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Keep an eye on the public utilities commission races in Arizona, Montana, and Louisiana.
On November 5, voters in a handful of states will cast their ballots not just for their next president and state and local lawmakers, but also for the members of an obscure body with outsized influence on the country’s energy mix.
It’s called a public utilities commission. Every state has one, usually composed of three to five officials who regulate the private companies that deliver water, power, gas, and other services to residents and businesses. Their job is to secure reliable energy at affordable rates, which means these power players also preside over how quickly utilities adopt clean energy and adapt to extreme weather, and how much companies can raise customers’ rates to do so. In most of the U.S., utility commissioners are appointed by the governor or legislature. But 10 states leave filling these roles up to the electorate.
Utility commissions are famous for being ignored by the public — until there’s a rate increase. But if the U.S. is to have any chance of cutting emissions in line with its global commitments, ensuring fossil fuel communities aren’t left behind, or improving our resilience to increasing heat waves, fires, and floods, these gatekeepers have to be paid more attention — and held accountable.
Charles Hua, the founder of a new nonprofit called Powerlines that aims to raise awareness about the importance of these regulators, told me his group has found that over the last decade, about one in 10 voters in states with utility commission elections skipped that part of the ballot. “In many of these elections where the margins are only a couple percent, the one in 10 that sit out are deciding the election,” he said.
Apathy or ignorance about utility commissions isn’t unique to states where commissioners are elected, but it’s not helped by the fact that many of these states are deeply red, and the races aren’t much of a competition. This year, although seats are opening up in eight states, many of them are unlikely to see a change from the status quo.
In Alabama and Nebraska, three current commissioners are running for re-election unopposed. There’s a clear frontrunner among the three candidates vying for one open seat in Oklahoma: a former Republican state lawmaker named Brian Bingman, who is endorsed by the governor and has raised nearly $450,000, much of which was donated by energy PACs and oil and gas company executives, according to state filings. He’s up against a lesser-known Libertarian candidate who, as of the last reporting period, had raised less than $2,000, and a 90-year-old Democrat who has raised zero dollars and already run for and lost commission races three times.
Whoever is elected to open seats in North and South Dakota will have a say in approving the permits for a contentious carbon dioxide pipeline — a project that has drawn opposition from both sides of the aisle and could have raised the stakes for the elections — but environmental advocates in those states told me they expected incumbent candidates to win.
But there are three races that are being closely watched by climate and clean energy advocates. In Louisiana, a swing voter on the commission is stepping down, throwing into question recent momentum against business-as-usual operations in the gas-heavy state. In Arizona and Montana, the current commissions have been skeptical of, if not outright hostile to supporting the development of the two states’ big untapped solar and wind resources. In each state, however, momentum is building behind candidates who could change that paradigm.
“If you can unlock Montana's renewable energy potential, you can help the western part of the country decarbonize,” Anne Hedges, the director of policy and legislative affairs at the Montana Environmental Information Center told me. “This is a really important race.”
Here’s what’s at stake.
During the two years since the last election for the Arizona Corporation Commission, the confusing name of the body in Arizona that regulates utilities, its four-to-one Republican majority has been on a tear dismantling what little clean energy policy there was in the state. In February, the group voted to scrap the state’s meager Renewable Energy Standard, which was enacted in 2006 and required utilities to get 15% of their energy from renewables by 2025, as well as energy efficiency standards. According to Autumn Johnson, executive director of the Arizona Solar Energy Industries Association, the commission has been more resistant to renewable energy than the utilities. She told me that in a recent proceeding to plan for the closure of the Four Corners coal plant in 2031, the commission tried to prevent the state’s biggest utility from considering renewables paired with batteries as part of the replacement mix.
Solar development has been obstructed at every level. The commission quashed efforts to create a market for community solar, small-scale photovoltaic installations that offer low-income customers and renters access to low-cost clean energy. It adopted a community solar policy that “had so many poison pills in it that it made it impossible for a market to actually form,” said Johnson. “We should for sure have a community solar market. I think it's kind of crazy we wouldn't do that in the sunniest state in the country.” It also gummed up the economics of rooftop solar by decreasing the amount homeowners get paid for exporting solar to the grid and burdening them with fixed fees. Johnson said the market is down 40%, and that “a whole bunch of companies are going bankrupt” because of the commission’s policies.
Whoever lands on the commission come January will have a big opportunity to change course. The renewable energy and efficiency standards have not yet been fully repealed, and will see another vote early next year. Johnson said the new commission will vote on rules for virtual power plants, which could help get more distributed solar and batteries on the grid. As in many states, Arizona utilities are anticipating large load growth in the coming years and proposing a lot of new natural gas power plant development to meet it — but the commission has a chance to get them to consider alternatives.
