State regulators have paved the way for We Energies to spend about $1.5 billion to build two natural gas power plants in southeastern Wisconsin.
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CHARLESTON, S.C. – Orange Grove Charter School, based in Charleston, South Carolina, continues to go green and sets a new standard by converting a majority of their diesel school buses to run on renewable natural gas (RNG). Today, the Charleston-based charter school announced they are the first in the nation to convert their school bus fleet to the DEMI-NeuFuel diesel displacement platform.
The DEMI-NeuFuel school bus platform (aka the “CowFartBus”) is made possible, through a partnership between Ingevity, a specialty chemicals and materials manufacturer based in North Charleston, South Carolina, and American CNG, based in Layton, Utah.
This fleet conversion follows a successful pilot program with Orange Grove Charter School upfitting an existing school bus with Ingevity’s NeuFuel technology and American CNG’s DEMI Diesel Displacer
system. Together, the platform enables buses to run on a blend of diesel and RNG, a near-zero carbon fuel that is derived from the biodegradation process of organic matter from agricultural, landfill, and wastewater facilities. This system is designed for use on in-service, existing diesel school bus and does not require districts or contractors to purchase new buses. Orange Grove CEO, John Clendaniel, says the new system will save the school $750 dollars a month in addition to helping clean up the environment.
Orange Grove’s school bus fleet will now rely on this highly cost-effective and sustainable platform utilizing low-pressure technology to unlock the value of lowcost natural gas, specifically highly sustainable RNG, by using a natural gas hook up
installed on their Charleston, South Carolina campus.
Through the use of the DEMI-NeuFuel technology and RNG, Orange Grove will reduce its fuel costs by over 25%, displacing approximately 270 gallons of diesel per month, and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 32.6 metric tons per year, which is equivalent to 18,549 miles driven by a school bus (Based on EPA greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator and the Department of Energy’s AFLEET Tool).
“This project marks a significant step forward in our commitment to sustainable
transportation and demonstrates how we can reduce our carbon footprint and provide cleaner air to our students and our community, while we remain financially prudent,” said John Clendaniel, CEO of Orange Grove Charter School.
“Ingevity is proud to support Orange Grove’s sustainability journey with the deployment of our DEMI-NeuFuel platform across their entire fleet. This project highlights the benefits of low cost natural gas and zero-to-low carbon RNG as a transportation fuel designed specifically for school bus fleets supporting the transition to a lower cost and more sustainable mode of operations,” said Dante Marini, Product Engineer at Ingevity. “Ingevity’s NeuFuel technology and American CNG’s DEMI Diesel Displacer system can provide school bus fleet operators with the flexibility they need to address their unique requirements without compromise to vehicle or fleet operations.”
“The team has done an excellent job in making the process seamless for drivers.”
said Steve Arato Senior, Bus Driver at Orange Grove Charter School. “Our drivers have all noticed a smoother and quieter operation, which makes for a better ride. Overall, I feel proud knowing that what I’m driving is good for the school financially and better for the environment.”
Orange Grove Charter School was an early adopter of the school bus technology with their initial pilot program beginning in early 2023. Today, this low-pressure RNG solution continues to be utilized across various vehicle classes with school districts, independent bus contractors and other fleets around the country in Wyoming, New Jersey, Michigan, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, Alabama, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina and others. These fleets engaging in pilot programs and follow-on orders are enjoying the sustainability benefits of RNG as well as significantly reduced fueling costs.
The post Orange Grove Charter School First in the Nation to Convert Their Bus Fleet to a Greener Solution Using DEMI-NeuFuel. appeared first on School Transportation News.
Wisconsin labor and clean energy advocates say a Republican plan in Congress to claw back Biden-era clean energy tax credits could jeopardize thousands of jobs and force some companies to abandon projects.
The post Wisconsin labor groups push back as Biden-era climate law’s hefty price tag makes it a target for GOP cuts appeared first on WPR.
A solar power array. Advocates say projects that help speed the conversion to clean energy, such as solar power, could be stymied by a U.S. House proposal to repeal clean energy tax credits. (Photo by Evan Houk/Maine Morning Star)
The tax cut legislation that U.S. House of Representatives Republicans are putting together in Washington includes measures that will cost thousands of jobs in Wisconsin and undercut the state’s progress toward cleaner energy, according to environmental and labor advocates.
To help pay for the extension of tax cuts enacted in the first Trump administration, the GOP-led House Ways and Means Committee is proposing to repeal clean energy tax credits, Politico reported this week. The tax credits were among the measures enacted in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
“These credits are not just numbers on a balance sheet out in Washington D.C,” said Emily Pritzkow, executive director of the Wisconsin Building Trades Council, in an online press conference Wednesday. “They are representing real jobs, real economic growth, and real progress towards Wisconsin’s sustainable energy infrastructure. Since the IRA was signed into law in 2022 we have seen an unprecedented boom in clean energy development in the trades.”
The press conference was hosted by Forward Together Wisconsin, a nonprofit established to inform people about the Biden administration’s infrastructure and climate investments and to defend them.
“We’ve been seeing this real opportunity to drive energy costs down, and I cannot for the life of me understand why people want to reverse that progress,” said former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, president of Forward Together Wisconsin.
In addition to the tax credits that the U.S. House proposal would repeal, President Donald Trump in his second term has frozen federal clean energy grants that were part of the 2022 legislation. Those include grants to establish a network of electric vehicle charging stations — prompting a lawsuit by 15 states, including Wisconsin.
Solar energy investments that have boomed in the last three years are among those that are threatened by the House proposal, according to advocates.
“At a time when billions of dollars are being invested in states that overwhelmingly voted for President Trump, this proposed legislation will effectively dismantle the most successful industrial onshoring effort in U.S. history,” Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said in a statement this week.
Since passage of the IRA, Wisconsin has seen $933 million in clean energy and transportation private-sector investments, along with just over $2 billion from federal grants and loans, according to Innovation Policy & Technology, a San Francisco climate change policy think tank. The organization tallied 61 new clean energy and transportation projects that got underway in the state, with 45 manufacturing American-made products.
“Lower investment and higher energy bills due to repealing these federal programs and tax incentives will cost nearly 5,200 Wisconsin jobs in 2030 and more than 6,400 jobs in 2035, compared to current policies,” Innovation Policy & Technology reported.
The advocacy group Climate Power has calculated that without the federal support $5.4 billion for 15 planned Wisconsin clean energy projects could be in jeopardy.
Of those projects, 12 — 80% — are in five congressional districts represented by Republicans, according to Climate Power. Three representatives of those districts — Bryan Steil in the 1st CD, Scott Fitzgerald in the 5th CD and Glenn Grothman in the 6th CD — voted against the IRA in 2022. The other two, Derrick Van Orden in the 3rd CD and Tony Wied in the 8th CD, weren’t in office at the time but publicly opposed the legislation.
John Jacobs, business manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 494 in Southeast Wisconsin, said the clean energy tax credits and related policies have spurred investment and employment for the union’s members.
“I see first-hand how the clean energy tax credits have delivered on their promise, creating good family-sustaining union jobs across Wisconsin,” Jacobs said. “Repealing these tax credits could be devastating to many, but would put thousands of jobs at risk and hurt a growing industry.”
