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Your guide to the important races from Alaska to Arizona and everywhere in between.
In 2015, just one state had a goal of reaching 100% clean energy; today, over half the American population lives in states that do. That progress is thanks in large part to voters, who’ve prioritized electing candidates that support renewable energy, electric vehicles, climate justice, and other green policies.
And who’s making those policies? The people at the bottom of the ticket — candidates for the kind of local and state-level offices that do most of the nitty-gritty climate policymaking in this country. Here is a representative, albeit far from exhaustive, list of eight I’ll be keeping my eye on this year.
Who’s running: There are 10 candidates in Anchorage’s nonpartisan mayoral election, but the ones you need to know are Republican incumbent Mayor David Bronson; Democratic Party-endorsed Suzanne LaFrance, who helped pass the city’s Climate Action Plan while in the State Assembly; former state legislator and Democratic Party-endorsed Chris Tuck; and the Republican Party-endorsed former president and CEO of the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation Bill Popp.
State of the race: Bronson led with 35% of the vote in polls a month out from election day on April 2, but that wouldn’t put him over the 45% hump he needs to win without a runoff. LaFrance holds around 25% of the potential vote, and experts say she’d likely beat Bronson if it goes to a runoff.
Why it matters: Southcentral Alaska, home to half the state’s population, gets most of its energy from wells owned by Hilcorp in Cook Inlet. Hilcorp, however, has warned that it won’t commit to signing new contracts, which begin to expire next year, due to natural gas shortages. Mayors in the region, including Anchorage’s Bronson, recently formed a coalition to address the looming energy crisis, with solutions ranging from importing liquified natural gas from out of state, abroad, or Alaska’s North Slope 800 miles away; to new drilling (Bronson’s proposal); to finding an “alternative” source of energy (LaFrance’s stance). Whatever way you cut it, though, the next mayor of Anchorage is likely to have an outsized role in determining the state’s energy future, with organizations like The Alaska Center, which advocates for renewable energy, and Lead Locally, which champions climate leaders, rallying behind LaFrance.
Who’s running: Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego and “MAGA darling” Kari Lake are fighting for outgoing Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s seat.
State of the race: It’s a true toss-up, although early polls show Gallego with the edge.
Why it matters: Sinema’s replacement could determine which party controls the Senate once the dust settles on November 5. In one corner is Lake, who has blamed heat-related deaths in the state on meth and, while “not opposed to some of the green energy,” has said she’d block renewable mandates. Gallego, by contrast, is endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund in part for having paid special attention to public lands and waters and clean energy jobs while in Congress. He also co-sponsored the CHIPS and Science Act.
What it is: The Salt River Project is the biggest public power company in the country by generation, serving the Phoenix metropolitan area. Its board and council are chosen through a confusing and dubiously democratic “acreage-based voting system” on the first Tuesday in April in even-numbered years.
State of the race: A coalition of 14 clean energy candidates is attempting to flip the SRP board and council to make it more solar-friendly. However, only half of SRP’s customers are eligible to cast a vote — renters, for example, are not allowed — and less than 1% of those who are eligible actually do.
Why it matters: Currently, less than 4% of SRP’s energy comes from solar, compared to almost 10% for other local utilities. Incumbents on the council and board — some of whom have had SRP seats in their families for more than a century — have voted to keep using coal and penalized rooftop solar, with six-time elected official Stephen Williams telling the local NBC affiliate that the “sun doesn’t shine at night” — which, while true, does not typically prohibit solar energy from being generated during the daytime. In addition to pushing for more solar, the Clean Energy candidates also want to protect the local watershed, an issue likely to become increasingly critical in the heat-baked state.
What it is: A vote on whether or not to overturn Senate Bill 1137, which prohibits new oil and gas wells from being built within a half-mile of homes, schools, nursing homes, jails, and hospitals, and requires additional safety measures like leak detection.
State of the race: Big-money campaigns have killed progressive bills in California before, and the oil industry is poised to dump a lot more money into defeating the regulations. The campaign to overturn Senate Bill 1137 has already spent $20 million, while California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and Jane Fonda have rallied to support the bill.
Why it matters: The California referendum is set to be one of a handful of cases of voters deciding directly on legislation related to oil, gas, and emissions this November. Oil interests are already tailoring their arguments to sway California’s liberal constituency, arguing that the law’s limits are arbitrary and that it will be worse for the environment in the long run by forcing the state to import oil from places with less stringent regulations. Proponents of the bill, however, say it is a cut-and-dry case of environmental justice, given that many of the more than 2 million Californians who live within a mile of an oil or gas well in the state are people of color. That hasn’t stopped oil interests from undertaking some confusing shenanigans, even as some experts say gas interests just want the referendum to cause a delay “until they figure out what they’re going to do next.”
