“The work will still be here tomorrow,” is a phrase Cassidy Miller keeps in mind when working in the oftentimes demanding and stressful world of student transportation.

Miller said if a day seems really overwhelming or if multiple tasks are thrown her way, she reminds herself that it’s okay to complete them the next day. “The work we do is one big yearlong project at a time, and most things can hang on for one more day,” she shared. “Work/life balance is hard when you’re so passionate about the work you do and feel like you can give 110 percent each day. Remembering all this helps save my sanity and avoid too much overworking some days.”

Each year, School Transportation News chooses 10 Rising Stars based on nominations submitted by school districts and companies around the industry. These individuals have shown exemplary commitment and dedication in the student transportation industry and continue to demonstrate innovation in their roles. This year’s Rising Stars are featured in the November magazine issue.

Miller started in pupil transportation at a much younger age than most. She served as an office assistant for her school district in eighth grade. However, her love of the school bus started long before that.

“I was the student who rode in the front seat, listened to the two-way radio, and had conversations with my bus driver all the way to school,” she shared. “I loved the processes I sort of knew from bus riding and the radio, but when I saw the inside operations, I was hooked. From that moment on my career goals switched to becoming a transportation director and have not changed since.”

In the 12th grade her family moved, and Miller attended a new district that offered a high school internship class with local businesses and organizations. Her district itself wasn’t looking for interns, so she emailed 14 transportation directors at surrounding districts asking for a job.

She said her current director at Snohomish School District replied very quickly. “I worked almost every day February to June of 2021 as a busy intern learning the ropes and being an extra support,” she said, adding that after high school graduation she was hired full time as a substitute router/dispatcher. Miller even took her senior photos in front of the yellow school buses.

Three years after her internship completed, she said she became a contracted employee with her current role being an administrative assistant, router and dispatcher. While she’s officially been in pupil transportation three and half years, she said seven years ago she made the decision to bleed yellow forever.

Miller wasn’t able to obtain her commercial driver’s license until this school year, when she turned 21. Her day-to-day operations consist of managing daily payroll, which is mixed in among all other tasks that pop up randomly, especially dispatch or phone calls. She said her afternoon consists of mostly dispatch and monitoring or setting up rides with the district’s car service contractors. She she anticipates using her CDL this school year to drive routes alongside other office staff and mechanics because Snohomish is short drivers.

When asked her favorite part of the job, Miller said it’s the different challenge each day.

“The same thing gets boring really quick,” she said. “In transportation you can plan for some things, but never know what will come across the radio that will [cause] you to act.”

Becoming a CPST

Despite helping oversee 90 routes, 39 drivers, four mechanics and working for a district that covers an area of 128-square miles, Kimberly Loughlin, an independent contractor working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Safety Council, said it’s Miller’s child passenger safety technician delineation that prompted the Rising SuperStars award nomination.

“Cassidy at a young age had a passion for child passenger safety,” Loughlin wrote, adding that she first met Miller at age 19. “Cassidy volunteered to help us with media for some national training. Her willingness to volunteer months of her time to help photo and video example footage for us was crucial to the curriculum. Cassidy worked hand-in-hand with a national school bus expert to assist with training videos and photos for the NHTSA/NSC Child Passenger Safety on School Buses National Training.”

Loughlin added that Miller helped arrange resources and child-size dolls used when practicing securement. She even drove to another state to obtain a photo. “Cassidy has added a specialty in school bus transportation to her CPST certification,” Loughlin wrote. “She continues to volunteer her time as a CPST to her community, as well as attend school bus safety initiatives and conventions. I so admire her dedication and passion as a volunteer.”

Miller expanded, adding that as soon as she was 18, she was excited to persue becoming a CPST, “to finally have a certification to go with my love of car seats and safety,” she said.
She noted that instead of family vehicles, she focused on school bus courses and child safety restraints.

“A year later I saw on social media an ask for school bus curriculum photo contributors,” she continued. “I sent off an excited email hoping I could be selected, and it turns out I was one of very few. Having full access to my fleet for photos and getting to work with the amazing [Safe Ride News Editor and Publisher] Denise Donaldson (we are only about 35 miles apart) made contributing to the new curriculum photos/videos such a great success. I am so proud of the content created and grateful for all my helpers (younger siblings, cousins, and neighbors) who were students for photo purposes. I am thrilled to be finally certified to teach the Child Passenger Safety on School Buses course I spent so much time contributing to.”