The tax credits were “an investment in America,” he added. The jobs lost if the credits are repealed “translate to economic instability for families across our state.”
The IRA also included a provision that extends the value of the tax credits to nonprofit organizations and government agencies.
Thanks to that benefit, called direct support payment, the Menasha Joint School District in the Fox Valley has qualified for a $4 million reimbursement from the federal government for installing rooftop solar energy and geothermal energy systems in a school currently under construction, said Brian Adesso, the school district’s business services director.
Once the school is complete the district expects to save $159,000 a year on its electric bill, “which is cost savings to local taxpayers and money that can be invested back into the students and staff,” Adesso said at the Forward Wisconsin press conference.
Adesso said the tax credits gave the district “certainty” it needed to be willing to undertake the clean energy additions to the project. Killing the credits would make that choice harder for school districts and impose higher costs on local property taxpayers, he added.
“The bill making its way through Congress takes a sledgehammer to the tax credits,” Addesso said — ending some credits early and attaching “bureaucratic restrictions that could make many of the credits unusable.”
Barnes said Forward Wisconsin Together is calling on Congress to protect the clean energy initiatives. “The people of Wisconsin deserve better,” he said. “The country deserves better. Clean energy as we know is the future, and we have to continue to invest in it.”
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South Dakota state Rep. Karla Lems, R-Canton, speaks to hundreds of rally attendees at the South Dakota Capitol in Pierre on Jan. 13, 2025, during an event highlighting opposition to a carbon dioxide pipeline. (Photo by Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)
Lawmakers and advocates on the right and left are raising questions about a provision in legislation a powerful U.S. House committee approved Wednesday, with critics arguing it would allow federal regulators to approve natural gas and carbon dioxide pipelines over prohibitions in state law.
Two sections in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s reconciliation instructions, which the Republican-led panel passed along party lines, would allow pipeline operators to pay $10 million to participate in an expedited federal permitting process that critics say would override state laws.
The potentially intensely controversial provision would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission exclusive authority to issue licenses for pipelines carrying natural gas, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oil, or other energy products and byproducts.
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, if the Commission issues a license under subsection (c)(1) of this section and the licensee is in compliance with such license, no requirement of State or local law that requires approval of the location of the covered pipeline with respect to which the license is issued may be enforced against the licensee,” the text of the bill reads.
A summary document provided by the committee says the bill would apply to states only in cases when state agencies are responsible for conducting federal reviews.
“For States, this includes their authorities to impose conditions for any certifying authorities delegated to States by federal law,” the document says.
But a variety of groups and lawmakers — environmental groups opposed to loosening reviews, landholder advocates concerned about property rights and small-government conservatives who favor local control — say the measure would open the door for the federal government to nullify state and local protections.
That includes a recent South Dakota law to prevent pipeline operators from using eminent domain to force landowners to sell or allow use of their property.
“This is federal overreach,” South Dakota state Rep. Karla Lems said in a Thursday interview. “It would override any state or local law regarding … the routing of a pipeline.”
The Energy and Commerce Committee was one of 11 House panels that have approved reconciliation instructions and sent them to the House Budget Committee to consolidate into one package. House Republicans plan to consider the 1,100-page package on the floor next week.
The complex process, known as budget reconciliation, allows the majority party to pass legislation with simple majorities in both chambers, avoiding the U.S. Senate’s usual 60-vote requirement.
President Donald Trump has described the package as “one big, beautiful bill” and it contains a host of his domestic policy priorities including extending tax cuts and increasing funding for immigration enforcement.
A provision in Democrats’ 2022 reconciliation bill encouraged an existing trend of pipeline installation in the Midwest. The measure provided tax breaks for carbon sequestration, which can involve piping the carbon dioxide byproducts that result from processes like ethanol production into underground storage chambers.
Actually building those pipelines across hundreds of miles between ethanol producers, particularly in farm states like Iowa and South Dakota, and underground storage facilities in North Dakota, where the geology supports it, requires the use of private land, which has been strongly opposed for several reasons and led to state restrictions.
Environmental and safety groups worry some pipeline at some point will rupture and therefore pose a danger to nearby residents and water sources.
Private property owners and conservative political allies say they should have stronger rights to resist pipeline operators from using their property.
That unusual coalition was apparent again this week as environmentalists and conservatives united to oppose the measure in the Energy and Commerce bill.
A collection of 70 environmental and conservation groups signed a letter to the committee Wednesday urging the language be removed.
“These measures would radically expand federal jurisdiction over all types of interstate pipelines, drastically limit public input, shorten environmental review timelines, and shield projects from legal challenges, all while clearing the way for expanded use of federal eminent domain against landowners,” the letter said.
The letter was signed by groups ranging from the local agriculture and conservation organization Dakota Rural Action to national environmental group Food & Water Watch.
South Dakota House Speaker Jon Hansen, a self-described MAGA Republican, tweeted screenshots of the provision with the message “property rights are under attack again.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican former U.S. House member and rival to Trump in the 2024 presidential nomination race, reposted the tweet.
“This represents overriding both the rights of states and private property owners to serve Biden’s Green New Deal,” DeSantis wrote above Hansen’s message. “What the heck is going on up there?”
Chase Jensen, a senior organizer with Dakota Rural Action, said in a press release accompanying the coalition letter that the group was calling on members of Congress “to stand with the State of South Dakota and oppose this clear attempt to buy permits and bypass the people.”
“When South Dakota was first faced with carbon dioxide pipelines, our congressmen said it was up to the state to deal with it,” Jensen said. “Now that we have barred eminent domain for these private projects – their billionaire owners are trying to cut the state out of the process altogether.”
South Dakota’s U.S. House member, Republican Dusty Johnson, said in a statement to South Dakota Searchlight he’d been unaware of the bill’s language but predicted it would be removed before final passage.
He indicated he was unsure what the effect of the bill would be, but started “from a place of deep skepticism.”
“I wasn’t aware of this language until committee text was released,” Johnson, who does not sit on Energy and Commerce, wrote. “As a former public utilities commissioner, I have strong concerns with bypassing state permitting and I begin from a place of deep skepticism for this language. I doubt it will be included in President Trump’s ‘one, big, beautiful bill.’”
But U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak, a North Dakota Republican who is a former state utility regulator, told reporters on a press call Thursday morning that she thought the bill would not block the state from being involved in environmental reviews, even if a company seeks a pipeline permit from federal regulators.
Fedorchak said she doesn’t think the proposal would limit local input on projects, adding that FERC has a “pretty robust permitting process” for interstate natural gas pipelines.
A spokesman for the Energy and Commerce Committee did not return a message seeking clarification Thursday.
North Dakota Monitor Editor Amy Dalrymple and South Dakota Searchlight Editor Seth Tupper contributed to this report.
A billboard promoting Enbridge Inc. (Susan Demas | Michigan Advance)
Over two days of hearings this week, members of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, environmental advocates and experts testified against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granting a permit to reroute Enbridge’s Line 5 oil and natural gas pipeline in northern Wisconsin.