Who’s running: Former Democratic State Senator Curtis Hertel Jr., who is endorsed by the LCV, is running against former Republican State Senator Tom Barrett.
State of the race: The Cook Political Reporthas called Michigan’s 7th district, representing Lansing and the surrounding area, “the most competitive open seat in the country.”
Why it matters: “Climate won the Michigan midterms,” the Sierra Club wrote in 2022 after voters elected a “pro-environment majority” to the state legislature. Having control of both chambers allowed Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer to make speedy and impressive progress on the energy transition locally, while at the national level, Democrats took seven of the state’s 13 House seats. The advantages are slim, though, and going into November, Congressional Democrats face threats in MI-03, MI-08, and most notably, MI-07, which Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin has vacated to run for Senate. Notably, Democrats need to win five more House districts nationally to regain control of the chamber, which means every close district race is essential. It’s important locally, too; the race for Slotkin’s open seat is among the most competitive in the country, and green groups have hit Barrett for his poor environmental voting record and opposition to clean energy jobs.
Who’s running: Incumbent Democrat Jon Tester will face the winner of the Republican primary — likely former Montana Secretary of State and Public Service Commission Chair Brad Johnson, a Libertarian, or ex-Navy SEAL and entrepreneur Tim Sheehy, who was endorsed by Trump as an “American hero.”
State of the race:It’ll be a nail-biter. Tester “will likely have to convince one out of every six Trump voters to cross over for him” on a split ballot in November, RealClearPoliticsnotes. Still, polls show the Democrat with an early edge in potential Republican match-ups.
Why it matters: Unlike Arizona, which has turned purple in the last two elections, Montana is still a solidly conservative state, which Trump won by more than 16 points in 2020. At the same time, Montana is becoming a “must-watch climate battleground,” balanced between its cheap and ample supply of coal and its deep-rooted pride in its natural landscape. But while Tester’s environmental record isn’t perfect, the opposition looks much worse: Johnson has scaremongered about the reliability of renewable energy and EVs stressing the grid, while Sheehy quietly deleted references to sustainability and climate change from the website for his aerial firefighting company, seemingly to boost his credibility with MAGA voters.
Who’s running: North Carolina’s Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein will face the state’s Republican Lieutenant Governor, Mark K. Robinson.
State of the race: Either a toss-up or a slight lean Democratic, depending on who you ask. Early polls show Stein and Robinson neck and neck.
Why it matters: When I spoke to LCV’s senior vice president of campaigns, Pete Maysmith, he cited the North Carolina race as one of the advocacy group’s top 2024 priorities. Term-limited outgoing Democratic Governor Roy Cooper had long been an ally of green policymakers, setting strong EV goals for the state and making a (thwarted) push for offshore wind. Stein has vowed to keep up his predecessor’s work. Robinson, on the other hand, is one of the most flagrant deniers of climate change on any 2024 ballot: He’s called climate research “junk science” and misleadingly alleged there are “more polar bears on Earth now than ever.” Electing Stein wouldn’t just keep a climate denier out of office; with Cooper’s seat, Republicans could seize a trifecta in the state if, as expected, they keep control of the House and Senate. With no remaining opposition, they could start rolling back more of Cooper’s work.
Who’s running: There are currently 13 candidates in the nonpartisan primary for outgoing Governor Jay Inslee’s seat, but leading the polls are Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat endorsed by Inslee; moderate Democratic State Senator Mark Mullet; former moderate Republican Representative Dave Reichert; and former Richland school board member Semi Bird, the first Black Republican to run for governor in the state.
State of the race: Likely Democrat; the state last elected a Republican governor in 1985. Still, a November poll that pitted Ferguson against Reichert showed the Republican with a 2-point lead over his opponent.
Why it matters: Inslee’s apparent departure from politics will leave a gaping hole not just in the state’s climate leadership but also in the nation’s — as governor, Inslee made Washington an example for other states with its aggressive clean energy goals, phase-out of new gas-powered cars and trucks, heat pump requirement for new buildings, and local Climate Corps. That progressive trajectory is under threat from Republicans, who’ve successfully gathered signatures for potential initiatives that would chip away at “radical” policies like the state’s cap-and-invest program — a repeal of which both Reichert and Bird support. But Washington’s governor race could be consequential even if a Democrat wins. While Ferguson has called “climate change” a top priority and under Inslee opposed building a methane gas pipeline through the state, Mullet has taken a somewhat more moderate stance, expressing concerns about gas “affordability” for families.
