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Congress is out for a two-week spring break, which means there was no entertaining political theater to cover on the Hill last week. But luckily for NetZero Insider reporters and our policy fans, the Department of Energy filled the gap with more funding and policy announcements.
James Downing and Rich Heidorn Jr. kicked off the week with their report on DOE’s Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Study, which calls for cross-state collaboration to develop an interregional network to deliver the energy produced offshore to loads without clogging up the coast with cables and substations.
A second DOE story by James covers DOE’s announcement of $6 billion in funding going to a range of startups working on new technologies for decarbonizing heavy industry.
March 27 was a triple treat, beginning with K Kaufmann’s article on the DOE Loan Programs Office conditional commitment for a $1.52 billion loan to restart Michigan’s 800-MW Palisades nuclear power plant, which has been shut down for almost two years.
Next up is Hugh Morley’s story on the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s final approval for the 924-MW Sunrise Wind offshore wind project off the coast of New York. With BOEM’s sign-off, project partners Ørsted and Eversource said they are ready to take the next steps to line up financing and begin construction.
And last but certainly not least, Ayla Burnett weighs in on California’s plans for using $58.4 million in federal funds to repair or replace an estimated 1,300 nonoperational electric vehicle chargers at 300 sites statewide.
We’ve also got an opinion piece on the clash between state climate goals and RTO/ISO policies that could be decided by New York State Public Service Commission v. FERC (No. 23-1192), a case now before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In our curated content, let’s start with a major story from the nonprofit news site Capital B on the negative impacts funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is having on an African-American community in Texas.
The Georgia legislature has passed a bill that will stretch the terms of commissioners now sitting on the state’s elected Public Service Commission from six to eight years, meaning members of that all-Republican body will not have to face an election ― or public accountability ― for another two years, according to the Associated Press.
The International Council Code is taking flak for voting to approve its 2024 International Energy Conservation Code with key provisions on heat pumps, demand response, EV chargers and storage systems taken out of the base code and relegated to appendices.
And the Biden administration continues to face legal challenges, first for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new rule on disclosure of climate-related risks, and, then, its “pause” on approving new facilities that export natural gas.
Closing out this week’s round-up is a timely story from Capital & Main on how the impacts of climate change in super-red Utah — most notably the shrinking of the Great Salt Lake — have emerged as a significant issue for both Republican and Democratic candidates in the state’s upcoming primaries.
Keep reading for more of NetZero Insider’s comprehensive coverage of federal and state energy polices in this week’s Intelligence Report:
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