The tribe’s testimony was one of its last chances to prevent the new pipeline from being installed upstream of its reservation — which the tribe says will harm water quality in the watershed, encourage the growth of invasive species and damage wetlands, diminishing the ability to filter pollutants out of runoff before reaching surface waters.
Enbridge insists the reroute plans do everything possible to minimize the environmental effect of pipeline construction and operation while industry groups and labor unions say the project has been vetted to ensure it isn’t harmful and that the arguments against the environmental effects of construction could be used to slow down any project in the state, not just those the tribe disagrees with politically.
Last year, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources issued its own permits for the company to build the pipeline with more than 200 added conditions to ensure compliance with state standards. Months after the DNR’s permit decision, a separate pipeline operated by Enbridge in Wisconsin spilled 69,000 gallons of crude oil in Jefferson County.
The tribe is also challenging the DNR’s permit determination in a series of hearings later this summer.
For decades, Line 5 ran through the tribe’s reservation and in 2023 a federal judge ordered that it be shut down. Since 2020, Enbridge has been working on a plan to reroute the pipeline, which runs from far northwest Wisconsin 645 miles into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, under the Straits of Mackinac and across the U.S. border into Canada near Detroit. It transports about 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids daily.
At the hearings this week, the tribe argued that under the Clean Water Act, the Corps shouldn’t grant the permits because the tribe has determined the new pipeline will negatively affect its water quality.
“Our people have resided in the Bad River watershed for hundreds of years,” Robert Blanchard, the tribe’s chairman, said Tuesday. “It’s our homeland. If the U.S. Army Corps grants these permits, Enbridge is undoubtedly going to destroy and pollute our watershed by trenching, blasting and horizontal drilling across hundreds of upstream wetlands and streams. I’m asking the U.S. Army Corps to think of the people and all the living things this will affect, and to deny the permit for this project.”
During Tuesday’s testimony, Blanchard added, “When I look at my homelands, I see it through the eyes of my grandfather, who saw it through the eyes of his grandfather.”
Blanchard said he wants his grandchildren to be able to see their homelands through his eyes, too. He recounted boating up the Bad River toward Lake Superior as a boy, catching fish with his elders to eat or to sell at the market. His grandfather taught him to hunt and gather and to this day Blanchard gathers medicinal herbs which are used by his community, he said. He remembers the lumber companies that clear cut the forests, and, he said, some of his loved ones have died of cancer after living near an industrial dump site.
“That was all in the Bad River watershed,” said Blanchard. He stressed that in tribal tradition, all things in nature have spirit, including the water. To the Bad River Band, nature is not only critical to human survival, it is a sacred thing to be protected.
In their testimony Tuesday, Enbridge consultants and researchers downplayed concerns about how the pipeline reroute could harm local ecosystems. Just over 118 acres of forest will need to be cleared during construction and turned into a managed grassland. Experts testifying for the company said that the underground pipeline will not act as an underwater dam and disrupt groundwater flow, nor will the explosives used to blast trenches for the pipeline present a danger. Other concerns such as radioactive contamination, PFAS pollution (often called forever chemicals) and arsenic are not used by the project, and have not been detected in the area.
Although Enbridge’s consultants and experts argued that the project would not violate the Bad River Band’s water quality standards, the Band itself disagreed, citing concerns about pollutants, water quantity and quality, hydrology, mineral content and water temperature.
Connie Sue Martin, and environmental attorney who testified against the project said the Bad River Band “is the expert” on water quality in the area, not U.S. government agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Esteban Chiriboga, a geologist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, testified that the rerouted pipeline’s distance from the reservation is irrelevant because contaminants can travel. Using imagery from Laser Imaging, Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) technology, Chiriboga demonstrated that waterways and flow channels between rivers, creeks and wetlands are interconnected. Others who spoke against the project on Tuesday expressed concerns about the potential for increased runoff, soil erosion, and the spread of invasive species as consequences of the project.
On Wednesday, much of the tribe’s testimony centered around the ways in which the tribe’s members rely on the Bad River and its tributaries.
“You will not find another community so dependent upon subsistence harvesting and dependent upon the health of our environment,” said Dylan Jennings, a member of the tribe and former appointee of Gov. Tony Evers to the state Natural Resources Board. “Simply put, our community maintains a relationship with the entire ecosystem and not a segmented area, we continue to utilize an entire system approach which naturally extends beyond our reservation boundaries.”
During the public comment period of the hearing Wednesday, a number of labor union representatives defended the project as a source of local jobs and environmentally safe. Chad Ward, a representative of the Teamsters Local 346, said members of his union will work on the project and live locally, so they take “very seriously our commitment to the community and the environment around the construction site.” But, he said, the tribe’s complaints could be made about any construction project in the area.
“I and others have grave concerns that the assertions made by the tribe could have impacts well beyond the Line 5 project itself,” Ward said. “Construction practices considered industry and regulatory best practices for environmental protection are cited as reasons by the tribe for why this project should not proceed, practices that are standard use all over the country”
“They are practices the Band has been fine with for dozens of projects in the same area,” he continued. “This leaves the impression that these concerns are more based on the political views of the project than the construction method themselves. And while they’re entitled to their political views, it is the job of the permitting process to determine if the laws and regulations are being followed, not weigh the political arguments.”
After Wednesday, the Army Corps will accept written comments on the permit approval for 30 days and then can make a decision any time after that. The hearings on the legal challenge to the DNR permits begin Aug. 12 in Ashland.
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Utah-based nuclear company EnergySolutions is working with WEC Energy Group to explore the potential for bringing new nuclear energy generation to Kewaunee Power Station.
The post New nuclear generation eyed for shuttered Kewaunee County plant site appeared first on WPR.
Federal environmental regulators and a Canadian energy firm say data doesn’t support a northern Wisconsin tribe’s claims that rerouting an oil and gas pipeline will violate water quality standards on its reservation.
The post EPA, Enbridge say data doesn’t support tribe’s claims that Line 5 project will harm water appeared first on WPR.
School districts are contemplating how to best move forward with the cleanest-emitting school bus that best meets their individual needs, be that an electric school bus (ESB), one fueled by propane, or a cleaner diesel variety.
Several factors lead to the uncertainty over more widespread adoption of ESBs. Pricing, infrastructure and range remain concerns, and Lion Electric customers are still figuring out their next moves amid the company’s auction following financial trouble. But none are bigger than the the fate of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) five-year, $5 billion Clean School Bus Program.
Some anxiety eased in late February, after the Trump administration a month earlier put a temporary pause on award distribution, despite a memo from the EPA CFO that all program funds appropriated by the IIJA and IRA should continue to flow. Last month, the National Association for Pupil Transportation (NAPT) announced funding through the 2023 grant competition awards is now accessible.
By the end of 2024, the EPA made three rounds of awards to 1,344 school districts, totaling some $2.8 billion. Over 98 percent of those funds have gone toward purchasing ESBs.
NAPT noted it is not clear whether the EPA plans to award the remaining $2.2 billion as was authorized by Congress or to let its authorization run out, adding the program has received some strong support from senators in states where electric buses were being purchased and in at least one state where they are being manufactured.