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Between the budget reconciliation process and an impending vote to end California’s electric vehicle standards, a lot of the EV maker’s revenue stands to go poof.
It’s shaping up to be a very bad week for Tesla. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s draft budget proposal released Sunday night axes two of the primary avenues by which the electric vehicle giant earns regulatory credits. Congress also appears poised to vote to revoke California’s authority to implement its Zero-Emission Vehicle program by the end of the month, another key source of credits for the automaker. The sale of all regulatory credits combined earned the company a total of $595 million in the first quarter on a net income of just $409 million — that is, they represented its entire margin of profitability. On the whole, credits represented 38% of Tesla’s net income last year.
To add insult to injury, the House Ways and Means committee on Monday proposed eliminating the Inflation Reduction Act’s $7,500 consumer EV tax credit, the used EVs tax credit, and the commercial EVs tax credit by year’s end. The move comes as part of the House’s larger budget-making process. And while it will likely be months before a new budget is finalized, with Trump seeking to extend his 2017 tax cuts and Congress limited in its spending ability, much of the IRA is on the chopping block. That is bad news for clean energy companies across the spectrum, from clean hydrogen producers to wind energy companies and battery manufacturers. But as recently as a few months ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was sounding cavalier.
After aligning himself with Trump during the election, Musk came out last year in support of ending the $7,500 consumer EV tax credit, along with all subsidies in all industries generally. He wrote on X that taking away the EV tax credit “will only help Tesla,” presumably assuming that while his company could withstand the policy headwinds, it would hurt emergent EV competitors even more, thus paradoxically helping Tesla eliminate its competition.
While it looks like Musk will get his wish, he probably didn’t account for a small but meaningful carveout in the Ways and Means committee proposal that allows the tax credit to stand through the end of 2026 for companies that have yet to sell 200,000 EVs in their lifetime. While Tesla’s sales figures are orders of magnitude beyond this, the extension will give a boost to its smaller competitors, as well as potentially some larger automakers with fewer EV sales to their credit.
A number of other provisions in the Ways and Means committee’s proposal spell bad news for Tesla and EV automakers on the whole. These include the elimination of the $4,000 tax credit for used EVs as well as the $7,500 tax credit for commercial EVs — which leased cars also qualify for. This second credit, often referred to as the “leasing loophole,” allows consumers leasing EVs to redeem the full tax credit even if their vehicle doesn’t meet the domestic content requirements for the buyer’s credit. The committee also wants to phase out the advanced manufacturing tax credit by the end of 2031, one year earlier than previously planned. While not a huge change, this credit incentivizes the domestic production of clean energy components such as battery cells, battery modules, and solar inverters — all products Tesla is heavily invested in.
The domestic regulatory credits that comprise such an outsize portion of Tesla’s profits, meanwhile, come from a mix of state and federal standards, all of which are under attack. These are California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle program, which sets ZEV production and sales mandates, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas emissions standards.
While the mandates differ in their ambition and implementation mechanisms, all three give automakers credits when they make progress toward EV production targets, fuel economy standards, or emissions standards; exceed these requirements, and automakers earn extra credits. Vehicle manufacturers can then trade those additional credits to carmakers that aren’t meeting state or federal targets. Since Tesla only makes EVs, it always earns more credits than it needs, and many automakers rely on buying these credits to comply with all three regulations.
It’s unclear as of now whether lawmakers have the authority to eliminate the federal fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions standards via budget reconciliation. A Senate stricture known as the Byrd Rule mandates that provisions align with the basic purpose of the reconciliation process: implementing budgetary changes; those with only “incidental” budgetary impacts can thus be deemed “extraneous” and excluded from the final bill. It’s yet to be seen how the standards in question will be categorized. At first blush, fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions standards are a stretch to meet the Byrd Rule, but that determination will take weeks, or even potentially months to play out.
What’s for sure is that California’s ZEV program cannot be eliminated through this process, as the program derives its authority from a Clean Air Act waiver, which was first granted to the state by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1967. This waiver allows California to set stricter emissions standards than those at the federal level because of the “compelling and extraordinary circumstances” the state faces when it comes to air quality in the San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles basin. California’s latest targets — which require all model year 2035 cars sold in the state to be zero emissions — have been adopted by 11 other states, plus Washington D.C.