The race is competitive, with three Democrats, two Green party candidates, and three Republicans, including one incumbent, running to fill three seats. During a recent debate, the main split between the two major political parties was over support for renewables. Five of them took public funding for their campaigns through the state’s Clean Elections fund, so they're nearly all working with the same amount of capital, which means there is little to help signal who's likely to come out on top. The AFL-CIO has endorsed the three Democrats in the race, but Arizona has one of the lowest union densities in the country. The state Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, has endorsed the Republicans running, and one of them, Rachel Waldman, has been endorsed by three current commissioners.
Voters can choose three candidates, and the three with the most votes will be elected.
Montana also has three seats opening up on its five-member Public Service Commission, but the elections there are divided by district, and all eyes are on one of the races in particular. Elena Evans, a geologist who works as the environmental health manager for Missoula County, is running as an Independent to unseat Jennifer Fielder, a Republican incumbent running for her second term. Evans has raised nearly $100,000 since she registered to run in April, while Fielder has raised less than $10,000 since January.
The headline issue in the race is affordability. Last year, the commission approved a 28% rate increase for Northwestern Energy, the biggest utility in the state. Molly Bell, political director for Montana Conservation Voters, told me regulators have been “asleep at the wheel.” She said the commission has been “rubber stamping rate increases, not asking questions about [our utilities’] resource plans, and really not holding our energy companies accountable to making plans for the future.”
Environmental advocates are also worried about Northwestern’s recent decision to acquire a larger stake in the Colstrip power plant, a coal-fired facility built in the 1970s and 80s. Northwestern called the plant “a dependable bridge to a cleaner energy future,” but it will require nearly $200 million in retrofits to comply with new federal air pollution regulations, a cost that Northwestern is now trying to recoup from ratepayers with a new 26% rate increase.
Hedges, of the Montana Energy Information Center, told me the rate increases aren’t just hurting customers — major manufacturers like REC Silicon are leaving the state due to rising energy costs. She wants the commission to force Northwestern to invest in building out the transmission system so that more wind energy can get onto the grid. “We have a ton of wind energy, we have developers who are just clamoring to access that, but they can't because we don't have the transmission system,” she said. “Northwestern has no desire to build out that transmission system because that means competition for them. That’s why our rates are so high.”
Elena Evans isn’t campaigning on a platform of cutting down on fossil fuels or expanding renewables; she’s mainly telling voters she wants to bring costs down and increase transparency. But in interviews, she’s talked about the importance of ensuring utilities are prepared for climate impacts, criticized the sitting commission for being anti-technology, and expressed an interest in solutions such as reconductoring transmission lines to increase their capacity and installing batteries to make the grid more resilient against outages.
The commission is currently fully Republican, and switching out just one of those seats will not bring change overnight. But Stephanie Chase, a researcher at the Energy and Policy Institute, said that having even one person to ask different questions and bring new information to the public record can be meaningful. “Even if they don't have the votes, they still have a platform and ability to raise issues, which I think is really important in states where climate hasn't been at the forefront.”
Louisiana’s recent history proves the value of dissenting voices, even if they don’t have decisive influence. The state’s historically utility-friendly commission saw a big shakeup two years ago when Davante Lewis, a young progressive candidate, dethroned a Democratic incumbent who had held his district’s seat for nearly two decades. Close to 80% of Louisiana’s electricity comes from natural gas, and Lewis campaigned on transitioning the state to renewables, in addition to hardening the grid against storms and lowering fees for customers. He has already made a few small inroads on clean energy, such as advancing an energy efficiency program that had been held up in negotiations with the utilities for more than a decade. The commission also recently approved the biggest expansion of renewable energy in state history.
But Lewis is one of two Democrats on the commission, and has been helped by a swing voter — a moderate Republican named Craig Greene — who’s stepping down this year.
Three candidates are vying for Greene’s spot, but one — State Senator Jean Paul Coussan — has a clear fundraising advantage. The big question around the election seems to be less about who will win, and more about what Coussan would do on the commission. In interviews with local media outlets, he has said he wants to ensure the state can keep pace with demand growth while keeping rates down. He’s expressed openness about renewables but also emphasized the importance of the state’s “abundant supply of natural gas.”