The EPA did not respond to questions for this article. If the Clean School Bus Program lives on, one electric vehicle insider told School Transportation News funding could be funneled toward more propane school buses.
Meanwhile, Blue Bird used its first quarter results to address the impact of the federal funding pause on ESB deliveries through the Clean School Bus Program. Some
750 ESBs were sold or scheduled for production and delivery, whereas 250 were awarded with funding paused. Blue Bird initiated a reprioritized production plan to build fully funded buses earlier and push back build dates for ordered buses where EPA and federal funding was paused.
The company said it is processing new ESB orders attached to state and local funding and has confirmed political support for the Clean School Bus Program from elected officials in Washington, D.C. Blue Bird also indicated it has lowered its range of annual forecasted ESB deliveries from 1,300 to 1,000 buses.
The company noted uncertainty over the impact of tariffs means it will explore sourcing and other options with suppliers. All applicable government tariffs will be passed through to the end customer, with a potential five percent increase on all Blue Bird non-ESB buses expected by the end of February, should the tariffs on components be applied as originally proposed. School districts are exploring available options.
The non-profit Vermont Energy Investment Corp. (VEIC) has a clean transportation team specializing in programs and projects supporting electric vehicle fleet adoption and alternative fuel vehicle technology.
VEIC published a report last September for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) on ESB performance, summarizing evaluation activities and results associated with ES deployments in the program over the 2023-2024 academic school year.
The report found ESBs performed well in all weather conditions and route types. In extremely cold conditions, vehicle efficiency was reduced by up to 40 percent. However, ESBs were found to start up more consistently and reliably than diesel buses. ESBs also had better acceleration and quieter operation than diesel buses, but a lower top speed. Each ESB averaged $1,575 in annual fuel savings compared to diesel buses.
The report indicated primary vehicle downtime causes were related to components outside of the electric drivetrain. Resolving these issues proved more challenging with some vendors than others.
Incorporating feedback from interviews with 15 school transportation managers, school bus drivers and mechanics who engaged the most with ESBs in this program, the final section of the report offers key guidance for future ESB deployments in Montana, including in the areas of training and support, charge management, regenerative braking, and charging strategies.
Dan Rispens, superintendent of East Helena (Montana) Public Schools, noted his district received a grant through Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality that was derived from the Volkswagen settlement of 2016-2017.
“Grant funds offset approximately 80 percent of the purchase price of our bus,” said Rispens. “We were motivated by the prospect of new technology and reduced operating costs, but the primary force in our decision was grant funding.”
Its Lion Electric C bus was ordered in 2021 and delivery was accepted last August. Rispens said the district received EPA rebates to supply three additional Lion Electric buses, but East Helena passed on purchasing them given Lion Electric’s current financial status.
Speaking to the challenges East Helena Public Schools has encountered with its electric bus, “delivery timelines are challenging due to backlog in manufacturing and supply chain disruptions,” Rispens said.
“Our vendor does not have a nationwide network of dealers, so any technical assistance or warranty work is done by remote consult or sending technicians out on the road, making it cumbersome and complicated.”
Local mechanics do not know how to fix or repair the bus and do not have service manuals for it, Rispens added.
“Our bus has been here since last summer and has only been used for about a month on an actual route,” he said. “The heat system was found to be non-functional.
We are still waiting on repairs. This left the bus unusable during Montana’s harsh winter.” Last July, the World Resources Institute’s Electric School Bus Initiative reported that while the EPA had by that point funded more than 8,000 electric school buses through the EPA Clean School Bus Program, demand for ESBs is outpacing funding.
States, financing entities and utilities continue driving momentum for ESBs, noted WRI spokeswoman Katherine Roboff. “The Maryland Energy Administration recently launched a new funding program in support of school bus electrification,” she said. “We are tracking $2.3 billion in state-level funding for which ESBs are eligible. California and New York are good examples of robust state-level funding.
“We have also been in conversation with a wide range of green banks and financial institutions across the country who are also exploring the topic of financing electric school buses,” Roboff continued. “The Connecticut Green Bank, for example, has developed a new ESB financial product.”
However, the EPA is revoking $20 billion in contracts the Biden administration approved with at least eight green banks. Many Republican leaders call green banks “slush funds,” the Associated Press reported last month. At press time, the Connecticut Green Bank was one of seven green banks still listed on the EPA website.
States Continue Funding Work
The Public Service Commission of Maryland recently approved an electric school bus utility pilot program, Roboff added. The program is one of a dozen nationwide that recently closed or soon will close applications for funding. Districts also continue to explore electrification through transportation-as-a-service providers and other innovative business models built around subscription fees, Roboff said.
“School districts across the country continue to grow their electric school bus fleets,” she added. For example, the Beaverton School District in Oregon has been adding ESBs on an annual basis, leveraging a range of funding sources. In 2021, Beaverton was the first school district in Oregon to acquire an ESB and has added them yearly for a current total of 15 electric buses and 31 charging stations. Among the funding sources was a voter-approved $723 million bond, a portion of which is designated for replacement of diesel-powered buses with propane and electric buses.
Other funding sources include the Oregon Department of Energy’s Public Purpose Charge Program, Portland General Electric’s Electric School Bus Fund—funded through the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s Clean Fuels Program—and the EPA.
Beaverton also has 65 clean-burning propane buses using renewable propane. While the district plans to replace 225 diesel-powered buses with ESBs and propane-powered buses, some will be retained for long-distance field trips and athletic events. The district uses renewable diesel fuel, noting its higher cost is expected to drop as its supply expands.
That plan may be revisited if future battery technology improves to extend the distances ESBs can travel on a single charge. Molly Hale, marketing communications manager for Cummins’ Accelera zero-emissions business, noted Blue Bird has the company’s integrated powertrain, the PowerDrive 7000, that includes the BP97E battery, assembled in Columbus, Indiana, at its main manufacturing facility.
“Additionally, Thomas Built Buses recently announced the launch of their new Jouley Gen 2 bus with the new addition of our 14Xe eAxle and ELFA inverter,” she said. “We are pleased to be partnering with two major school bus OEMs and are excited to see the success of these buses gaining momentum and adoption. Blue Bird has delivered more than 2,000 ESBs with our powertrain.”
As speed bumps increase on the path to school districts incorporating more ESBs into their fleets, districts are pursuing a variety of approaches, such as this pilot project in New Mexico, which signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with ESB manufacturer GreenPower Motor Company. The state will seek an appropriation of $5 million to conduct a pilot program funding the purchase of ESBs, charging station installations and management costs.
Rolling with the Punches
Uncertainty over the future of ESB funding has affected many school districts, including the Ritenour School District in Overland, Missouri. The district on Feb. 4 announced the arrival of the first three Thomas Built Buses Jouleys of a 24-ESB fleet funded by a nearly $9.5 million EPA Clean School Bus Program grant sought to replace 24 diesel buses.
The district announced 24 new charging stations as well. However, the district indicated uncertainty over receiving the remaining 21 ESBs from the Clean School Bus Program due to its funding pauses. Brooks McQuinn, transportation director for the Malone Central School District in Malone, New York, noted the district has four ESBs and had received the EPA grant. The district received $1.4 million dollars for the purchase of the buses and chargers, covering most of the project cost. McQuinn pointed out existing infrastructure accommodated the chargers. The district also has its own lot and inside storage space for the buses.