These increasingly ambitious goals would presumably cause the tax credits market — and thus Tesla’s profits — to heat up as well, as most automakers would struggle to fully electrify in the next 10 years. But the House voted at the beginning of the month to eliminate California’s latest EPA waiver, granted in December of last year. Now, it’s up to the Senate to decide whether they want to follow suit.
To accomplish this task, Republicans have called upon a legislative process known as the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn newly implemented federal rules. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, for one, has been vocal about using the process to end California’s so-called “EV mandate,” writing in the Wall Street Journal last week that “it’s time for the Senate to finish the job.” And yet other Senate Republicans are reluctant to attempt to roll back California’s waiver. The Government Accountability Officeand the Senate Parliamentarian have both determined that the regulatory allowance ought not to be subject to the Congressional Review Act as it’s an EPA “order” rather than a “rule.” Going against this guidance could thus set a precedent that gives Congress a broad ability to gut executive-level rules.
During his first term, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stood in firm opposition to efforts to roll back fuel efficiency standards. But lately, as the administration has started turning its longstanding anti-EV rhetoric into actual policy, Trump’s new best friend has been relatively quiet. Tesla’s stock is down about 25% since Trump took office, as investors worry that Musk’s political preoccupations have kept him from focusing on his company’s performance. Not to mention the fact that Musk's enthusiastic support for Trump, major role in mass federal layoffs, and, well, whole personality have alienated his liberal-leaning customer base.
So while Musk may have staged a Tesla showroom on the White House lawn in March, awing the President with the ways in which “everything’s computer,” he’s presumably well aware of exactly how Trump’s policies — and his own involvement in them — stand to deeply hurt his business. Whether Tesla will make it through this regulatory onslaught and self-inflicted brand damage as a profitable company remains to be seen. But with Musk planning to slink away from the White House and back into the boardroom, and with House leaders hoping to complete work on the reconciliation bill by Memorial Day, we should start to get answers soon enough.
On gutting energy grants, the Inflation Reduction Act’s last legs, and dishwashers
Current conditions: Eighty of Minnesota’s 87 counties had red flag warnings on Monday, with conditions expected to remain dry and hot through Tuesday • 15 states in the South and Midwest will experience “extreme” humidity this week • It will be 99 degrees Fahrenheit today in Emerson, Manitoba. The municipality hit 100 last weekend — the earliest in the year Canada has ever recorded triple digits.
Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce released their draft budget proposal on Sunday night, and my colleague Matthew Zeitlin dove into its widespread cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act and other clean energy and environment programs. Among the rescissions — clawbacks of unspent money in existing programs — and other proposals, Matthew highlights:
Those are just a few of the cuts, which the Sierra Club estimates would add up to $1.6 billion for programs related to decarbonizing heavy industry alone. You can read Matthew’s whole analysis here.
Republicans on the Committee on Energy and Commerce weren’t the only ones who’ve been busy. On Monday, the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax policy, proposed overhauling clean energy tax credits. Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo took a look at those proposals, including:
There’s much more, which Emily gets into here.
In response to President Trump’s executive order last week ordering the Energy Department to “eliminate restrictive water pressure and efficiency rules” for appliances, the DOE published a list of 47 regulations on Monday that it has targeted as “burdensome and costly.” Appliances regulated by the DOE’s list include cook tops, dishwashers, compressors, and microwave ovens, with the agency claiming the deregulation effort would cut 125,000 words from the Code of Federal Regulations and “save the American people an estimated $11 billion,”The New York Timesreports. By the government’s own accounting, though, efficiency standards saved the average American household about $576 on energy and gas bills in 2024, and reduced energy spending for households and businesses by $105 billion in total. “If this attack on consumers succeeds, President Trump would be raising costs dramatically for families as manufacturers dump energy- and water-wasting products into the market,” Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, said in a statement. “Fortunately, it’s patently illegal, so hold your horses.”
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin said Monday that the Trump administration plans to target stop-start technology in cars. According to the EPA’s website, start-stop technology saves fuel “by turning off the engine when the vehicle comes to a stop and automatically starting it back up when you step on the accelerator,” improving fuel economy by 4% to 5%, especially in conditions like stop-and-go city driving. Zeldin, though, characterized the technology as when “your car dies at every red light so companies get a climate participation trophy. EPA approved it, and everyone hates it, so we’re fixing it.” Neither Zeldin nor the EPA offered further details on what that might entail.
