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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to rewrite transmission rules, signaling a new front in the war over permitting reform.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has asked the federal government’s energy regulator to write aggressive new rules that would let America build more long-distance power lines, a move that would accomplish one of Democrats’ most important climate goals.
In a letter sent on Thursday, Schumer asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a bipartisan panel known as FERC, to “strengthen and finalize” rules governing where power lines can be built and who will pay for them. Those rules will be essential to “[delivering] reliable, affordable, and clean power to Americans,” Schumer wrote.
The letter, which has not been previously reported, suggests that Democrats are tiring of bipartisan negotiations over reforming the country’s environmental-permitting laws and will now seek agency action to secure most of their climate goals.
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The effort to reform how and where America builds new power lines is one of Democrats’ biggest priorities for any permitting-reform bill — and one of the biggest sticking points for Republicans. Long-distance transmission is essential to increasing the power grid’s share of wind and solar power, because they allow for clean electricity to be moved from the windiest, sunniest parts of the country to power-hungry cities and towns.
Building more transmission may also be essential to accomplishing the goals of President Joe Biden’s signature climate law. If America doesn’t double how quickly it builds new power lines, then 80% of the carbon reductions from that law, the Inflation Reduction Act, might be lost, according to a research team at Princeton University.
While Democrats want transmission reform to appear in any permitting bill, Republicans have yet to name specific transmission policies that they would support in a compromise. At the same time, the GOP has insisted on changing America’s bedrock environmental statutes — the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act — to benefit fossil fuels projects.
The letter suggests that Schumer believes this is too high a price. Democrats do not need new legislation to hit their most pressing transmission goals, his letter implies, but can instead implement most of their agenda through FERC, which is scheduled to get a Democratic majority at the beginning of next year.
The letter is also clearly meant to establish Schumer’s leverage in ongoing permitting talks.
Experts say that transmission construction is held back for two reasons. First, no rules govern how utilities, companies, and consumers should split costs for new transmission once it’s built. Even if a private developer single-handedly builds a new power line to connect two far-flung areas, electricity markets have no rules about how that developer can recoup their costs.
Second, power lines face an especially onerous permitting process. A new transmission project must generally seek approval from every city, county, and state that it passes through. A new natural-gas pipeline, by comparison, only needs to be approved by FERC.
While the federal government has begun to fix the permitting problem, the cost-allocation problem remains totally unsolved.
The bipartisan infrastructure law, which passed in 2021, gave FERC a “backstop” permitting authority, which means that if a local government blocks a proposed transmission line for more than a year, then FERC can step in and approve it.
FERC is now working on a draft version of the rules governing how it would handle that process. But in the letter, Schumer exhorts the agency to move faster and take a more comprehensive approach.
First, he writes, any FERC rule about transmission must say how project developers and utilities should split up the cost of a new power line. The agency must also define the types of benefits that communities can expect from a new transmission line, which should make it easier to calculate who should pay for what.
This cost-allocation rule must also set up a process to fix another potential problem: what happens if states disagree among themselves on how to divide up costs. “Absent such a path … there will be a significant risk of either projects being stalled due to deadlock, or that states that benefit from a transmission line are incentivized to act as free riders and avoid any costs,” Schumer writes.
Second, Schumer wants FERC to require utilities and state regulators to study multiple scenarios for the future of the electricity grid in order to decide where new transmission lines might be needed. These planning sessions must include at least one scenario in which renewables make up a large share of the grid. And grid planners must also study whether existing power lines — or other energy-transportation technology — can be repurposed to support the grid of the future, Schumer said.
These scenarios should also include stress tests looking at especially hot or cold days, when the power grid will be most under demand and transmission is the most important, Schumer said. Roughly half of the economic value of electricity transmission comes from how the grid performs during just 5 to 10% of the hours in a year, according to a recent study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Right now, most grid planners do not generally take the changing power mix — including known power-plant retirements — into account when studying the need for new transmission projects, Rob Gramlich, the president of Grid Strategies, an electricity research and consulting firm, told me.
Finally, Schumer instructs FERC that it must quickly publish rules governing its new “backstop” ability to step in and approve new transmission lines. And it must set up an informal process so that developers can begin working with FERC even before the one-year deadline on state and local approval kicks in.