The district’s fleet includes 43 65-passenger buses fueled by propane, gas, diesel and now the four ESBs. “We cover 386 square miles in this district, with a lot of different terrain,” said McQuinn. “We have used propane buses for years because it was a cleaner source of fuel, and we get tax credit for that fuel type. We have geared to gasoline engines due to the size of our district and sporting events. We have phased out our diesels and only have three left.” McQuinn noted the district is surprised the power capability of the ESBs is limited to about 75 miles a day.
“We have also not had a very cold winter here since we received these buses last March,” he added. “Our winters here can hit 30 degrees below [zero]. Overall, [ESBs] have a place in this district, but we certainly cannot meet the [state of New York] deadlines of 2035 for a complete EV bus world.” McQuinn said the cost of a propane or gasoline bus is about $185,000, including added options. The ESB costs about $465,000 and has limited options.
“The New York State [Department of Transportation] is very strict about what has to be on a school bus,” he said. “If the federal grants go away, it would put our district in a very vulnerable state. We are currently maxed out with our energy output, and if we were to add anymore [electric] buses we would have to put all new infrastructure here that would cost the district and local taxpayers millions of dollars.
“We would also have to look for alternative means for sporting events, field trips and any other trips outside of to and from school transportation,” he continued. The Electrification Coalition notes ESB procurement can take up to 18 months. This includes installing the charging infrastructure and getting enough power from the local utility. The organization noted Climate Mayors Electric Vehicle Purchasing Collaborative offers cooperative purchasing contracts for Blue Bird, IC Bus, Lion Electric, and Thomas Built Buses. The Collaborative also includes resources for the procurement process, policy guidance and a variety of other informative resources.
The Coalition advises districts to identify the appropriate type of EV charging stations, determine their locations and explore charging software to help achieve electricity cost savings.
Three types of charging stations include Level 1 (120V), Level 2 (240V), and direct current fast charging (DCFC). Engagement with the local utility is critical to assist
with the connection process for EV charging equipment, determine whether infrastructure upgrades are needed, determine charging rates and best charging times, and available software platforms.
Other Options
A video interview conducted by Steven Whaley, Blue Bird’s alternative fuels manager for eastern North America, and Anthony Jackson, executive director of transportation at Bibb County School District in Georgia, highlights operational benefits of propane school buses, including the elimination of diesel regeneration issues, reduced maintenance costs due to fewer parts and quieter operation. Bibb County School District purchased 31 propane buses in 2014, with the driving factor being issues with regeneration on the diesel engines. Benefits derived included no need for NOx sensors or having to replace particulate matter filters.
Bus drivers love that the bus is much quieter compared to diesel buses, Jackson said.
Now, most of the district’s fleet is comprised of propane-fueled buses, with propane fuel provided by Bobtail loads to the district’s four 1,000-gallon tanks. There also are diesel buses and those running on unleaded gasoline are used for field trips.
The district spent $790,599 to run over 2 million miles at a cost of 39 cents a mile, a 27 cents per-mile cost savings with more than a $500,000 in annual fuel savings. The Alternative Fuel Excise Tax Credit for propane vehicles is 36 cents a gallon for even more cost savings.
“The fate of the Alternative Fuel Tax Credit for propane vehicles is tenuous at best,” Whaley noted. “But the value proposition for propane without any incentives stands impressively on its own.” Clean diesel has also become a more attractive option, especially when using renewable diesel. But incentives for RD only currently exist in California, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico, the only states that have passed the
Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
Still, tougher EPA emissions standards have been a driving factor in diesel being more
than 90 percent cleaner today than a decade ago. Those emissions are expected to only get cleaner starting in 2027, when EPA’s Phase III GHG standard is scheduled to go into effect. But at this report, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin signaled the rule and others are under reconsideration. If rolled back, diesel school buses could be easier and less expensive to obtain, especially in states that were previously forecasting limited availability.
As the industry awaits word on Phase III , Cummins announced last month its much-anticipated B7.2 diesel engine on the company’s HELM or fuel-agnostic platform. The emissions reduction to less than 0.035 grams of NOx per horsepower/hour, as required by EPA Phase III represents, an approximately 83-percent-cleaner engine than 2010 engines with 50-percent fewer particulate matter.
These are achieved by using a “clean sheet base engine,” a culmination of all the components, a Cummins spokesperson said.
The emissions warranty and useful life requirements also increase, with automatic engine shutdown and stop-start that can further lower emissions and GHG. Meanwhile, in anticipation of the Trump administration, the California Air Resources Board ceased seeking the additional federal waivers it needed to fully implement its Advanced Clean Fleet rule that about a dozen states were set to adopt. Many of those states are now not implementing it, which set out to reduce the number of diesel heavy-duty trucks that could be sold in California and the other so-called CARB states.
Diesel Emissions Reduction Act reauthorization was also introduced in Congress last month. That program, which ran through fiscal year 2024, had been marked for review by the Trump administration. It has been responsible for replacing over 5,100 high emissions school buses since 2010.
Editor’s Note: As reprinted in the April 2025 issue of School Transportation News.
Related: EPA Extends 2024 Clean School Bus Program Rebate Application Deadline
Related: EPA, Treasury Disseminate Electric School Bus Tax Credit Information
Related: (STN Podcast E251) Making Safety Safer: Seatbelts, Technology, Training & Electric School Buses
Related: Fourth Funding Opportunity for EPA Clean School Bus Program Opens
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Wisconsin has just one nuclear power plant. Republican legislation, along with an initiative from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, could move the state toward more nuclear power.
The GOP-led Senate Bill 125, introduced in March, would require the state Public Service Commission, which regulates electric and gas utilities in Wisconsin, to conduct a nuclear power siting study.
The study would identify nuclear power generation opportunities on existing power generation sites, as well as on sites not now used for power generation.
It would help Wisconsin “catch up with other states that have already made important strides in exploring new nuclear energy,” said Paul Wilson, chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
State Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, who introduced the bill, did not respond to requests for comment.
Groups registered in favor of the legislation include the Wisconsin Utilities Association and several employee unions. The PSC also supports the bill, noting that an amendment to the bill keeps the current timeline for the commission to review applications for such electricity generation.
Opponents include Sierra Club Wisconsin, which says nuclear power “poses significant risks due to its high costs, long construction timelines, unresolved radioactive waste issues and the potential for catastrophic accidents.”
The environmental group Clean Wisconsin says the nuclear industry, not taxpayers, should fund siting studies.
The effort to explore more nuclear energy is bipartisan in that, separately, Evers proposed in his 2025-27 state budget spending $1 million to do a nuclear power plant feasibility study.
Evers, calling nuclear energy clean, said in a statement to Wisconsin Watch that “with new advanced nuclear technology and the increasing need for energy across Wisconsin, it is long past time that we invest in new, innovative industries and technologies.”
Wisconsin’s only operating nuclear power plant, Point Beach, is near the Manitowoc County community of Two Rivers.
A nuclear plant in Kewaunee shut down in 2013.