Another project she’s working on includes a four-year Washington state program, Pupil Transportation Management Training Program. Miller noted that each year a final project is required, something that benefits one’s department. She’s wrapping up her third year in the program, and her project is related to contracted car service providers and inclement weather planning.

Miller said her next certification goal is obtaining the Safe Travel for all Children (STAC), which is geared toward selecting restraints for students with medical conditions. She said she looks forward to continuing to work toward administrative roles in transportation, hoping to land a supervisory role. Her boyfriend also works in student transportation, 120 miles away, so she anticipates settling down with him in the future.

“My goals looking forward are to keep working toward administrative roles in transportation,” she said. “I love the operations and plan to keep growing my skills and experience then see where these take me in Washington. It will be exciting to just see how things play out in the future.”

Challenge at School Start Up

One challenge at school start up that Miller noted was due to staffing and managing all the district routes day to day. She noted that during the summer, Snohomish had more retirees than expected with only few substitute drivers trained and ready for routes.

“It will be another year of office and mechanics filling in routes frequently,” she noted.

Outside of work, Miller’s main activity is supporting the non-profit organization Emma’s Exceptional Equipment Exchange, which helps families who have children with disabilities donate or receive medical supplies/equipment. She said she serves as a lead volunteer and her service area consists of eight counties and a couple hundred miles. “I keep busy coordinating plans or on the road to pick up items/ meet with families as needed,” she said.

Read the profiles on the Rising Stars in the November issue of School Transportation News.

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Related: Rising Star Dedicated to Providing Best Transportation for Students With Special Needs
Related: Missouri Director of Transportation Furthers Safety and Sustainability
Related: (STN Podcast E183) Making Progress: Wyoming Rising Star + Propane, Non-Yellow Bus Convos

The post Passion for Transportation Shines Through Washington ‘Rising Star’ appeared first on School Transportation News.

The following commentary was written by Kelley Trombley, senior manager of state policy at Ceres. See our commentary guidelines for more information.

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This campaign season, the state of Washington was a battleground for energy and climate policy. The pitched fight over Initiative 2117 became one of the most expensive ballot measures in state history, drawing millions of dollars in political funding to each side of the issue, which would have repealed Washington’s Climate Commitment Act to end its nation-leading cap-and-invest system. In its first year alone, the policy has driven $2.2 billion into projects designed to protect the state from the effects of climate change while fighting pollution, but faced opposition from those who argued it hurt the economy. 

Yet it was some of the top employers in the state – and for that matter on the planet – that urged voters to keep the program in place. Amazon, Microsoft, and REI were among the many companies urging a no vote. And in the end, voters agreed, decisively defeating the ballot measure by a wide margin. It turns out that this kind of climate action is actually an economic boon. 

The strong showing of corporate support for the CCA shouldn’t be surprising. Take it from me and my colleagues at Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit that works with businesses and investors across the country on sustainability issues. Over the last decade, leading businesses have increasingly come to recognize that climate and clean energy policies are key economic drivers. Business leaders have rallied to support them – from the federal Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, marking the nation’s largest-ever investment into confronting climate change, to ambitious legislation in states across the U.S., including here in Washington. 

To understand why, just think about what businesses need to prosper. Reliable and affordable electricity to power their operations. Good transportation networks to ensure people and goods can get where they need to be. Infrastructure investment and job growth to bolster local economies. Market-based systems to efficiently solve pressing economywide problems. And, last but not least, a healthy workforce. 

The CCA is delivering all of that.  

By putting a cap on carbon pollution designed to all but eliminate it by 2050, the policy uses basic economic principles to address the challenge and financial risks of climate change. It promises to reduce impacts such as floods, drought, heatwaves, and severe storms that threaten pillars of the economy that businesses depend on, such as infrastructure, facilities, supply chains, and workforces. Not only that, the CCA is also investing in improving and fortifying many of those very things: its revenue is being used to improve and modernize energy and transportation infrastructure, invest in energy efficiency, and protect communities from climate impacts. Repealing it was projected to cost some 45,000 good-paying jobs and do $9 billion in economic damage. 