“I think FERC clearly has the authority to do what Senator Schumer is requesting, and has given appropriate notice in its proposal to do probably all of them,” Gramlich said.
Schumer’s requests matter because FERC will soon get its first Democratic majority in years. FERC is governed by a bipartisan, five-person commission; no more than three of its commissioners, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, can come from the same party.
But so far, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has blocked Biden’s nominees to FERC, deadlocking FERC with two Democratic commissioners and two Republican commissioners. That deadlock will end in early January 2024, when the Republican James Danly will step down, giving the commission’s two Democrats a working majority.
In essence, Schumer is telling those two Democrats that they should start planning for that majority now. He is also putting Republicans on notice that Democrats do not need legislation to accomplish their permitting goals.
Bipartisan talks over a permitting bill are ongoing. Last week, Representative Garret Graves, a House Republican negotiator on the package, said that he hoped to focus on “how to redesign the grid and transmission in a way that reflects new technologies that are out there.” He did not name a specific transmission policy that Republicans support.
Earlier this year, Biden and House Republicans reached a deal over government spending that also changed some permitting laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act. But that law did not make it any easier to build new power lines.
Read more on FERC:
The Republican Fed Up With Free Markets in Electricity
This article was updated on Monday, July 24, at 12:55 PM ET.
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On environmental justice grants, melting glaciers, and Amazon’s carbon credits
Current conditions: Severe thunderstorms are expected across the Mississippi Valley this weekend • Storm Martinho pushed Portugal’s wind power generation to “historic maximums” • It’s 62 degrees Fahrenheit, cloudy, and very quiet at Heathrow Airport outside London, where a large fire at an electricity substation forced the international travel hub to close.
President Trump invoked emergency powers Thursday to expand production of critical minerals and reduce the nation’s reliance on other countries. The executive order relies on the Defense Production Act, which “grants the president powers to ensure the nation’s defense by expanding and expediting the supply of materials and services from the domestic industrial base.”
Former President Biden invoked the act several times during his term, once to accelerate domestic clean energy production, and another time to boost mining and critical minerals for the nation’s large-capacity battery supply chain. Trump’s order calls for identifying “priority projects” for which permits can be expedited, and directs the Department of the Interior to prioritize mineral production and mining as the “primary land uses” of federal lands that are known to contain minerals.
Critical minerals are used in all kinds of clean tech, including solar panels, EV batteries, and wind turbines. Trump’s executive order doesn’t mention these technologies, but says “transportation, infrastructure, defense capabilities, and the next generation of technology rely upon a secure, predictable, and affordable supply of minerals.”
Anonymous current and former staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency have penned an open letter to the American people, slamming the Trump administration’s attacks on climate grants awarded to nonprofits under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The letter, published in Environmental Health News, focuses mostly on the grants that were supposed to go toward environmental justice programs, but have since been frozen under the current administration. For example, Climate United was awarded nearly $7 billion to finance clean energy projects in rural, Tribal, and low-income communities.
“It is a waste of taxpayer dollars for the U.S. government to cancel its agreements with grantees and contractors,” the letter states. “It is fraud for the U.S. government to delay payments for services already received. And it is an abuse of power for the Trump administration to block the IRA laws that were mandated by Congress.”
The lives of 2 billion people, or about a quarter of the human population, are threatened by melting glaciers due to climate change. That’s according to UNESCO’s new World Water Development Report, released to correspond with the UN’s first World Day for Glaciers. “As the world warms, glaciers are melting faster than ever, making the water cycle more unpredictable and extreme,” the report says. “And because of glacial retreat, floods, droughts, landslides, and sea-level rise are intensifying, with devastating consequences for people and nature.” Some key stats about the state of the world’s glaciers:
In case you missed it: Amazon has started selling “high-integrity science-based carbon credits” to its suppliers and business customers, as well as companies that have committed to being net-zero by 2040 in line with Amazon’s Climate Pledge, to help them offset their greenhouse gas emissions.