The Senate Committee on Utilities and Tourism approved SB 125 on May 6. No other votes have been scheduled.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Bipartisan support builds for studying nuclear power in Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
We Energies is building new gas-fired power plants to meet growing energy demand that largely stems from data centers. As developers pursue data centers in Wisconsin, that’s raising concerns about environmental impacts tied to their operations.
The post Power-hungry data centers are prompting new gas plant proposals. Critics say that would lock in pollution and higher costs for decades. appeared first on WPR.
What are data centers? How are local governments dealing with them? WPR has created a four-part feature series to explore the answers to those questions and more.
The post What are data centers? Wisconsin cities’ potential new neighbors, explained appeared first on WPR.
An electric car charges up at a charging station in New York. Wisconsin has joined 14 other states and the District of Columbia in a lawsuit against the Trump administration for cutting off federal funds that had been approved for states to build up their electric vehicle charging networks. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
A group of states, including Wisconsin, that were promised federal funds to establish electric vehicle charging station networks sued the Trump administration and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy this week for cutting off the promised grants.
“The Trump Administration and Secretary Duffy are singlehandedly trying to block Wisconsin from receiving the investments we were promised,” Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement Thursday. “It’s bad for the people of Wisconsin, it’s bad for our infrastructure, it’s bad for our economy, and it’s illegal.”
The lawsuit alleges that President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking electric vehicle charging station grants was illegal.
The lawsuit was filed late Wednesday in federal court in the state of Washington, which is the lead plaintiff among the suit’s 15 states and the District of Columbia.
Trump’s order “Unleashing American Energy,” signed the day he was inaugurated, told federal agencies to pause the distribution of funds that were appropriated during the Biden administration as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act or the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
The order said the pause was “including but not limited to funds for electric vehicle charging stations made available through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program.” The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, or NEVI, is part of the 2021 infrastructure law.
Wisconsin has been approved for $62.65 million in funding under the program for 15 EV infrastructure projects that were held up after Trump’s order. The governor’s office said several projects were “located in the congressional district that now-Secretary Duffy used to represent in the U.S. Congress.”
Trump’s order stated that it was written to eliminate an “electric vehicle (EV) mandate.” No such mandate exists, the lawsuit points out.
“But in the name of eliminating this fictional mandate, the Executive Order directs the Federal Highway Administration … to usurp the legislative and spending powers reserved to Congress by withholding congressionally appropriated funding for electric vehicle (“EV”) charging infrastructure required by statute to be distributed to States,” the lawsuit states.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
The shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, pictured on Oct. 10, 2024. The plant’s owner, Constellation Energy, plans to spend $1.6 billion to refurbish the reactor that it closed five years ago and restart it by 2028 after Microsoft recently agreed to buy as much electricity as the plant can produce for the next 20 years to power its growing fleet of data centers. Nuclear energy is a rare point of agreement for members of both parties, including among state lawmakers. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his team have signaled a strong interest in continuing to strengthen federal support for nuclear power, an energy source Democratic states are increasingly open to expanding.
The administration’s loudly pro-nuclear position creates a rare point of overlap between Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, whose signature legislation funded hundreds of millions in tax credits for low-carbon energy sources, including nuclear power.
Trump during his first roughly three months in office issued multiple executive orders mentioning nuclear energy, casting his broad energy strategy as a way to expand the country’s power resources and shore up its security. State lawmakers are also pushing their own policy moves, sometimes just in an effort to set themselves up to embrace nuclear power at some point in the future.
“There are a lot of really positive signals,” said Rowen Price, senior policy adviser for nuclear energy at Third Way, a centrist policy think tank.
But Price said she’s concerned that support for nuclear power could be swept up in bigger political fights, such as many congressional Republicans’ goal of axing clean-energy tax credits in Democrats’ 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The administration’s broad cuts to the federal workforce could also eventually hurt the government’s nuclear ambitions, she added.
The promise of a nuclear resurgence in the United States isn’t a new goal for the industry or its backers in Washington, D.C., but how successful efforts to expand nuclear power generation will be in the U.S. — a metric that hasn’t budged from around 20% in decades — remains to be seen.
Americans’ support for the energy source, meanwhile, is just short of its record high, a recent Gallup Poll found. And more blue states have also started to embrace nuclear power, which has traditionally been more favored by Republicans, to reach climate goals and grow electricity capacity amid anticipated increases in demand.
But even as interest in states grows, the cost of building nuclear infrastructure remains an impediment only the federal government is positioned to help scale.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright in April talked about the administration’s desire to elevate nuclear power by making it easier to test reactors, delivering fuel to next-generation nuclear firms and utilizing the department’s Loan Programs Office to help bring nuclear power projects online.
“We would like to see a renaissance of nuclear,” Wright said at the news outlet Semafor’s World Economy Summit in Washington. “The conditions are there and the administration is going to do everything we can to lean in to help commercial businesses and customers launch nuclear.”
Wright said he wants the department to help launch 10 to 20 new nuclear reactors to get the industry moving again and to bring down costs. The department’s loan office could make debt investments alongside large-scale data center companies that use massive amounts of power to build nuclear projects and then exit those deals after the projects are built, allowing the office to recycle that funding, he said.
The department recently announced that it approved a third loan disbursement to reopen the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Covert, Michigan, which Holtec has been working on doing for the last few years.
Last month, the department said it was reopening $900 million in funding to help companies working on small modular reactors after changing some of the Biden administration’s guidance on the program.
Third Way’s Price noted that a portion of staffers at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — which she described as already “tightly constrained” — are eligible for retirement either now or in the next five years.
Workforce cuts at the Energy Department and elsewhere could also hurt efforts to grow the nuclear power sector, she said.
“Frankly, all of the verbal support from this administration for nuclear only matters if they’re actually going to put forward and implement policies that support it,” Price said. “We need to make sure that they do it.”
An Energy Department spokesperson said in an email that it “is conducting a department-wide review to ensure all activities follow the law, comply with applicable court orders and align with the Trump administration’s priorities.”
The agency said it didn’t have a final count on how many staffers have left the department through its resignation program, but noted that it doesn’t necessarily approve all requests. The department didn’t comment on how many staffers focused on nuclear energy have been laid off.
Nuclear programs were among those affected by the Trump administration’s pausing of federal programs and funding, said David Brown, senior vice president of federal government affairs and public policy at Constellation Energy, which runs the biggest fleet of nuclear plants in the country. But Brown said that even so, the industry is coming out on top.
“I think what we are seeing is that as they work through their various review(s) of programs that they’re greenlighting the nuclear stuff,” Brown said.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill could also change the outcome for industry, for better or worse.
Wright, in his remarks last month, said he hopes Congress will take action to help expand nuclear energy, and said lawmakers could do so in the budget reconciliation package on which the U.S. House has started to work.
Republican House members have not yet released text of the sections of the package that will deal with energy policy. Wright said support for nuclear power could be included in the reconciliation package, but some advocates are also worried that the package, or the annual appropriations bills, are the exact kind of political battles that efforts to support nuclear power, like the tax credits, could get tied up in.
Some state lawmakers point to financial support from the federal government as essential for the industry to grow, even if states make their own headway to build support for nuclear power.
