You’re out of free articles.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Sign In or Create an Account.
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Welcome to Heatmap
Thank you for registering with Heatmap. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our lives, a force reshaping our economy, our politics, and our culture. We hope to be your trusted, friendly, and insightful guide to that transformation. Please enjoy your free articles. You can check your profile here .
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Subscribe to get unlimited Access
Hey, you are out of free articles but you are only a few clicks away from full access. Subscribe below and take advantage of our introductory offer.
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Create Your Account
Please Enter Your Password
Forgot your password?
Please enter the email address you use for your account so we can send you a link to reset your password:
Despite appearing in a building damaged by a brush fire, the candidates weren’t asked a single question about climate change.
The second Republican presidential debate was defined more by what it lacked than by what it had. Undoubtedly the biggest absence was former President Donald Trump, who skipped the debate entirely and campaigned in Michigan instead. (Despite media reports that he would address the striking United Autoworkers, he spoke at a non-union auto-parts company, where he trashed electric vehicles at length.)
The second biggest absence was any question about climate change. Although moderators at the first Republican presidential debate asked about climate change within the first 20 minutes, this debate all but pretended it didn’t exist.
When Vivek Ramaswamy said that he joined TikTok in order to reach young people and win the election, Danielle Butcher Franz, the conservative CEO of the American Conservation Coalition, tweeted: “If Vivek wants to reach young Americans, he doesn't need to make TikToks with cringe influencers. He could simply address the issues they care about. Climate is a good place to start.”
It was only towards the end of the debate that the moderators even addressed a climate change-adjacent topic that Republicans of all stripes should be very comfortable asking: How are you going to ramp up oil drilling even, as Stuart Varney said, you would run into opposition from the courts?
Vivek Ramaswamy, who in the last debate said the “climate change agenda is a hoax,” instead launched into a familiar litany of his grab bag of economic policy ideas: He would “run through” the courts and the administrative state; he would end the scourge of “using taxpayer money to pay more people to stay at home than to go work,”; scrap regulations; and reform the Federal Reserve to give it a mandate of maintaining the value of the dollar.
Get one great climate story in your inbox every day:
Pence counterposed the achievements of the Trump administration — namely an energy export boom — against the “war on energy” that he accused the Biden administration of waging (tell it to the climate activists outraged at the administration’s approval of the Alaskan Willow drilling project). “We’re going to open up federal lands, we’re going to unleash American energy, we’re going to have an all-of-the-above-energy strategy,” Pence said.
Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis proceeded to fight over DeSantis’ energy record in Florida.
There were two odd things about this whole portion of the debate.
The first was that it was a discussion of energy policy with no mention of climate change. The debate was being held at the Reagan Library in the scrubby hills of Simi Valley in Ventura County. In 2019, the library suffered half a million dollars worth of damage thanks to a brush fire. The next Republican debate will be held in Miami, Florida, perhaps the major city most exposed to sea level rise. Fires, floods, energy policy, and no climate change?
Even Donald Trump, in his hour-plus rant against electric cars and the Biden White House, at least had an explanation for why Democrats in power implemented environmental and energy policies he disagrees with. He even tried to argue that actually he’s better on the environment because of his opposition to electric car subsidies and attendant rare earth mining and, of course, the threat wind turbines pose to birds (and whales).
For the Republicans debating each other on stage, it was just a hurried recital of talking points that have been barely updated since the days of “drill, baby, drill.”
And none of the major candidates seemed particularly comfortable with the details of energy policy. Doug Burgum, governor of the state that’s sixth in the nation in total energy production and third in oil production, had to insist on his right to talk about oil production “as the only person leading an energy state,” but the moderator redirected the question to Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, a state that ranks 26th in energy production and has no hydrocarbon industry to speak of.
This stands in contrast to past Republican contests, which have featured candidates like George W. Bush, who worked in the oil industry, or John McCain, who supported cap-and-trade, or Bush’s successor in serving as governor of America’s major energy producer, Rick Perry.
Now, it appears, climate change is at best an afterthought in Republican politics, while energy policy is either an issue of sleepy consensus within the party or an adjunct to the culture war against the Democratic Party.
Read more about the debate:
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Did a battery plant disaster in California spark a PR crisis on the East Coast?
Battery fire fears are fomenting a storage backlash in New York City – and it risks turning into fresh PR hell for the industry.