Businesses understood the CCA is about protecting and strengthening our economic future, one that we are all in together. And voters did too. By voting no, Washington has signaled to companies across the U.S. that it is acting to address a major economic challenge and is investing in solutions that businesses of the future will rely on.  

There’s a lesson here for state policymakers around the country, especially those committed to strengthening their communities as an attractive and reliable place to conduct business. The private sector will continue to seize business opportunities as clean energy investment grows, and states will find broad support when they address the economic imperative to reduce pollution and advance clean power, transportation, and building policies. In Washington, voters made it abundantly clear that their “no” vote wasn’t about just protecting the climate. It was about protecting the economy as well. 

Commentary: Why businesses stood up for Washington state’s cap-and-invest policy is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

FRISCO, Texas — Plano Independent School District located just miles from the TSD Conference this weekend claimed the top two spots in the annual roadeo and training competition as Texas continued its dominance of the event.

The team of Andwain Coleman and Mohmed Omera tied coworkers Mohsen Al Asad and Nabila Audi with scores of 889 out of a possible 1,020 points. Alexandra Robinson, the lead coordinator for the roadeo organizer Women in Transportation. (wit.) group and a TSD Conference Tenured Faculty member, said during a banquet Saturday night hosted by lead sponsor Q’Straint/Sure-Lok that the roadeo judges broke the tie by comparing times for finishing the event.

Coleman and Omera clinched the victory as their time was six minutes faster than that of Al Asad and Audi. Robinson said it was the first time in the roadeo’s 30-year history that such a tiebreaker was needed. It was the fourth consecutive win for a Texas team over the dating back to 2019. The competition was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The team of Elizabeth Berninger and Jennifer Gue representing the Washington Association for Pupil Transportation took home third place with a score of 885 points. Ten teams competed at host Frisco ISD in 9 events or stations and also took a written test.

Coleman finished second in last year’s competition and said he partnered with Omera earlier this year after his previous partner was promoted to a different position. It was Coleman’s third consecutive year competing in the event. This was Omera’s second national competition.

When asked about their confidence following the competition, Coleman said, “Ain’t nobody perfect, I know we had some mess ups there, but I know overall we did pretty good.”

Coleman and Omera both have been driving for Plano ISD for the past six school years, with Coleman previously driving a truck for 20 years.

Looking ahead, Coleman and Omera confirmed they plan to compete at the roadeo competition and training next year, as they already won their Texas district competition. The next step is competing in regionals in March.

When discussing the challenges of their Plano ISD school bus routes, Coleman and Omera cited student behavior and other motorists on the road as the biggest daily challenges they face.

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Related: Texas Teams Dominate Roadeo Competition Held at TSD Conference
Related: Texas Team Wins Return of TSD Roadeo from COVID-19 Hiatus
Related: TSD: Texas Team Takes Home First Place in National TSD Roadeo

The post Texas Team Takes Home Roadeo Crown at TSD Conference appeared first on School Transportation News.

SEATTLE, Wash.- Zonar, the leader in commercial vehicle fleet health and safety, today announced the general availability of Zonar Emissions Check, a new solution that enables on-route compliance, reduces downtime, and lowers third-party operational costs. For existing customers with the Zonar V4 telematics control unit (TCU) already installed, the compliance process is ready to seamlessly be activated with integrated Emissions Check services.

In July, Zonar received certification from California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) Clean Truck Check (CTC) program as a provider of continuously connected remote on-board diagnostic (CC-ROBD) testing devices. This certification allows Zonar to utilize its V4 TCU to conduct emissions scans on vehicles that meet CARB’s CTC requirements.

Emissions Check simplifies fleet operations and eliminates the need for dispatch to reroute drivers to testing facilities or require maintenance teams to run additional tests. This saves fleets significant time and money, while streamlining the process by only sharing Emissions Check data directly with CARB, when required.