Colorado state Rep. Alex Valdez, a Democrat who sponsored a bill signed into law this session to include nuclear in the state’s definition of clean energy, said he hopes the administration follows through on its admiration of nuclear power with funding for states.
“Generally, states do not have the financial resources the federal government does,” Valdez said. “It’s going to be the federal government that puts their investments behind these things, and that’s what’s going to enable states as a whole to be able to move forward on them.”
President Donald Trump's budget request, released on May 2, 2025, proposes slashing $21 billion in unspent funds from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law for renewable energy, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and other efforts to cut climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions. Shown are solar panels and wind turbines. (Photo by Marga Buschbell-Steeger/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump’s budget request for the next fiscal year proposes deep cuts to renewable energy programs and other climate spending as the administration seeks to shift U.S. energy production to encourage more fossil fuels and push the focus away from reducing climate change.
The budget proposes slashing $21 billion in unspent funds from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law for renewable energy, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and other efforts to cut climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions. The request also targets climate research spending and initiatives meant to promote diversity.
“President Trump is committed to eliminating funding for the globalist climate agenda while unleashing American energy production,” a White House fact sheet on climate and environment spending said. The budget “eliminates funding for the Green New Scam.”
The president’s budget request is a wish list for Congress, which controls federal spending, to consider. Even with both chambers of Congress controlled by Republicans who have shown an unusual willingness to follow Trump’s lead on a host of policies, it is best understood as a starting point for negotiations between the branches of government and a representation of the administration’s priorities.
A White House official speaking on background Friday, though, said the Trump administration is exploring ways to exert more control over the federal spending process, including by potentially refusing to spend funds appropriated by lawmakers.
The first budget request of Trump’s second term calls on Congress to cut non-defense accounts by $163 billion to $557 billion, while keeping defense funding flat at $893 billion.
The proposal drew criticism for a focus on culture-war buzzwords, even from groups that are not always inclined to support environment and climate spending.
The request “is long on rhetoric and short on details,” Steve Ellis, president of the nonpartisan budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said in a statement.
“This year’s version leans heavily on political talking points—taking aim at so-called ‘woke’ programs and the ‘Green New Scam,’ while proposing a massive Pentagon spending hike to pay for wasteful fantasies like the Golden Dome and diverting military resources to immigration enforcement missions.”
The administration proposal would roll back funding Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, championed for renewable energy.
It would cancel more than $15 billion from the 2021 infrastructure law “purposed for unreliable renewable energy, removing carbon dioxide from the air, and other costly technologies that burden ratepayers and consumers,” according to the White House fact sheet.
It would also eliminate $6 billion for building electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
“EV chargers should be built just like gas stations: with private sector resources disciplined by market forces,” the fact sheet said.
And it would decrease spending on the Energy Department’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program, which helps private-sector projects secure financing and conducts research on low-carbon energy sources, by $2.5 billion.
In a statement, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that writes the bill funding energy programs, slammed the cuts to renewable energy programs, saying they would cost consumers and hurt a growing domestic industry.
“The Trump Administration’s proposal to slash $20 Billion from the Department of Energy’s programs — particularly a devastating 74% cut to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy — is shortsighted and dangerous,” the longtime Ohio lawmaker said. “By gutting clean energy investments, this budget threatens to raise energy prices for consumers, increase our reliance on foreign energy, and stifle American competitiveness. … We must defend the programs that power America’s future — cleaner, cheaper, and made right here at home.”
Throughout the request, the administration targets programs out of line with Trump’s ideology on social issues, including those meant to promote diversity.
For energy and environment programs, that includes spending on environmental justice initiatives, which target pollution and climate effects in majority-minority and low-income communities, and organizations “that advance the radical climate agenda,” according to the fact sheet.
Research and grant funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would be particularly hard hit by the proposal, which would terminate “a variety of climate-dominated research programs that are not aligned with Administration policy of ending ‘Green New Deal’ initiatives, saving taxpayers $1.3 billion.”
The budget also proposes eliminating $100 million from a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fund dedicated to environmental justice. That funding “enabled a witch hunt against private industry” and “gave taxpayer dollars to political cronies who exploited the program’s racial preferencing policies to advance an anti-oil and gas crusade,” according to the White House.
The budget also proposes cutting $900 million from National Park Service operations, which the administration said would come from defunding smaller sites while “supporting many national treasures.”
The document indicates the administration would prefer to leave responsibility for smaller sites currently under NPS management to states and refocus the federal government on the major parks that attract nationwide and international tourists.
“There is an urgent need to streamline staffing and transfer certain properties to State-level management to ensure the long-term health and sustainment of the National Park system,” according to a budget spreadsheet highlighting major line items in the request.
Despite laws in recent years to boost spending for maintenance at parks, the National Park Service faces a $23.3 billion deferred maintenance backlog, according to a July 2024 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
The proposed NPS cut represents the largest single funding change – either positive or negative – of any line item under the Department of Interior, which would receive a funding decrease of more than $5 billion, about 30%, under the proposal.
Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.
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A slew of tariffs from the Trump administration is expected to make it more expensive for Wisconsin homes, businesses and utilities to invest in solar energy systems.
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A build-out of new data centers — the often-gargantuan warehouses of power-gobbling microchips that power cloud computing, artificial intelligence and social media — is capturing the attention of utilities and states, which, anticipating potential profits, are compelled to satisfy the energy needs of tech companies.
Giants like Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft are contracting nationally with utilities, which face a resulting boom in power demand. In 2023, data centers accounted for nearly 4.5% of U.S. electricity consumption, a figure that is expected to balloon up to 12% by 2028.
Wisconsin has seen a handful of new data center proposals, including projects in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin Rapids, Port Washington and Kenosha. Microsoft broke ground in 2023 on a 450-megawatt, $3.3 billion campus in Mount Pleasant at the former Foxconn site, although work on the data center has since paused twice.
Utilities generally operate under state-granted monopolies that enable the companies to cover service costs and earn a return on their infrastructure investments. The public is a “captive ratepayer,” meaning they lack other options.
Normally, this ensures utilities grow in line with societal energy demands, but when a few choice customers add significant load to the grid, priorities can change.
To attract investment, states compete to woo Big Tech with competitive incentives, including discounted power rates. More than 30 states, including Wisconsin, exempt data centers from the sales tax on information technology equipment.
But the courtship can become a race to the bottom.
Companies often promise billion-dollar investments, high-tech jobs and property tax revenue, marketed as zero-cost to states — arguing communities would be passed over if not for the incentives.
Less discussed, however, are the impacts of the new electric loads and the ways utilities can spread energy costs to the public.
At worst, construction of new power facilities could prove unneeded if a data center project fails to come to fruition or its power needs change, potentially leaving the public to foot the bill.
Those are some of the issues discussed in a recent white paper produced by Harvard University researchers, who express skepticism that consumers won’t absorb data center energy costs.
Ari Peskoe, who directs Harvard’s Electricity Law Initiative, and legal fellow Eliza Martin reviewed almost 50 utility proceedings, documenting how utilities can subsidize the electricity demands of trillion-dollar corporations and simultaneously capture a profit by passing on costs to ratepayers.
