This article was originally published by Spotlight Delaware.

In early December, a new website appeared online urging Sussex County residents to contact their councilmembers and tell them to deny a permit required for a proposed offshore wind farm. 

The website – StopOffshoreWind.com – materialized days before the Sussex County Council would vote on the permit, which would allow for construction of an electrical substation needed by US Wind Inc. to build its massive ocean-based power plant. 

StopOffshoreWind.com included the names and contact information for Sussex County Council members, as well as an online message form that sat underneath the phrase, “Write a Letter to your Sussex County Councilmembers.” 

“Tell the Sussex County Council to DENY this permit,” the website stated.

What it did not show were the names of the people or companies that had created and funded it. 

Spotlight Delaware has since learned that the website was the creation of a coalition of Maryland wind farm opponents, funded and led by the government of Worcester County, Md. 

Sitting just south of Sussex County along the Atlantic coastline and within Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Worcester County is home to Ocean City, Md., a summer beach hotspot that is the primary driver of the county’s tourism-centered economy. 

And, many of the local business owners there believe the sight of wind turbines 15 miles offshore would make the beaches less attractive to tourists.

Zach Bankert, executive director of the Ocean City Development Corporation, said his group had led local opposition to offshore wind development in past years. But, with a staff of just two employees, he said the operation was too small to be effective, which is why the county’s Office of Tourism and Economic Development recently took it over. 

“When the county came in and said, ‘Hey, you know, we might have some funds for this, we’d like to kind of take this over’ … It was a no-brainer for us,” he said. 

US Wind Inc.’s proposal is to build a wind farm with more than 100 turbines off the Delmarva coastline – just south of the Delaware, Maryland state line. It would send electricity ashore in Delaware with cables buried near the mouth of the Indian River.

When announcing a federal approval in September, the Biden Administration said the wind farm could produce up to 2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power about 700,000 homes. 

But coastal opponents say that electricity comes at too high a price, claiming wind turbines will drive tourists away, damage coastal environments and devastate fisheries. 

StopOffshoreWind.com also claims that the windfarm will allow “foreign investors” to collect federal subsidies – references to U.S. government incentives provided to wind energy projects, and to US Wind’s ownership.

In emailed responses to questions from Spotlight Delaware, Worcester County Tourism Director Melanie Pursel said the local government authorized up to $100,000 in public money to fund what she called a coalition of local offshore wind opponents.

According to county records, the money specifically is for a contract with a Washington, D.C.-area public relations firm called Bedrock Advocacy Communications. 

Pursel also noted in her early January email that Ocean City’s municipal government intended to match the county’s contribution. Last week, the Ocean City Council approved during a regular meeting a measure to distribute up to $100,000 to an “offshore wind opposition public relations campaign.” 

During the meeting, City Manager Terry McGean said the campaign would target state lawmakers in Maryland and “other issues” that may arise in Delaware. 

Ocean City Mayor Richard “Rick” Meehan said Bedrock Advocacy had already done a “really good job,” noting his belief that the group “played a significant role” in the Delaware county’s denial of US Wind’s substation permit. 

“We’re all in,” Meehan said about the $100,000 appropriation. “And I’d hate to miss an opportunity to really capitalize, which might be the right timing to really get our messaging out.”

Winding up the opposition

US Wind is a subsidiary of Renexia SpA, an Italian energy infrastructure company. The American investment giant, Apollo Global Management, also owns a stake in the company. 

In response to critics, US Wind spokeswoman Nancy Sopko said in an emailed statement that the opposition’s campaign is filled with “blatant misinformation designed to frighten people.” 

Asked for details to support the claims, Sopko pointed to what she called doctored photos from a website called SaveOceanCity.org, which is run by Bankert’s Ocean City Development Corporation. 

“The complete disregard for facts, accuracy, and settled science is irresponsible and dangerous,” Sopko said. 

She also asserted that state leaders in Maryland and Delaware have been “full-throated” in their support for the wind project in a region that “needs more electricity to keep the lights on, grow the economy, and support local jobs.”

The opposition to the US Wind project is nominally being led by a political nonprofit, called Stop Offshore Wind Inc.

It was formed in Delaware on Dec. 5, around the time that StopOffshoreWind.com appeared. State business records show that Florida attorney Andrew L. Asher created the company. 

Asher, a solo practitioner, previously served as general counsel for the BGR Group, a powerful lobbying firm in Washington, D.C. Its biggest clients in recent years include Qualcomm Inc. and the governments of Bahrain and India.   

