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Elon Musk pledged a huge campaign donation. Also, Trump is suddenly cool with electric vehicles.
Update, July 24: Elon Musk told Jordan Peterson in an interview Monday evening that “I am not donating $45 million a month to Trump,” adding that he does not belong to the former president’s “cult of personality.” Musk acknowledged, however, that helped create America PAC to promote “meritocracy and individual freedom,” and that it would support Trump while also not being “hyperpartisan.”
When former President Donald Trump addressed a crowd of non-union autoworkers in Clinton Township, Michigan, last fall, he came with a dire warning: “You’re going to lose your beautiful way of life.” President Biden’s electric vehicle transition, Trump claimed, would be “a transition to hell.”
Nearly 10 months later, Trump seems to have warmed up considerably to the idea of that hell. Despite denouncing the electric vehicle transition at countless interim rallies as a woke and all-but-certain “bloodbath” for American automakers and making endless jokes about range (including, admittedly, the banger: “The happiest moment for somebody in an electric car is the first 10 minutes … The unhappiest part is the next hour because you’re petrified that you’re not going to be finding another charger”), Trump’s tone on EVs has considerably softened in the past several weeks.
“I have no objection to the electric vehicle — the EV. I think it’s great,” Trump told Bloomberg earlier this month, shortly after promising to end Biden’s nonexistent EV mandate on “day one” in office. His improved mood still came with caveats (“They don’t go far enough; they’re very, very expensive; they’re also heavy”) but it seemed to be part of a larger trend. “I’m totally for [electric cars], whatever the market says,” Trump followed up with a crowd in Grand Rapids, Michigan, over the weekend. “And if it’s 10% of the market, 12%, 7%, 20% — whatever it is, it’s okay.”
Some of this fluctuation is normal for Trump. As Patrick George has written for Heatmap, the former president’s “knowledge of the workings of the auto industry is suspect on a good day”; when in office, Trump even hyped the now-defunct EV manufacturer Lordstown Motors.
But you don’t have to look too far for the answers to, Why this particular flip-flop? and Why now? Trump told us himself when he was in Arizona last month: “I’m a big fan of electric cars,” he said. “I’m a fan of Elon — I like Elon.” That is, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the country’s biggest EV maker.
Bemused Tesla shareholders asked Musk about Trump’s change of heart on EVs, to which the CEO reportedly quipped, “I can be persuasive.” Trump’s new tune comes amid reports that the Tesla CEO pledged to give a new pro-Trump super PAC $45 million monthly through November. Trump isn’t even shy about hiding this link; in the same speech he claimed to be “totally for” EVs, he also bragged about the size of Musk’s donation.
Tesla shares popped 4% after Trump’s most recent comments, and the company is now big enough not to need the government subsidies that Trump would inevitably roll back. (Of course, it’s a different story for Tesla’s rivals.)
It’s not just that Trump’s support of EVs evidently has a price tag. It’s the unspoken suggestion of what other industry interests might be able to buy. You can bet fossil fuel executives haven’t missed the message — Trump has reportedly even pitched policy priorities like expanding oil drilling leases, threatening offshore wind, and undoing Biden’s protections for the Arctic behind closed doors with would-be oil and gas donors.
Voters usually want conviction and vision from their politicians—not someone taking best offers from the rich. But this is no ordinary election. Besides, there are still plenty of weeks to go until November. That’s plenty of time to change a mind.
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A judge has lifted the administration’s stop-work order against Revolution Wind.
A federal court has lifted the Trump administration’s order to halt construction on the Revolution Wind farm off the coast of New England. The decision marks the renewables industry’s first major legal victory against a federal war on offshore wind.
The Interior Department ordered Orsted — the Danish company developing Revolution Wind — to halt construction of Revolution Wind on August 22, asserting in a one-page letter that it was “seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States and prevention of interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas.”
In a two-page ruling issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth found that Orsted would presumably win its legal challenge against the stop work order, and that the company is “likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction,” which led him to lift the dictate from the Trump administration.
