energy policy, where it is just implicit that it’s happening rather than something that has to be explicitly talked about as much politically. And so, you know, this isn’t something where we necessarily need to have a President Harris marching around the country, talking about it explicitly, because people are going to see and feel that it’s going to look different, and therefore it can be weaved into whatever new way forward she is describing because people will see their communities looking and feeling differently than they did four, six, eight, 10 years ago. If I think of some of the other components that we were talking about — permitting reform gets unlocked. Some of the challenges that we’re seeing because deployment takes a little while, because delivery of grants takes a little while, get unstuck even more. And she provides that broader vision.
And I think that one of the things is that, Joe Biden, when he ran in 2020, talked about himself in somewhat the context of a transitional figure. And he bridged the old economy and a different way of doing things than we do in 2022, 2024, with what the future looks like. And Kamala really is positioning herself as a new generation and next chapter of leadership. And so if you see the benefits of it — and she talks about what’s happening within some sort of broader context, which I think is going to have more of a care economy focus, a very muscular American foreign policy focus — again, it’s going to be implicit in all of that, and there will be evidence of it.
Robinson Meyer: I guess I feel like I can imagine this as a campaign line, coming out maybe later in October, as the Fed’s going to cut, inflation should hopefully moderate, the labor market hopefully won’t soften too much, and then you can start to make an affirmative case about the economy. I think one issue that Harris has had broadly here is that she has to signal that she understands that voters are not happy with the current state of the economy.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
As a global leader in PV and ESS solutions, Sungrow invests heavily in research and development, constantly pushing the boundaries of solar and battery inverter technology. Discover why Sungrow is the essential component of the clean energy transition by visiting sungrowpower.com.
Antenna Group helps you connect with customers, policymakers, investors, and strategic partners to influence markets and accelerate adoption. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
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The president’s early executive orders give the once-and-future head of the Office of Management and Budget far-reaching powers.
When Donald Trump has talked about his new administration’s energy policy leaders, he has focused, so far, on a specific type of person.
You might call them energy insiders. At the highest level, they include Doug Burgum, the former North Dakota governor and incoming interior secretary, and Chris Wright, the fracking executive and incoming energy secretary. Both soon-to-be officials know a lot about how the energy industry works, and they hold beliefs about energy development that — while far from aligned with the climate policy mainstream — are directionally in agreement with many in the fossil fuel industry itself.
But based on a close reading of Trump’s initial executive orders, they are not the only officials who will wield power in the Trump administration. Instead, crucial energy policy will be decided in part by a small number of individuals who have no special insight into the energy industry, but who do have various dogmatic ideas about how the government and the economy should work. The most powerful of this second group is Russ Vought, a lead author of Project 2025 and the director-designate of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Trump’s initial orders establish the White House Office of Management and Budget, known as OMB, as an unmistakable de facto power center for energy and climate policy in the administration. In clause after clause of Trump’s orders, energy officials across the federal government are told to consult with the OMB director before they can make a decision, rewrite a regulation, or disburse funding.
Even in more constrained presidencies, OMB has been a particularly powerful agency. As the largest office in the White House, OMB is in charge of writing the president’s annual budget proposal and working with Congress on legislation; one of its suboffices, the Office of Information and Regulation, approves new federal rules before they are finalized.
Vought’s vision for the agency goes far beyond those traditional lines, though. He believes that OMB can play a role in curtailing the size of the federal government and firing reams of civil servants. He argues that the White House can claw back funding that has been appropriated by Congress, even though the Constitution gives control over “the power of the purse” to Congress alone.
Trump’s executive orders suggest that Vought’s OMB will seek to uproot existing energy policy — and that some of his earliest attempts at freezing congressional spending may affect the climate.
A provision in Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, signed hours after his inauguration, pauses all funding tied to the Inflation Reduction Act or Bipartisan Infrastructure Law until Vought personally approves of it.
This provision appeared to freeze all funding tied to either law for 90 days, a drastic move that could already violate Congress’s spending authority under the Constitution. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974, a federal law that governs this authority, allows the president to pause funding for 45 days, not 90. (Vought believes that this law is “unconstitutional.”)