“The voluntary carbon market has been challenged with issues of transparency, credibility, and the availability of high-quality carbon credits, which has led to skepticism about nature and technological carbon removal as an effective tool to combat climate change,” said Kara Hurst, chief sustainability officer at Amazon. “However, the science is clear: We must halt and reverse deforestation and restore millions of miles of forests to slow the worst effects of climate change. We’re using our size and high vetting standards to help promote additional investments in nature, and we are excited to share this new opportunity with companies who are also committed to the difficult work of decarbonizing their operations.”
The Bureau of Land Management is close to approving the environmental review for a transmission line that would connect to BluEarth Renewables’ Lucky Star wind project, Heatmap’s Jael Holzman reports in The Fight. “This is a huge deal,” she says. “For the last two months it has seemed like nothing wind-related could be approved by the Trump administration. But that may be about to change.”
BLM sent local officials an email March 6 with a draft environmental assessment for the transmission line, which is required for the federal government to approve its right-of-way under the National Environmental Policy Act. According to the draft, the entirety of the wind project is sited on private property and “no longer will require access to BLM-administered land.”
The email suggests this draft environmental assessment may soon be available for public comment. BLM’s web page for the transmission line now states an approval granting right-of-way may come as soon as May. BLM last week did something similar with a transmission line that would go to a solar project proposed entirely on private lands. Holzman wonders: “Could private lands become the workaround du jour under Trump?”
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, this week launched a pilot direct air capture unit capable of removing 12 tons of carbon dioxide per year. In 2023 alone, the company’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions totalled 72.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
If you live in Illinois or Massachusetts, you may yet get your robust electric vehicle infrastructure.
Robust incentive programs to build out electric vehicle charging stations are alive and well — in Illinois, at least. ComEd, a utility provider for the Chicago area, is pushing forward with $100 million worth of rebates to spur the installation of EV chargers in homes, businesses, and public locations around the Windy City. The program follows up a similar $87 million investment a year ago.
Federal dollars, once the most visible source of financial incentives for EVs and EV infrastructure, are critically endangered. Automakers and EV shoppers fear the Trump administration will attack tax credits for purchasing or leasing EVs. Executive orders have already suspended the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, a.k.a. NEVI, which was set up to funnel money to states to build chargers along heavily trafficked corridors. With federal support frozen, it’s increasingly up to the automakers, utilities, and the states — the ones with EV-friendly regimes, at least — to pick up the slack.
Illinois’ investment has been four years in the making. In 2021, the state established an initiative to have a million EVs on its roads by 2030, and ComEd’s new program is a direct outgrowth. The new $100 million investment includes $53 million in rebates for business and public sector EV fleet purchases, $38 million for upgrades necessary to install public and private Level 2 and Level 3 chargers, stations for non-residential customers, and $9 million to residential customers who buy and install home chargers, with rebates of up to $3,750 per charger.
Massachusetts passed similar, sweeping legislation last November. Its bill was aimed to “accelerate clean energy development, improve energy affordability, create an equitable infrastructure siting process, allow for multistate clean energy procurements, promote non-gas heating, expand access to electric vehicles and create jobs and support workers throughout the energy transition.” Amid that list of hifalutin ambition, the state included something interesting and forward-looking: a pilot program of 100 bidirectional chargers meant to demonstrate the power of vehicle-to-grid, vehicle-to-home, and other two-way charging integrations that could help make the grid of the future more resilient.
Many states, blue ones especially, have had EV charging rebates in places for years. Now, with evaporating federal funding for EVs, they have to take over as the primary benefactor for businesses and residents looking to electrify, as well as a financial level to help states reach their public targets for electrification.
Illinois, for example, saw nearly 29,000 more EVs added to its roads in 2024 than 2023, but that growth rate was actually slower than the previous year, which mirrors the national narrative of EV sales continuing to grow, but more slowly than before. In the time of hostile federal government, the state’s goal of jumping from about 130,000 EVs now to a million in 2030 may be out of reach. But making it more affordable for residents and small businesses to take the leap should send the numbers in the right direction, as will a state-backed attempt to create more public EV chargers.