Wisconsin Watch environmental reporter Bennet Goldstein recently spoke to Peskoe. Their interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Our electricity use had been basically flat for the past 15 years, and now suddenly that’s projected to change pretty dramatically and pretty quickly. And it’s data center growth that’s really leading that charge.
These data centers are just massive, massive energy users. A single facility can use as much energy as a large city. There’s a facility in Louisiana that’s being built now that may be as much as two gigawatts. The city of New Orleans is one gigawatt. The rate-setting process just isn’t designed for these massive new facilities.
The simplest way that this can happen is just that the utility builds a piece of infrastructure — a new power line, a new power plant — and it’s designed primarily to meet the needs of one of these large data centers, and the utility would spread the costs across to all consumers.
But we think that doesn’t really make sense when, in some cases, there are billions of dollars of infrastructure being built for a single wealthy consumer. Utilities benefit from it a lot.
A rate case is how the utility sets rates for everyone, and that’s a very public process.
Most of the proceedings we looked at were about these, sort of, “side deals” between a data center and a utility. Very few parties participate in these proceedings, so that’s a problem for regulators because regulators have to make decisions based on the evidence that’s before them. Here, there’s often only one party. It’s the utility, and it makes it very hard for regulators to rule against the utility when there’s not any competing evidence.
In some states, regulators are supposed to evaluate, for example, whether there are economic development benefits of the contract that make it in the public interest even if it is shifting some costs to other ratepayers. In some states, regulators do have to find that their contract does not burden other ratepayers.
These sorts of issues about cost allocation are generally heavily disputed when there are other parties participating, so we don’t put a lot of stock in the claims that these secret contracts are not burdening other ratepayers.
When you hear one of these facilities being announced, sometimes they are being announced with great fanfare. Elected officials like to announce big projects. Some of these facilities get big press releases and press conferences, and the governor is up there smiling about it.
But, there ought to be some mechanism to ensure that the potentially very expensive infrastructure being built for these facilities is not being paid for by the public, but by the data center. We can’t make a specific claim about a confidential deal, but we’re skeptical that these deals are not shifting costs.
They’re a bad deal for ratepayers, looking at electricity costs — not considering the wider societal effects of these facilities and the construction jobs.
These confidential contracts: Let’s get rid of them. Let’s do a more public, transparent process that encourages and allows for more participation. Let’s include these data centers in rate cases and figure out what terms and conditions make sense for them.
Allow the data centers to contract for infrastructure with developers who are not the utility. You have companies that are not utilities competing in markets to build power plants to sell that power. If you can have a contract just between a data center and a power plant developer, the utility is not part of it, and therefore, there’s no danger that those costs might somehow trickle through to other consumers’ bills.
Public utility commissions do have some public processes, particularly for the construction of new projects. Even if that contract is secret, if they’re going to build a new power plant, there’s typically a public process around that. Those processes can often attract attention and have public hearings and opportunities for the public to weigh in.
It makes a lot of sense to establish separate terms and conditions for utility service for these very, very large energy consumers. It’s billions of dollars of costs, and it makes sense to put some contractual system or a tariff system in place that makes sure those entities are responsible for those costs.
There’s a risk that the utility starts to build this infrastructure and potentially invest hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars. The market changes — as maybe we’re seeing right now — and suddenly that data center developer doesn’t want to complete their facility for any number of reasons. Now who’s going to be left bearing the billion-dollar cost that the utility just spent? You want to make sure it’s on the data center.
A lot of the new growth is going to be met by natural gas power plants. We’re seeing that in Louisiana, for example. A lot of states have strong clean energy goals. About 20 or so states have committed to 100% clean power by some future date. (Wisconsin’s goal: that all electricity consumed within the state be 100% carbon-free by 2050.) Those goals are premised on how much energy is going to be sold in that state. If there’s more energy sold, that means we have to build more clean energy to meet those goals. It’s already a challenge to meet the goals as it is.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Data center construction is booming, and it could affect utility rates is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Wisconsin is no exception to national trends when it comes to courting Big Tech.
The state has seen a handful of new data center proposals, including projects in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin Rapids, Port Washington and Kenosha. Microsoft broke ground in 2023 on a 450-megawatt, $3.3 billion campus in Mount Pleasant at the former Foxconn site, although work on the data center has since paused twice.
Wisconsin lawmakers on the state’s finance committee included a sales tax exemption in the 2023-25 state budget based on a standalone bill that received bipartisan support.
The tax exemption, subject to approval by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., includes land, site improvements, IT and cooling equipment and electricity. The agency has approved three data centers to date.
Other states have enacted the model legislation at the urging of utilities and industry groups like NetChoice and the Data Center Coalition. NetChoice’s president noted at a legislative hearing that Wisconsin has long provided exemptions on agricultural and manufacturing equipment and asked lawmakers why they couldn’t do the same for America’s capital investment leaders.
Madison-headquartered Alliant Energy helped pay for a study that determined Wisconsin was at a competitive disadvantage to neighboring states.
The paper estimated that a hyperscale data center developed in the Milwaukee-Waukesha metro region could create 300 jobs, generate $3 million in annual state and local tax revenue and provide more than $87 million in annual economic output.
In a June 2023 hearing, the sales tax exemption bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Shannon Zimmerman, R-River Falls, said attracting data centers would actually have a “positive effect” on ratepayers’ electric bills from the “consumption and contribution of companies that will build these.”
To qualify for the exemption, a developer must invest at least $50 million to $150 million within five years, depending on the county population.
The state estimated that a typical data center would decrease tax collections by $8.5 million during the initial construction phase, followed by an annual reduction of $735,000. Additionally, if equipment is replaced on a five-year schedule, the sales tax would decrease by an additional $1.6 million on an annualized basis.
Microsoft’s data center campus has inherited additional perks initially designated for Foxconn: discounted electricity rates for Microsoft buildings located within a designated information technology zone. In future phases of Microsoft’s project, the company may purchase Lake Michigan water via the city of Racine, a rare arrangement in light of the Great Lakes Compact, which regulates the use and withdrawal of lake water.
We Energies intends to construct more than $2 billion in natural gas infrastructure, including two new plants and a pipeline, to meet the power demands of Microsoft’s data center, which is its largest anticipated electric load. This prompted concerns that ratepayers will be saddled with the new, fossil-fuel plants if the data center project is scaled back or canceled.
The utility has objected to such concerns, noting that the infrastructure is necessary to increase “reliability, resiliency, and dispatchability” of natural gas for its current customers.
Additionally, it has proposed a new rate structure, known as a tariff, for “very large customers,” which the company developed to meet the Microsoft and Port Washington data centers’ electric needs.
The rate would assign costs that result from new or expanded power plants and transmission lines along with electricity proportional to data center use, thereby protecting We Energies’ “customers and shareholders from harm.”
Wisconsin’s utility regulator, the Public Service Commission, is reviewing the proposal. We Energies has requested approval by the year’s end.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Tax breaks and electricity discounts: How Wisconsin woos Big Tech is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Friday that it will issue a decision this fall on a Canadian energy firm’s plan to build a $750 million tunnel for its Line 5 pipeline on the bottom of the Great Lakes.
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