“We’re excited to bring this solution to market to support fleets in meeting important regulatory compliance, but also to help meet long-term emissions and sustainability goals,” said Greg Colvin, senior director of solutions engineering at Zonar. “Emissions Check delivers accurate pass/fail results without taking vehicles offline for testing, enhancing fleet efficiency and productivity.”

When Emissions Check is paired with diagnostic and predictive fault code reporting with Zonar FaultIQ, customers can also receive notifications of emission faults to fix before potential testing failures for a full end-to-end fleet health and safety solution. FaultIQ maximizes vehicle uptime by continuously monitoring fleet health, helping assets run better for longer.

The first testing window is open, and enforcement will begin on January 1, 2025. To learn more about Zonar Emissions Check, visit: https://www.zonarsystems.com/solutions/carb-clean-truck-emissions-check/

About Zonar:
Founded in 2001, Zonar has pioneered smart mobility solutions throughout vocational, pupil, mass transit, state and local municipalities, and commercial trucking industries. The Zonar mission is to enhance the safety, performance, and success of our customers by transforming the delivery of innovative insights for commercial fleets. Zonar achieves this by helping fleets of all sizes maximize the use of their assets with solutions dedicated to improving compliance, efficiency, maintenance, ridership visibility, safety, and tracking. Cloud-based services with open APIs drive Zonar smart mobility solutions by making it easy for fleet owners and managers to stay connected to their fleets and drivers and operators to dispatch. Headquartered in Seattle and part of the Continental family, Zonar also has a distribution center in West Chicago.

The post Zonar Launches Emissions Check for California Air Resources Board Clean Truck Check Compliance appeared first on School Transportation News.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with High Country News. 

When Yakama Nation leaders learned in 2017 of a plan to tunnel through some of their ancestral land for a green energy development, they were caught off guard.

While the tribal nation had come out in favor of climate-friendly projects, this one appeared poised to damage Pushpum, a privately owned ridgeline overlooking the Columbia River in Washington. The nation holds treaty rights to gather traditional foods there, and tribal officials knew they had to stop the project.

Problems arose when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency in charge of permitting hydro energy projects, offered the Yakama Nation what tribal leaders considered an impossible choice: disclose confidential ceremonial, archaeological and cultural knowledge, or waive the right to consult on whether and how the site is developed.

This put the Yakama Nation in a bind. Disclosing exactly what made the land sacred risked revealing to outsiders what they treasured most about it. In the past, disclosure of information about everything from food to archaeological sites enabled non-Natives to loot or otherwise desecrate the land.

Even now, tribal leaders struggle to safely express what the Pushpum project threatens. “I don’t know how in-depth I can go,” said Elaine Harvey, a tribal member and former environmental coordinator for the tribal fisheries department, when asked about the foods and medicines that grow on the land.

“It provides for us,” echoed Yakama Nation Councilmember Jeremy Takala. “Sometimes we do get really protective.”

Although government agencies have sometimes taken significant steps to protect tribal confidentiality, that didn’t happen with the Pushpum proposal, known as the Goldendale Energy Storage Project. Tribal leaders repeatedly objected, telling the agency that if a tribal nation deems a place sacred, they shouldn’t have to break confidentiality to prove it — a position supported by state agency leaders and, new reporting shows, at least one other federal agency.

Nonetheless, after seven years, in February FERC moved the project forward without consulting with the Yakama Nation.

The process known as consultation is often fraught. Federal laws and agency rules require that tribes be able to weigh in on decisions that affect their treaty lands. But in practice, consultation procedures sometimes force tribes to reveal information that makes them more vulnerable, without offering any guaranteed benefit.

The risks of disclosure are not hypothetical: Looting and vandalism are common when information about Indigenous resources becomes public. One important mid-Columbia petroglyph, called Tsagaglalal, or She Who Watches, had to be removed from its original site because of vandalism. And recreational and commercial pickers have flooded one of Washington’s best huckleberry picking areas, called Indian Heaven Wilderness, pushing out Native families trying to stock up for the winter.

The Yakama Nation feared similar outcomes if it fully participated in FERC’s consultation process over the Goldendale development. But there are alternatives. The United Nations recognizes Indigenous peoples’ right to affirmatively consent to development on their sacred lands. A similar model was included in state legislation in Washington three years ago, but Gov. Jay Inslee vetoed it.