Aggrieved neighbors, anti-BESS activists, and Republican politicians are galvanizing more opposition to battery storage in pockets of the five boroughs where development is actually happening, capturing rapt attention from other residents as well as members of the media. In Staten Island, a petition against a NineDot Energy battery project has received more than 1,300 signatures in a little over two months. Two weeks ago, advocates – backed by representatives of local politicians including Rep. Nicole Mallitokis – swarmed a public meeting on the project, getting a local community board to vote unanimously against the project.
According to Heatmap Pro’s proprietary modeling of local opinion around battery storage, there are likely twice as many strong opponents than strong supporters in the area:
Heatmap Pro
Yesterday, leaders in the Queens community of Hempstead enacted a year-long ban on BESS for at least a year after GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, other local politicians, and a slew of aggrieved residents testified in favor of a moratorium. The day before, officials in the Long Island town of Southampton said at a public meeting they were ready to extend their battery storage ban until they enshrined a more restrictive development code – even as many energy companies testified against doing so, including NineDot and solar plus storage developer Key Capture Energy. Yonkers also recently extended its own battery moratorium.
This flurry of activity follows the Moss Landing battery plant fire in California, a rather exceptional event caused by tech that was extremely old and a battery chemistry that is no longer popular in the sector. But opponents of battery storage don’t care – they’re telling their friends to stop the community from becoming the next Moss Landing. The longer this goes on without a fulsome, strident response from the industry, the more communities may rally against them. Making matters even worse, as I explained in The Fight earlier this year, we’re seeing battery fire concerns impact solar projects too.
“This is a huge problem for solar. If [fires] start regularly happening, communities are going to say hey, you can’t put that there,” Derek Chase, CEO of battery fire smoke detection tech company OnSight Technologies, told me at Intersolar this week. “It’s going to be really detrimental.”
I’ve long worried New York City in particular may be a powder keg for the battery storage sector given its omnipresence as a popular media environment. If it happens in New York, the rest of the world learns about it.
I feel like the power of the New York media environment is not lost on Staten Island borough president Vito Fossella, a de facto leader of the anti-BESS movement in the boroughs. Last fall I interviewed Fossella, whose rhetorical strategy often leans on painting Staten Island as an overburdened community. (At least 13 battery storage projects have been in the works in Staten Island according to recent reporting. Fossella claims that is far more than any amount proposed elsewhere in the city.) He often points to battery blazes that happen elsewhere in the country, as well as fears about lithium-ion scooters that have caught fire. His goal is to enact very large setback distance requirements for battery storage, at a minimum.
“You can still put them throughout the city but you can’t put them next to people’s homes – what happens if one of these goes on fire next to a gas station,” he told me at the time, chalking the wider city government’s reluctance to capitulate on batteries to a “political problem.”
Well, I’m going to hold my breath for the real political problem in waiting – the inevitable backlash that happens when Mallitokis, D’Esposito, and others take this fight to Congress and the national stage. I bet that’s probably why American Clean Power just sent me a notice for a press briefing on battery safety next week …
And more of the week’s top conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Queen Anne’s County, Maryland – They really don’t want you to sign a solar lease out in the rural parts of this otherwise very pro-renewables state.
2. Logan County, Ohio – Staff for the Ohio Power Siting Board have recommended it reject Open Road Renewables’ Grange Solar agrivoltaics project.
3. Bandera County, Texas – On a slightly brighter note for solar, it appears that Pine Gate Renewables’ Rio Lago solar project might just be safe from county restrictions.
Here’s what else we’re watching…
In Illinois, Armoracia Solar is struggling to get necessary permits from Madison County.
In Kentucky, the mayor of Lexington is getting into a public spat with East Kentucky Power Cooperative over solar.
In Michigan, Livingston County is now backing the legal challenge to Michigan’s state permitting primacy law.
On the week’s top news around renewable energy policy.
1. IRA funding freeze update – Money is starting to get out the door, finally: the EPA unfroze most of its climate grant funding it had paused after Trump entered office.
2. Scalpel vs. sledgehammer – House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled Republicans in Congress may take a broader approach to repealing the Inflation Reduction Act than previously expected in tax talks.
3. Endangerment in danger – The EPA is reportedly urging the White House to back reversing its 2009 “endangerment” finding on air pollutants and climate change, a linchpin in the agency’s overall CO2 and climate regulatory scheme.