The clean energy advocates I spoke to weren’t sure what to make of him. “You just can’t tell based on what Coussan’s saying now,” Daniel Tait, who researches Southern utilities for the Energy and Policy Institute, a consumer watchdog, told me. He said that of the two Republicans running, Coussan seemed more willing to talk about clean energy and find common ground. But it’s unclear how he will compare to the outgoing commissioner.
Hua, of PowerLines, emphasized that whatever happens, it will have ripple effects through the region. “What Louisiana does is an indicator, in some ways, of what the rest of the Southeast can do,” he told me. “And the Southeast is a particularly important region because that's where we're seeing all this load growth, this gas build out, energy burden and environmental injustice challenges. What the Southeast does will make or break what the U.S. does in terms of the clean energy transition.”
Editor's note: A previous version of this article misstated the percentage of voters who skip utility commission elections. It also misidentified the party of the incumbent whom Davante Lewis defeated. Both mistakes have been fixed. We regret the errors.
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Kettle offers parametric insurance and says that it can cover just about any home — as long as the owner can afford the premium.
Los Angeles is on fire, and it’s possible that much of the city could burn to the ground. This would be a disaster for California’s already wobbly home insurance market and the residents who rely on it. Kettle Insurance, a fintech startup focused on wildfire insurance for Californians, thinks that it can offer a better solution.
The company, founded in 2020, has thousands of customers across California, and L.A. County is its largest market. These huge fires will, in some sense, “be a good test, not just for the industry, but for the Kettle model,” Brian Espie, the company’s chief underwriting officer, told me. What it’s offering is known as “parametric” insurance and reinsurance (essentially insurance for the insurers themselves.) While traditional insurance claims can take years to fully resolve — as some victims of the devastating 2018 Camp Fire know all too well — Kettle gives policyholders 60 days to submit a notice of loss, after which the company has 15 days to validate the claim and issue payment. There is no deductible.
As Espie explained, Kettle’s AI-powered risk assessment model is able to make more accurate and granular calculations, taking into account forward-looking, climate change-fueled challenges such as out-of-the-norm weather events, which couldn’t be predicted by looking at past weather patterns alone (e.g. wildfires in January, when historically L.A. is wet). Traditionally, California insurers have only been able to rely upon historical datasets to set their premiums, though that rule changed last year and never applied to parametric insurers in the first place.
“We’ve got about 70 different inputs from global satellite data and real estate ground level datasets that are combining to predict wildfire ignition and spread, and then also structural vulnerability,” Espie told me. “In total, we’re pulling from about 130 terabytes of data and then simulating millions of fires — so using technology that, frankly, wouldn’t have been possible 10 or maybe five years ago, because either the data didn’t exist, or it just wasn’t computationally possible to run a model like we are today.”
As of writing, it’s estimated that more than 2,000 structures have burned in Los Angeles. Whenever a fire encroaches on a parcel of Kettle-insured land, the owner immediately qualifies for a payout. Unlike most other parametric insurance plans, which pay a predetermined amount based on metrics such as the water level during a flood or the temperature during a heat wave regardless of damages, Kettle does require policyholders to submit damage estimates. The company told me that’s usually pretty simple: If a house burns, it’s almost certain that the losses will be equivalent to or exceed the policy limit, which can be up to $10 million. While the company can always audit a property to prevent insurance fraud, there are no claims adjusters or other third parties involved, thus expediting the process and eliminating much of the back-and-forth wrangling residents often go through with their insurance companies.
So how can Kettle afford to do all this while other insurers are exiting the California market altogether or pulling back in fire-prone regions? “We like to say that we can put a price on anything with our model,” Espie told me. “But I will say there are parts of the state that our model sees as burning every 10 to 15 years, and premiums may be just practically too expensive for insurance in those areas.” Kettle could also be an option for homeowners whose existing insurance comes with a very high wildfire deductible, Espie explained, as buying Kettle’s no-deductible plan in addition to their regular plan could actually save them money were a fire to occur.
But just because an area has traditionally been considered risky doesn’t mean that Kettle’s premiums will necessarily be exorbitant. The company’s CEO, Isaac Espinoza, told me that Kettle’s advanced modeling allows it to drill down on the risk to specific properties rather than just general regions. “We view ourselves as ensuring the uninsurable,” Espinoza said. “Other insurers just blanket say, we don’t want to touch it. We don’t touch anything in the area. We might say, ’Hey, that’s not too bad.’”
Espie told me that the wildly destructive fires in 2017 and 2018 “gave people a wake up call that maybe some of the traditional catastrophe models out there just weren’t keeping up with science and natural hazards in the face of climate change.” He thinks these latest blazes could represent a similar turning point for the industry. “This provides an opportunity for us to prove out that models built with AI and machine learning like ours can be more predictive of wildfire risk in the changing climate, where we’re getting 100 mile per hour winds in January.”