More than 2,100 climate adaptation companies generated a combined $1 trillion in revenue last year by offering products and services mitigating the risks of climate change, a new study by London Stock Exchange Group found. “One question that we are getting a lot at the moment is: ‘With the Trump administration in office, what does that mean for the green economy?,’” Jaakko Kooroshy, LSEG’s global head of sustainable investment research, told Bloomberg in an interview about the report. The answer is “this thing is now so big and so robust, it’s not going to implode just like that,” he added.
The analysis looked at 20,000 companies worldwide and “found that adaptation-related revenues last year accounted for roughly a fifth of the $5 trillion global green economy,” with green buildings and water-related infrastructure being the most significant contributors, Bloomberg adds. LSEG further noted that if all companies related to the “green economy” were considered their own industry group, they’d have had the best performance of any equity sector over the past decade.
Thermasol
Wellness company Thermasol has introduced the first off-grid, solar-powered sauna in the U.S., which can reach 170 degrees Fahrenheit in about half an hour.
Rob and Jesse digest the Ways and Means budget bill live on air, alongside former Treasury advisor Luke Bassett.
The fight over the Inflation Reduction Act has arrived. After months of discussion, the Republican majority in the House is now beginning to write, review, and argue about its plans to transform the climate law’s energy tax provisions.
We wanted to record a show about how to follow that battle. But then — halfway through recording that episode — the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee dropped the first draft of its proposal to gut the IRA, and we had to review it on-air.
We were joined by Luke Bassett, a former senior advisor for domestic climate policy at the U.S. Treasury Department and a former senior staff member at the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. We chatted about the major steps in the reconciliation process, what to watch next, and what to look for in the new GOP draft. 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.
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Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Jesse Jenkins: Let’s come back to this as a negotiation. This is the first salvo from the House. What does this tell you about where we go from here? Is this a floor? Could it get worse? Is it likely to get better as the lobbying kicks off in earnest by various industries threatened by these changes, and they try to peel things back? What do you think happens next?
Luke Bassett: If you run with the horror movie analogy here, this is scary. I think a lot of people, especially in any energy startups or folks who have been penciling out deals, to start really lining up new projects — or even folks looking for a new EV to buy are suddenly going to have to totally rethink what the next few years look like.
And, you know, whether or not they want to build a factory, buy a car, or have to switch from an electric heat pump to a whale oil burning stove. Who knows? That said, there are champions for each of these in very different ways in the Senate. There are lobbyists who —
Jenkins: — in the House, too.
Bassett: Exactly. There will be lobbyists weighing in. And I think it matters to really think through … I think we’ve been faced with gigantic uncertainty since January. And there’s a part where companies all across the energy sector are looking at this text as we speak and thinking, whoa, I didn’t sign up for this. And to combine this with tariffs, to combine it with the cuts to other federal programs in the other committees’ jurisdictions, it is just a nearly impossible outlook for building new projects. And I bet a bunch of people, CEOs and otherwise, are thinking, I wish Joe Manchin were back in the Senate. But you know, it is what it is.
Robinson Meyer: I will say that it could get worse from here because they will be negotiating with the House Freedom Caucus and with various other conservative House members. And they’ll also be negotiating against the president’s wishes, which is that this move and get done as soon as possible. And so when I talked to Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, who’s a supporter of the IRA, or wants to see it extended in large part, and I asked him questions like, what happens if Republicans really go to work in the House on the IRA and then it gets sent to the Senate? One dynamic we’ve already seen during this Congress is that te House Republican Caucus in this Congress is unusually functional and unusually strategic, and has been unusually good at passing relatively extreme and aggressive policy and then jamming the Senate with it.
And unlike what has happened in the past, which is the House Republican Caucus can’t really do anything, so the Senate passes a far more moderate policy, sends it to the House and dares the House to shut things down. This time the House, if folks remember back in March, the House passed a fairly aggressive budget and kicked it to the Senate and then dared the Senate to shut down the government, and ultimately the Senate decided to keep the government open.
I asked Curtis what happens if they do the same with the IRA. What happens if they really go to task on the IRA? They pass fairly aggressive cuts to it and they send it to the Senate. And his answer was, well, I don’t think the House is going to do that. I don’t think a bill that really savages the IRA could pass the House.
We’ll see, but I just don’t think there’s any floor here. I think there’s no floor for how bad this gets. And I think I just don’t, you know … Before we went into the administration, there was a lot of confidence that the Trump administration and the new Republican majority and the Congress was not going to do anything to substantially make the business environment worse. We’ve discovered there does seem to be a degree of tariffs that will make them squeal and pull back, but we actually haven’t found that in legislature yet.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.