Then it allows Vought and Kevin Hassett, who will lead Trump’s National Economic Council, discretion over whether that money gets spent. “No funds identified in this subsection … shall be disbursed by a given agency until the Director of OMB and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy have determined that such disbursements are consistent with any review recommendations they have chosen to adopt,” the order says.
After this order threw billions of dollars of federal highway and transportation funding into question, the White House seemed to walk back some of the policy Tuesday, clarifying that it only sought to block funding related to what it called President Joe Biden’s “Green New Deal.” (Even this change still leaves open exactly what funding has been frozen.)
This is not the only place where OMB appears in Trump’s energy orders. The “Unleashing American Energy” directive requires the head of the Environmental Protection Administration to reopen a study into whether carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases are dangerous air pollutants.
The EPA first found that greenhouse gases cause climate change — and are therefore dangerous — in 2009. The first Trump administration didn’t try to overturn this finding because it is scientifically unimpeachable.
The same order also says that OMB will soon issue new rules governing agency actions “when procuring goods and services, making decisions about leases, and making other arrangements that result in disbursements of Federal funds.”
Missing from the new executive orders is virtually any mention of the National Energy Council, the new Burgum-led entity that Trump has said he will create in the White House. It’s still unclear what role this body will play in the Trump administration, but it has been described as a nerve center for decision-making about all energy policy. The new array of orders suggest OMB may already be claiming part of that role.
That said, the Interior and Energy secretaries make their own appearance in the orders. The orders direct the Secretary of the Interior to investigate what can be done to speed up and grant permits for domestic mining. And the orders convene the Endangered Species Act’s so-called “God squad,” a council of agency heads that can override provisions in the conservation law. The Interior Secretary sits on this powerful committee.
The most significant sign of Wright’s influence, meanwhile, is that Trump’s declaration of an energy “emergency” calls out energy technologies that he favors or that his company has invested in, including geothermal technology and nuclear fission.
One possible reason for Wright and Burgum’s absence: Neither has yet joined the administration officially. Both are likely to be confirmed by the Senate on Thursday. They might want to talk to their colleague Russ Vought when they get in the door.
On Trump’s EPA appointees, solar in Europe, and a new fire in California.
Current conditions:Ireland and the UK are preparing for heavy rain and 90 mile per hour winds from the coming Storm Eowyn, which will hit early Friday morning • A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck the Philippines on Thursday • The Los Angeles fire department quickly stopped a new brush fire that erupted near Bel Air on Wednesday night from progressing.
The Hughes Fire, which broke out Wednesday morning near a state recreation area in northwest Los Angeles County, grew rapidly to more than 10,000 acres — nearly the size of the Eaton Fire in Alatadena — within just a few hours. CalFire, the state fire agency, ordered more than 30,000 people to evacuate, and 20,000 more were warned to prepare for mandatory evacuation. Harrowing footage posted online by United Farm Workers shows strawberry pickers in nearby Ventura County harvesting through a thick orange haze. But by Wednesday night, the fire was 14% contained and had only burned through brush — no structures have been reported as damaged. L.A. County is still under a red flag warning until Friday morning. A light rain is expected over the weekend.
Resting after evacuating near Castaic, California.Mario Tama/Getty Images
The European Union got more of its electricity in 2024 from solar panels than from coal-fired power plants — the first time solar has overtaken coal for an entire year in the bloc, according to a new analysis by the think tank Ember. The group found that natural gas power also declined, cutting total 2024 EU power sector emissions to below half of their 2007 peak. Renewable energy now makes up nearly half of EU energy generation, up from about a third in 2019, when the European Green Deal became law. Another 24% of its power comes from nuclear, meaning that nearly three-quarters of the EU’s power is now carbon-free. “Fossil fuels are losing their grip on EU energy,” Chris Rosslowe, a senior analyst at Ember and lead author of the report said in a press release.