Everyone knows the story of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, the one that allegedly knocked over a lantern in 1871 and burned down 2,100 acres of downtown Chicago. While the wildfires raging in Los Angeles County have already far exceeded that legendary bovine’s total attributed damage — at the time of this writing, on Thursday morning, five fires have burned more than 27,000 acres — the losses had centralized, at least initially, in the secluded neighborhoods and idyllic suburbs in the hills above the city.
On Wednesday, that started to change. Evacuation maps have since extended into the gridded streets of downtown Santa Monica and Pasadena, and a new fire has started north of Beverly Hills, moving quickly toward an internationally recognizable street: Hollywood Boulevard. The two biggest fires, Palisades and Eaton, remain 0% contained, and high winds have stymied firefighting efforts, all leading to an exceedingly grim question: Exactly how much of Los Angeles could burn. Could all of it?
“I hate to be doom and gloom, but if those winds kept up … it’s not unfathomable to think that the fires would continue to push into L.A. — into the city,” Riva Duncan, a former wildland firefighter and fire management specialist who now serves as the executive secretary of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, an advocacy group, told me.
When a fire is burning in the chaparral of the hills, it’s one thing. But once a big fire catches in a neighborhood, it’s a different story. Houses, with their wood frames, gas lines, and cheap modern furniture, might as well be Duraflame. Embers from one burning house then leap to the next and alight in a clogged gutter or on shrubs planted too close to vinyl siding. “That’s what happened with the Great Chicago Fire. When the winds push fires like that, it’s pushing the embers from one house to the others,” Duncan said. “It’s a really horrible situation, but it’s not unfathomable to think about that [happening in L.A.] — but people need to be thinking about that, and I know the firefighters are thinking about that.”
Once flames engulf a block, it will “overpower” the capabilities of firefighters, Arnaud Trouvé, the chair of the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland, told me in an email. If firefighters can’t gain a foothold, the fire will continue to spread “until a change in driving conditions,” such as the winds weakening to the point that a fire isn’t igniting new fuel or its fuel source running out entirely, when it reaches something like an expansive parking lot or the ocean.
This waiting game sometimes leads to the impression that firefighters are standing around, not doing anything. But “what I know they’re doing is they’re looking ahead to places where maybe there’s a park, or some kind of green space, or a shopping center with big parking lots — they’re looking for those places where they could make a stand,” Duncan told me. If an entire city block is already on fire, “they’re not going to waste precious water there.”
Urban firefighting is a different beast than wildland firefighting, but Duncan noted that Forest Service, CALFIRE, and L.A. County firefighters are used to complex mixed environments. “This is their backyard, and they know how to fight fire there.”
“I can guarantee you, many of them haven’t slept 48 hours,” she went on. “They’re grabbing food where they can; they’re taking 15-minute naps. They’re in this really horrible smoke — there are toxins that come off burning vehicles and burning homes, and wildland firefighters don’t wear breathing apparatus to protect the airways. I know they all have horrible headaches right now and are puking. I remember those days.”
If there’s a sliver of good news, it’s that the biggest fire, Palisades, can’t burn any further to the west, the direction the wind is blowing — there lies the ocean — meaning its spread south into Santa Monica toward Venice and Culver City or Beverly Hills is slower than it would be if the winds shifted. The westward-moving Santa Ana winds, however, could conceivably fan the Eaton fire deeper into eastern Los Angeles if conditions don’t let up soon. “In many open fires, the most important factor is the wind,” Trouvé explained, “and the fire will continue spreading until the wind speed becomes moderate-to-low.”
Though the wind died down a bit on Wednesday night, conditions are expected to deteriorate again Thursday evening, and the red flag warning won’t expire until Friday. And “there are additional winds coming next week,” Kristen Allison, a fire management specialist with the Southern California Geographic Area Coordination Center, told me Wednesday. “It’s going to be a long duration — and we’re not seeing any rain anytime soon.”
Editor’s note: Firefighting crews made “big gains” overnight against the Sunset fire, which threatened famous landmarks like the TLC Chinese Theater and the Dolby Theatre, which will host the Academy Awards in March. Most of the mandatory evacuation notices remaining in Hollywood on Thursday morning were out of precaution, the Los Angeles Times reported. Meanwhile, the Palisades and Eaton fires have burned a combined 27,834 acres, destroyed 2,000 structures, killed at least five people, and remain unchecked as the winds pick up again. This piece was last updated on January 9 at 10:30 a.m. ET.