The requirements of the consultation process are poorly defined, and state and federal agencies interpret them in a broad range of ways. In the case of Pushpum, critics say that has allowed FERC to overlook tribal concerns.

“They’re just being totally disregarded,” said Simone Anter, an attorney at the environmental nonprofit Columbia Riverkeeper and a descendant of the Pascua Yaqui and Jicarilla Apache nations. “What FERC is doing is so blatantly, blatantly wrong.”

The Yakama Nation has been outspoken in its support for renewable energy development, including solar and small-scale hydro projects. But not at Pushpum; it’s sacred to the Kah-milt-pah people, one of the bands within the Yakama Nation, who still regularly use the site.

The proposal would transform this area into a facility intended to store renewable energy in a low-carbon way. Rye Development, a Florida-based company, submitted an application for permits for a “pumped hydro” system, where a pair of reservoirs connected by a tunnel store energy for future use.

FERC has offered few accommodations for the Yakama Nation on the Goldendale project.

FERC spokesperson Celeste Miller told High Country News and ProPublica in an email that “we will work to address the effects of proposed projects on Tribal rights and resources to the greatest extent we can, consistent with federal law and regulations. This is a pending matter before the Commission, so we cannot discuss the merits of this proceeding.”

“FERC legally doesn’t have to do very much here,” said Kevin Washburn, a dean of the University of Iowa College of Law, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and a former assistant secretary of Indian affairs at the Department of the Interior. “Consultation is designed to open the door so tribes can get in the door to talk to decision-makers.” According to experts, the process can range from collaborative planning that addresses tribal concerns to a perfunctory discussion with minimal impacts, depending on the agency.

“This is the problem with consultation and its lack of teeth,” said Anter. “If the federal government is saying, ‘Hey, we consulted, check that box,’ who’s to say they didn’t?”

There’s another problem with consultation, too: Any discussions with a federal entity are subject to public disclosure. That’s good for government transparency, Washburn said, but it can make tribal nations even more vulnerable. “And it’s why tribes are right to be cautious in what they share with feds,” he said.

That’s an obstacle at Pushpum. Things became even harder there in August 2021, when FERC notified the Yakama Nation that federal consultation would be carried out not by the agency itself, but by the developer. The Yakama Nation pushed back, asserting its treaty rights to negotiate as a sovereign nation only with another nation, not with a private entity. FERC, however, insisted that designating a third party was “standard practice.” The National Historic Preservation Act, signed into law in 1966, says an agency “may authorize an applicant or group of applicants to initiate consultation,” but maintains that the federal agency is still “responsible for their government to government relationships with Indian tribes.”

The Yakama Nation also worried about commission rules that require anything the tribal nation says to FERC be shared with the developer. “It gets very sensitive when we share those kinds of stories,” said Takala, the tribal councilmember. “We just don’t share to anyone, especially a developer.”

Some say FERC could change that internal rule, since it isn’t required by law. “For them to cite their own regulations and be like, ‘Our hands are tied,’ is ridiculous,” Anter said. For months, FERC and the Yakama Nation went back and forth over the conditions under which the tribal government would share sensitive information, with the Yakama Nation repeatedly asking to share information only with FERC.

Ultimately, FERC proposed four ways the Yakama Nation could participate in consultation. In the eyes of tribal leaders, all these options either posed significant risks to the privacy of their information or rendered consultation meaningless.

The first three were laid out in a letter from Vince Yearick, director of FERC’s division of hydropower licensing, sent on Dec. 9, 2021. For option one, it suggested the tribal nation request nondisclosure agreements from anyone accessing sensitive information. Yearick did not specify whether FERC would be responsible for issuing or enforcing these NDAs.

Delano Saluskin, then-chair of the Yakama Nation, called this option “far from the requirements of NHPA or in line with the trust responsibility that the Federal Agency has to Yakama Nation,” citing FERC policies and National Historic Preservation Act law in a February 2022 letter to state and federal government officials requesting support. He added that it “describes a process that does not protect information that is sacred and sensitive from disclosure.”

