Current conditions: Flash flood warnings remain in place today throughout the south-central U.S. • Israel has requested international assistance in fighting large fires that have broken out in the hills near Jerusalem • May in Europe is off to a warm start, with temperatures in the mid-80s in Paris.
THE TOP FIVE
1. Tesla board began search for Musk’s replacement: report
Tesla’s board initiated a search for a chief executive to replace Elon Musk, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday night. With stock prices “vaporized,” car sales floundering, and dealerships becoming targets for public frustrations with the government, the board reportedly warned Musk that he needed to shift his focus from reform efforts in Washington and back to Tesla. At the time of the conversation, which happened “about a month ago,” Musk “didn’t push back,” the Journal writes, although Musk subsequently told investors on Tesla’s earnings call last week that he’d be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla.” While the board had reportedly advanced its search for Musk’s successor to the point of having “narrowed its focus to a major search firm,” the current status of the effort to find Musk’s replacement “couldn’t be determined.”
Musk has complained to those close to him that he is “frustrated to still be working nonstop” at Tesla, and has made public comments about his compensation. He spent more than $250 million on Trump’s re-election campaign, although his company faces substantial hurdles due to the president’s policies, including a significant hit from tariffs and a loss of competitive advantage if California’s ability to set vehicle emission standards stricter than the federal government’s, which has generated significant revenue for Tesla in the form of compliance credits it’s sold to other automakers, is revoked.
2. House strikes down California’s clean truck rule, cueing up clean air vote
The House of Representatives voted 231 to 191 on Wednesday evening to revoke California’s ability to incentivize clean truck purchases, a prelude to Thursday’s vote over whether or not the state can set stricter auto emission standards than the federal limits. Thirteen moderate Democrats, including Henry Cuellar of Texas, Susie Lee of Nevada, and Tom Suozzi of New York, joined Republicans in voting to block California from requiring truck dealers to sell an increasing number of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles over time. In a separate vote on Wednesday, the House revoked another of California’s standard-setting capabilities, designed to cut down on nitrogen oxide emissions, which Republican Morgan Griffith of Virginia described as “an effort to truly vilify diesel engines.” The measures will now be sent to the Senate.
California’s authority to set these rules comes from waivers it’s been granted by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act, which otherwise compels states to adhere to federal standards. The Clean Air Act also allows other states to adopt California’s standards, giving the state extraordinary influence over the automotive market.
The marquee vote, however, will come on Thursday, when the House will vote to end California’s vehicle emissions waiver, which some critics have erroneously characterized as an electric vehicle mandate. Many are skeptical, however, that Congress has the authority to revoke the waiver under the Congressional Review Act. Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has previously said the waivers do not qualify under the CRA and “ignoring that ruling would buck decades of precedent under presidential administrations of both parties, and would lay the foundation for potentially tricky legal fights down the road should a future president decide to grant California a new waiver,” journalist Clark Mindock writes for Landmark.
3. Debate rages over whether Spain’s renewable energy dependence caused Iberian blackout
Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images
Monday’s 18-hour blackout across Spain and Portugal has sparked a fierce and ongoing debate over whether the Iberian Peninsula’s heavy reliance on wind and solar energy is to blame. While the investigation into the cause of the blackout is still ongoing, we do know that at the time of the outage, Spain’s grid “had little ‘inertia,’ which renewables opponents have seized on as a reason to blame carbon-free electricity for the breakdown,” my colleague Matthew Zeitlin explains. In essence, gas turbines and nuclear plants have inertia that comes from spinning metal, such as a turbine, which can provide the system with a little more momentum if a generator drops off the grid. “Solar panels, however, don’t spin,” Matthew adds — hence the current line of attack by energy transition skeptics.
On Wednesday, the president of Spain’s national grid operator, Red Eléctrica, insisted that “linking what happened on Monday to renewables isn’t correct.” Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has likewise claimed that “Those who link this incident to the lack of nuclear power are frankly lying or demonstrating their ignorance.” But as Matthew writes, it wouldn’t necessarily be a surprise to learn that a renewables-heavy grid struggled with maintaining reliability due to low inertia — nor is it an insurmountable challenge. Read more about how inertia may have played a part in the blackout here.
4. Equinor considers ‘legal options’ against the Trump administration over canceled wind farm
Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned energy company behind Empire Wind, is reportedly considering suing the Trump administration after the Department of the Interior canceled its Long Island offshore wind farm last month. As my colleagues Emily Pontecorvo and Jael Holzman reported at the time, Empire Wind was “the second fully permitted offshore wind project” to be targeted by the administration, and its potential cancellation represents “a huge blow to New York State’s climate and clean energy goals.”
Equinor has already spent nearly $2 billion on Empire Wind, which was almost a third complete at the time Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered an immediate halt to construction. The company is now “considering its legal options,” The Guardian writes, and “may take Donald Trump’s administration to court.”
5. India braces for potentially deadly slate of spring heatwaves
India is preparing for a series of heatwaves in May that could potentially strain power grids and lead to dangerous blackouts, Bloomberg reports. The warning — issued on Wednesday by the director general of India’s Meteorological Department, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra — follows what was already a difficult April in the country, with temperatures in New Delhi spiking above 100 degrees Fahrenheit earlier in the month. In Jaipur, temperatures have already broken 110 degrees, leading outdoor laborers to suffer from heatstroke. Mohapatra confirmed that above-average temperatures are expected to persist over most of the country between now and the onset of the monsoon season in June, except in some parts of the southern and eastern states. Spring heatwaves in India have been linked to climate change, with Gianmarco Mengaldo, a climate expert at the National University of Singapore and author of one such report, telling The Guardian, “Many of the events predicted for 2050 or 2070 are already happening. We underestimated the speed of change.
THE KICKER
Ministers in the UK are considering a new rule that would require almost all new homes to have rooftop solar.
Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images