Chart courtesy of Ember
Three former Environmental Protection Agency staffers who played key roles undoing chemical, climate, and water regulations during Trump’s first term are heading back to the agency. Nancy Beck, a toxicologist and former director of regulatory policy for the chemical industry’s main trade group, the American Chemistry Council, has been named a senior adviser to the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety, according to The New York Times. She famously re-wrote a rule that made it harder to track the health effects of “forever chemicals.” Lynn Ann Dekleva, who had a 30-year run at DuPont (which invented forever chemicals) before joining the first Trump administration, has been appointed a deputy assistant administrator overseeing new chemicals. Lastly, David Fotouhi, a lawyer who most recently fought the EPA’s ban on asbestos and previously helped Trump roll back federal protections for wetlands, has been nominated to return to the agency as one of its top brass — deputy administrator.
Two partially-built nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in South Carolina, abandoned in 2017 after their construction became a boondoggle, could be the latest prize for a data center developer looking for clean, 24/7 power. South Carolina state-owned utility Santee Cooper, which owns the reactors, is seeking proposals from buyers interested in finishing construction or doing something else with the assets. The company claims it is “the only site in the U.S. that could deliver 2,200 megawatts of nuclear capacity on an accelerated timeline.” The plant was about 40% complete when the project was halted.
Trump floated the idea of putting states in charge of disaster response in an interview on Fox News Wednesday night. Trump told Sean Hannity that he’d “rather see the states take care of their own problems” and that “the federal government can help them out with the money.” The statements come ahead of Trump’s plans to survey recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and the aftermath of the wildfires in California later this week — his first trip since beginning his second term. The interview followed reporting from The New York Times that Trump has installed Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL “who does not appear to have experience coordinating responses to large scale disasters,” as temporary administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
California State Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris wants to set up a pilot program to test the potential for self-driving helicopters to put out wildfires under conditions that are too dangerous for human pilots. The idea might not be so far off — Lockheed Martin demonstrated that its autonomous Black Hawk helicopter could locate a fire and dump water on it in Connecticut last fall.
An autonomous Black Hawk demonstrates its potential.Courtesy of Lockheed Martin
The Hughes Fire ballooned to nearly 9,500 acres in a matter of hours.
In a textbook illustration of how quickly a fire can start, spread, and threaten lives during historically dry and windy conditions, a new blaze has broken out in beleaguered Los Angeles County.
The Hughes Fire ignited Wednesday around 11 a.m. PT to the north of Santa Clarita and has already billowed to nearly 9,500 acres, buffeted by winds of 20 to 25 miles per hour with sustained gusts up to 40 miles per hour, Lisa Phillips, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, told me. The area had been under a red-flag warning that started Sunday evening and now extends through Thursday night. “There are super dry conditions, critically dry fuel — that’s the basic formula for red flag conditions,” Phillips said. “So it’s definitely meeting criteria.”
This early in a new fire, the situation is dangerously fluid. The Hughes Fire is 0% contained and spreading swiftly as firefighters attempt to contain it through an aerial flame-suppression barrage that has diminishing returns once the winds grow stronger and begin to blow the retardant away. Once that happens, it will be up to crews on the ground to establish lines to prevent another difficult-to-fight urban fire.
As of Wednesday evening, some 31,000 people were under evacuation orders, and another 23,000 were under evacuation warnings, according to The New York Times. Authorities have had to evacuate at least three schools — yet another testament to the surprising growth and spread of the new fire.
“It’s important for people to remain aware of their surroundings, and if there is a fire nearby, you need to consider putting together a bag of some important items,” Phillips said. She stressed that, especially in rapidly evolving situations like this one, “sometimes you don’t get a whole lot of warning when they say you need to go now.”
At a news conference Wednesday evening, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said that conditions remained difficult, but that less extreme wind conditions than those they faced two weeks ago had allowed firefighters to get “the upper hand.”
The NWS expects winds to pick up overnight, which could complicate firefighting efforts in the fire-weary county. To date, some 40,000 acres of southern California have burned since the start of the year.
Editor’s note: This story was last updated January 22, at 9 p.m. ET.