Alternatively, FERC said, the Yakama Nation could simply redact any sensitive information from documents it filed. This option, however, would leave FERC in the dark about the details of what cultural resources the project would imperil. That would make it harder for FERC to require project adjustments or weigh the specific impacts in its decision about whether to permit construction.

Third, the Yakama Nation could withhold sensitive information altogether, which would present similar problems.

Lastly, in a June 2022 follow-up letter, the commission suggested that the Yakama Nation submit a document “with more details regarding the resources of concern” and a request that some of the information be treated as privileged or withheld from public disclosure.

Overall, Saluskin described FERC’s options as a “failure” to conduct legal consultation in good faith.

A federal agency similarly raised concerns: In May 2023, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which advises the president and the Congress on protecting historic properties across the country, wrote to FERC suggesting that it “provide the Tribes with opportunities to share information that will be kept confidential.” FERC’s rule regarding disclosure, the council said, could insulate the agency from meaningful consultation, “and as a result from any real understanding of the nature and significance of properties of religious and cultural significance for Tribes.”

The concerns over FERC’s engagement with the Yakama Nation are part of a wider discussion of whether and how the U.S. government should protect tribal privacy and cultural resources. Speaking at a tribal energy summit in Tacoma in June 2023, Allyson Brooks, Washington’s state historic preservation officer, said that even though the consent language was vetoed by the governor, state law for protecting confidentiality around tribal cultural properties is still stronger than federal law, which only protects confidentiality if a site is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

In Washington, if a tribal historic preservation officer says, “‘X marks the spot; this is sacred,’ we say, ‘OK,’” Brooks declared. She said asking tribal nations to prove a site’s sacredness is like asking to see a photo of baby Jesus before accepting the sanctity of Christmas. “You don’t. You say ‘nice tree’ and take it at face value. When tribes say ‘X is sacred,’ you should take that at face value too.”

That approach is vital to the Yakama Nation, which recently saw a developer involved with a project proposed in nearby Benton County leak information that the nation believed was private.

The Horse Heaven Hills wind farm would be the biggest energy development of any kind in Washington state history. But the sprawling 72,000-acre project overlaps with nesting habitat for migratory ferruginous hawks, a raptor state-listed as endangered.

Court documents related to the permitting proceedings show that the Yakama Nation believed it had identified the locations of the ferruginous hawks’ nests as confidential, in part because the hawks are ceremonially important. In May 2023, the Yakama Nation requested a protective order from the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, a state-level analog of FERC. The order, which the council issued, instructed all parties to sign a confidentiality agreement before accessing confidential information, similar to the nondisclosure agreements FERC proposed. If any party disclosed that information, they could be liable for damages.

But the order didn’t stop that information from getting out. In February 2024, the Seattle Times published a story on the Horse Heaven Hills wind farm, which included a map of ferruginous hawk nests — a map that was credited to Scout Clean Energy, the developer.

The Yakama Nation quickly filed a motion to enforce the protective order, alleging that Scout Clean Energy had transgressed by passing protected cultural information to the press.

The developer counter-filed, claiming that even if nest locations were a part of confidentiality discussion, the map itself was not, and that it was so imprecise that the critical details remained confidential. The council ultimately agreed.

Despite the risks, Washburn said that tribes should take any opportunity to share their stories with federal officials, even if the conditions aren’t perfect. “I wouldn’t necessarily encourage tribes to give their deepest, darkest secrets to a federal agency,” he said. “But I would encourage them to meet with FERC and try to give FERC a first-person account of why they think this is important.”

Not all experts agree. Brett Lee Shelton, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and an attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, said FERC is out of step with other federal and state agencies. “It’s hard to believe that it’s anything but disingenuous, using that tactic,” he said. “It’s pretty well known by any agency officials who deal with Indian tribes that sometimes certain specifics about sacred places need to remain confidential.”

And for Bronsco Jim, a spiritual leader of the Kah-milt-pah people, sharing too many details is out of the question. Cultural specifics stay within the oral teachings of the longhouse, the site of the Kah-milt-pah spiritual community. Jim said he doesn’t even know how to translate all of the information into English. “We don’t write it, you won’t see it posted. You won’t see it in books. It’s our oral history. It’s sacred.”

In a push for green energy, one federal agency made tribes an offer they had to refuse is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.