On greenhouse gases, LA’s fires, and the growing costs of natural disasters
Current conditions: Winter storm Cora is expected to disrupt more than 5,000 U.S. flights • Britain’s grid operator is asking power plants for more electricity as temperatures plummet • Parts of Australia could reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the coming days because the monsoon, which usually appears sometime in December, has yet to show up.
The fire emergency in Los Angeles continues this morning, with at least five blazes raging in different parts of the nation’s second most-populated city. The largest, known as the Palisades fire, has charred more than 17,000 acres near Malibu and is now the most destructive fire in the county’s history. The Eaton fire near Altadena and Pasadena has grown to 10,600 acres. Both are 0% contained. Another fire ignited in Hollywood but is reportedly being contained. At least five people have died, more than 2,000 structures have been destroyed or damaged, 130,000 people are under evacuation warnings, and more than 300,000 customers are without power. Wind speeds have come down from the 100 mph gusts reported yesterday, but “high winds and low relative humidity will continue critical fire weather conditions in southern California through Friday,” the National Weather Service said.
Apu Gomes/Getty Images
As the scale of this disaster comes into focus, the finger-pointing has begun. President-elect Donald Trump blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom, suggesting his wildlife protections have restricted the city’s water access. Many people slammed the city’s mayor for cutting the fire budget. Some suspect power lines are the source of the blazes, implicating major utility companies. And of course, underlying it all, is human-caused climate change, which researchers warn is increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires. “The big culprit we’re suspecting is a warming climate that’s making it easier to burn fuels when conditions are just right,” said University of Colorado fire scientist Jennifer Balch.
America’s greenhouse gas emissions were down in 2024 compared to 2023, but not by much, according to the Rhodium Group’s annual report, released this morning. The preliminary estimates suggest emissions fell by just 0.2% last year. In other words, they were basically flat. That’s good news in the sense that emissions didn’t rise, even as the economy grew by an estimated 2.7%. But it’s also a little worrying given that in 2023, emissions dropped by 3.3%.
Rhodium Group, EPA
The transportation, power, and buildings sectors all saw upticks in emissions last year. But there are some bright spots in the report. Emissions fell across the industrial sector (down 1.8%) and oil and gas sector (down 3.7%). Solar and wind power generation surpassed coal for the first time, and coal production fell by 12% to its lowest level in decades, resulting in fewer industrial methane emissions. Still, “the modest 2024 decline underscores the urgency of accelerating decarbonization in all sectors,” Rhodium’s report concluded. “To meet its Paris Agreement target of a 50-52% reduction in emissions by 2030, the U.S. must sustain an ambitious 7.6% annual drop in emissions from 2025 to 2030, a level the U.S. has not seen outside of a recession in recent memory.”
Insured losses from natural disasters topped $140 billion last year, up significantly from $106 billion in 2023, according to Munich Re, the world’s largest insurer. That makes 2024 the third most expensive year in terms of insured losses since 1980. Weather disasters, and especially major U.S. hurricanes, accounted for a large chunk ($47 billion) of these costs: Hurricanes Helene and Milton were the most devastating natural disasters of 2024. “Climate change is taking the gloves off,” the insurer said. “Hardly any other year has made the consequences of global warming so clear.”
Munich Re
A new study found that a quarter of all the world’s freshwater animals are facing a high risk of extinction due to pollution, farming, and dams. The research, published in the journal Nature, explained that freshwater sources – like rivers, lakes, marshes, and swamps – support over 10% of all known species, including fish, shrimps, and frogs. All these creatures support “essential ecosystem services,” including climate change mitigation and flood control. The report studied some 23,000 animals and found about 24% of the species were at high risk of extinction. The researchers said there “is urgency to act quickly to address threats to prevent further species declines and losses.”
A recent oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge got zero bids, the Interior Department announced yesterday. This was the second sale – mandated by Congress under the 2017 Tax Act – to generate little interest. “The lack of interest from oil companies in development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reflects what we and they have known all along – there are some places too special and sacred to put at risk with oil and gas drilling,” said Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to open more drilling in the refuge, calling it “the biggest find anywhere in the world, as big as Saudi Arabia.”
“Like it or not, addressing climate change requires the help of the wealthy – not just a small number of megadonors to environmental organizations, but the rich as a class. The more they understand that their money will not insulate them from the effects of a warming planet, the more likely they are to be allies in the climate fight, and vital ones at that.” –Paul Waldman writing for Heatmap