Orsted previously claimed in legal filings that delays from the stop work order could put the entire project in jeopardy by pushing its timeline beyond the terms of existing power purchase agreements, and that the company installing cable for the project only had a few months left to work on Revolution Wind before it had to move onto other client obligations through mid-2028. The company has also argued that the Trump administration is deliberately mischaracterizing discussions between the federal government and the company that took place before the project was fully approved.
It’s still unclear at this moment whether the Trump administration will appeal the decision. We’re still waiting on the outcome of a separate legal challenge brought by Democrat-controlled states against Trump’s anti-wind Day One executive order.
A new letter sent Friday asks for reams of documentation on developers’ compliance with the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is sending letters to wind developers across the U.S. asking for volumes of records about eagle deaths, indicating an imminent crackdown on wind farms in the name of bird protection laws.
The Service on Friday sent developers a request for records related to their permits under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which compels companies to obtain permission for “incidental take,” i.e. the documented disturbance of eagle species protected under the statute, whether said disturbance happens by accident or by happenstance due to the migration of the species. Developers who received the letter — a copy of which was reviewed by Heatmap — must provide a laundry list of documents to the Service within 30 days, including “information collected on each dead or injured eagle discovered.” The Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
These letters represent the rapid execution of an announcement made just a week ago by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who released a memo directing department staff to increase enforcement of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act “to ensure that our national bird is not sacrificed for unreliable wind facilities.” The memo stated that all permitted wind facilities would receive records requests related to the eagle law by August 11 — so, based on what we’ve now seen and confirmed, they’re definitely doing that.
There’s cause for wind developers, renewables advocates, and climate activists to be alarmed here given the expanding horizon of enforcement of wildlife statutes, which have become a weapon for the administration against zero-carbon energy generation.
The August 4 memo directed the Service to refer “violations” of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act to the agency solicitor’s office, with potential further referral to the Justice Department for criminal or civil charges. Violating this particular law can result in a fine of at least $100,000 per infraction, a year in prison, or both, and penalties increase if a company, organization, or individual breaks the law more than once. It’s worth noting at this point that according to FWS’s data, oil pits historically kill far more birds per year than wind turbines.
In a statement to Heatmap News, the American Clean Power Association defended the existing federal framework around protecting eagles from wind turbines, noted the nation’s bald eagle population has risen significantly overall in the past two decades, and claimed golden eagle populations are “stable, at the same time wind energy has been growing.”
“This is clear evidence that strong protections and reasonable permitting rules work. Wind and eagles are successfully co-existing,” ACP spokesperson Jason Ryan said.
The $7 billion program had been the only part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund not targeted for elimination by the Trump administration.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to cancel grants awarded from the $7 billion Solar for All program, the final surviving grants from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, by the end of this week, The New York Times is reporting. Two sources also told the same to Heatmap.
Solar for All awarded funds to 60 nonprofits, tribes, state energy offices, and municipalities to deliver the benefits of solar energy — namely, utility bill savings — to low-income communities. Some of the programs are focused on rooftop solar, while others are building community solar, which enable residents that don’t own their homes to access cheaper power.
The EPA is drafting termination letters to all 60 grantees, the Times reported. An EPA spokesperson equivocated in response to emailed questions from Heatmap about the fate of the program. “With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, EPA is working to ensure Congressional intent is fully implemented in accordance with the law,” the person said.
Although Solar for All was one of the programs affected by the Trump administration’s initial freeze on Inflation Reduction Act funding, EPA had resumed processing payments for recipients after a federal judge placed an injunction on the pause. But in mid-March, the EPA Office of the Inspector General announced its intent to audit Solar for All. The results of that audit have not yet been published.
The Solar for All grants are a subset of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, most of which had been designated to set up a series of green lending programs. In March, Administrator Lee Zeldin accused the program of fraud, waste, and abuse — the so-called “gold bar” scandal — and attempted to claw back all $20 billion. Recipients of that funding are fighting the termination in an ongoing court case.
State attorneys generals are likely to challenge the Solar for All terminations in court, should they go through, a source familiar with the state programs told me.
All $7 billion under the program has been obligated to grantees, but the money is not yet fully out the door, as recipients must request reimbursements from the EPA as they spend down their grants. Very little has been spent so far, as many grantees opted to use the first year of the five-year program as a planning period.