The main narratives in the clean energy sector continue to be change and turbulence at the federal and state levels, and NetZero Insider reporters are staying ahead of the stories.
Covering the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Winter Policy Summit, our James Downing untangled the discussions among industry leaders on the challenges of demand growth and the market structures that are and aren’t meeting the moment to ensure grid reliability and affordability.
President Donald Trump’s hostility toward offshore wind could threaten 43 GW of Atlantic Coast projects, New York correspondent Vincent Gabrielle writes. Looking at Trump’s executive orders on OSW, a new report rates East Coast projects under construction as low risk, but it finds higher risks for 32 GW of projects still in the development and permitting stages.
Conflict between Connecticut utilities and the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority recently came to a head over the reappointment of Chair Marissa Gillett, Jon Lamson reports. Gov. Ned Lamont is standing by Gillett, who has argued she is following the law and attempting to hold accountable at least one state utility that has not gone through an official rate case proceeding since 2014.
Moving to our curated content, the ongoing impacts of the Trump administration’s attack on clean energy funding from the Inflation Reduction Act continue to grab headlines.
A Wisconsin Watch story details the effects of the funding freeze on local dairy farmers like Travis and Amy Forgues, who received an email pausing the funds they relied on to pay for the money-saving solar installation they built at their Hidden Springs Creamery.
The New York Times dives into the controversy over EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s efforts to claw back $20 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction funding from the IRA, which eight nonprofit green banks will distribute to clean energy projects in rural and disadvantaged communities across the country.
Zeldin is also looking at how to overturn the endangerment finding, the 2009 rule that authorizes the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, Politico reports. The question for Trump and Zeldin is whether they want to spend the political capital required to loosen or overturn the rule, when even oil companies and utilities have said they oppose the
rollback, according to another Politico story.
Environmental groups and organic farmers in New York are already suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture over its scrubbing of climate change information from its website. Following a Jan. 30 order, the department took down websites containing “datasets, interactive tools and funding information that farmers and researchers relied on for planning and adaptation projects,” The New York Times reported.
At the state and local level, Inside Climate News covers the annual Community Power Scorecard issued by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, rating states on policies that allow residents to choose energy resources and limit utility control of those choices. Illinois scored the highest rating on the list, a “B,” while 23 states flunked.
Maine scored a “C” on the ILSR scorecard, but a major battle over solar net metering is brewing there, with Republican state legislators introducing bills that would overturn programs for community solar projects, as well as property tax exemptions for them, according to pv magazine.
Read on for this week’s Intelligence Report:
|
Share
Tweet
Share
Forward