The private sector is trying to juice charger expansion, too. Federal funding or not, the car companies need a robust nationwide charging network to boost public confidence as they roll out more electric offerings. Ionna — the charging station partnership funded by the likes of Hyundai, BMW, General Motors, Honda, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and Toyota — is opening new chargers at Sheetz gas stations. It promises to open 1,000 new charging bays this year and 30,000 by 2030.
Hyundai, being the number two EV company in America behind much-maligned Tesla, has plenty at stake with this and similar ventures. No surprise, then, that its spokesperson told Automotive Dive that Ionna doesn’t rely on federal dollars and will press on regardless of what happens in Washington. Regardless of the prevailing winds in D.C., Hyundai/Kia is motivated to support a growing national network to boost the sales of models on the market like the Hyundai Ioniq5 and Kia EV6, as well as the company’s many new EVs in the pipeline. They’re not alone. Mercedes-Benz, for example, is building a small supply of branded high-power charging stations so its EV drivers can refill their batteries in Mercedes luxury.
The fate of the federal NEVI dollars is still up in the air. The clearinghouse on this funding shows a state-by-state patchwork. More than a dozen states have some NEVI-funded chargers operational, but a few have gotten no further than having their plans for fiscal year 2024 approved. Only Rhode Island has fully built out its planned network. It’s possible that monies already allocated will go out, despite the administration’s attempt to kill the program.
In the meantime, Tesla’s Supercharger network is still king of the hill, and with a growing number of its stations now open to EVs from other brands (and a growing number of brands building their new EVs with the Tesla NACS charging port), Superchargers will be the most convenient option for lots of electric drivers on road trips. Unless the alternatives can become far more widespread and reliable, that is.
The increasing state and private focus on building chargers is good for all EV drivers, starting with those who haven’t gone in on an electric car yet and are still worried about range or charger wait times on the road to their destination. It is also, by the way, good news for the growing number of EV folks looking to avoid Elon Musk at all cost.
From Kansas to Brooklyn, the fire is turning battery skeptics into outright opponents.
The symbol of the American battery backlash can be found in the tiny town of Halstead, Kansas.
Angry residents protesting a large storage project proposed by Boston developer Concurrent LLC have begun brandishing flashy yard signs picturing the Moss Landing battery plant blaze, all while freaking out local officials with their intensity. The modern storage project bears little if any resemblance to the Moss Landing facility, which uses older technology,, but that hasn’t calmed down anxious locals or stopped news stations from replaying footage of the blaze in their coverage of the conflict.
The city of Halstead, under pressure from these locals, is now developing a battery storage zoning ordinance – and explicitly saying this will not mean a project “has been formally approved or can be built in the city.” The backlash is now so intense that Halstead’s mayor Dennis Travis has taken to fighting back against criticism on Facebook, writing in a series of posts about individuals in his community “trying to rule by MOB mentality, pushing out false information and intimidating” volunteers working for the city. “I’m exercising MY First Amendment Right and well, if you don’t like it you can kiss my grits,” he wrote. Other posts shared information on the financial benefits of building battery storage and facts to dispel worries about battery fires. “You might want to close your eyes and wish this technology away but that is not going to happen,” another post declared. “Isn’t it better to be able to regulate it in our community?”
What’s happening in Halstead is a sign of a slow-spreading public relations wildfire that’s nudging communities that were already skeptical of battery storage over the edge into outright opposition. We’re not seeing any evidence that communities are transforming from supportive to hostile – but we are seeing new areas that were predisposed to dislike battery storage grow more aggressive and aghast at the idea of new projects.
Heatmap Pro data actually tells the story quite neatly: Halstead is located in Harvey County, a high risk area for developers that already has a restrictive ordinance banning all large-scale solar and wind development. There’s nothing about battery storage on the books yet, but our own opinion poll modeling shows that individuals in this county are more likely to oppose battery storage than renewable energy.
We’re seeing this phenomenon play out elsewhere as well. Take Fannin County, Texas, where residents have begun brandishing the example of Moss Landing to rail against an Engie battery storage project, and our modeling similarly shows an intense hostility to battery projects. The same can be said about Brooklyn, New York, where anti-battery concerns are far higher in our polling forecasts – and opposition to battery storage on the ground is gaining steam.