He continues to work for BGR Group in an “of counsel” capacity, according to his website. Asher did not respond to requests for comment. Pursel said Asher’s role in Stop Offshore Wind was limited to the creation of the entity, describing it as strictly administrative. 

She further said that while “several county staff members” are working with the nonprofit, the entity “is not controlled” by Worcester County.

“Stop Offshore Wind Inc. is a 501(c)4 organization formed by a coalition of concerned citizens, community-based organizations, business organizations and local governments to raise awareness about the potential negative impacts of the US Wind proposed project,” said Pursel, who also calls herself a spokeswoman for the Stop Offshore Wind Coalition. 

As a 501(c)4, Stop Offshore Wind Inc. is not required to disclose its donors. 

Pursel said it had raised $11,000 from private donors as of late December, with much of the money donated during a Dec. 4 fundraiser. 

A flyer for the fundraiser, which charged $150 a head, said the money raised would pay for “a bold, multi-channel media blitz” opposing industrial wind farms in Ocean City. 

Prior to the Sussex County vote, Stop Offshore Wind did not list any governmental funding ties. Following inquiries from Spotlight Delaware, the website now has an “about us” page that lists its affiliation with Ocean City and Worcester County. 

What led to all of this? 

On Dec. 17, days after StopOffshoreWind.com appeared, the Sussex County Council voted to reject the windfarm’s substation building permit application.

The 4-to-1 vote in opposition came after the Sussex County Planning and Zoning Commission recommended that the county approve the permit. Three of the voting council members are leaving office in early 2025. Of those, two voted against the permit. 

It is not clear if the StopOffshoreWind.com website influenced the council’s vote. Members of the county council would not comment on this story due to a pending appeal against the decision. 

Still, the vote followed mounting public opposition in Sussex County to offshore wind. On the day of the vote, dozens of residents appeared at the county council meeting, with many asking to speak in opposition to the project. 

The council did not allow comments, stating the public record had closed following a July meeting when they discussed, then tabled, the permit application.  

Following the vote, US Wind CEO Jeff Grybowski said his company’s plan to build the offshore wind farm is “unchanged.”

“We know that the law is on our side and are confident that today’s decision will not stand,” Grybowski said.

On Dec. 26, US Wind’s subsidiary Renewable Development LLC appealed Sussex County’s permit denial through a petition asking a Delaware Superior Court judge to review the matter. 

In the petition, the company’s attorneys called the council’s decision “irregular, arbitrary, capricious,” and “not supported by substantial evidence.”

On the heels of Sussex County’s rejection, Worcester County announced its own move to hinder US Wind’s plans: it would use eminent domain to buy two West Ocean City properties targeted as US Wind’s operations and maintenance facilities.  

“If there ever was a worthy use of eminent domain, this is it,” Worcester County Chief Administrative Officer Weston Young said in a press release.

Also in the press release, Worcester County linked to two websites that it said provided more information “about efforts to protect Maryland’s Coast from ocean industrialization.” Those sites are StopOffshoreWind.com and SaveOceanCity.org. The latter represents the Ocean City Development Corporation’s opposition to offshore wind farms.

What’s on the horizon? 

With a pending appeal and a Trump administration that opposes offshore wind, uncertainty looms over the US Wind project – as well as other wind farms proposed for the Delmarva peninsula. 

According to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Danish wind farm developer Ørsted intends to build up to 72 wind turbines 16 miles off the coast of Rehoboth Beach. 

In early June, the company submitted its plans to the federal government, and they currently are under review. 

This month, then-Delaware Gov. John Carney and the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control announced a 25-year agreement with US Wind. As part of the agreement, US Wind must give Delaware utilities $76 million worth of renewable energy credits throughout the life of the project to help the state meet its renewable energy goals.

Through the agreement, US Wind also commits to investing $200 million to upgrade Delaware’s electricity wires and other transmission infrastructure. 

In a press statement touting the agreement, state officials claim that energy from the US Wind offshore site will produce enough power to lower electric rates in Delaware by $253 million over 20 years.

“We are ready to reap the environmental, health, workforce, energy cost and community benefits from this needed transition to renewable energy,” Carney said in the statement. 

How a Maryland county tried to sway a Delaware vote on offshore wind 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.

Gov. Janet Mills wants to make a new department focused on the state’s energy needs and goals.

In her upcoming biennial budget proposal that is expected on Friday, Mills will outline her plan for the current Governor’s Energy Office to be elevated to a cabinet-level department. This would be a budget-neutral initiative that would allow for more comprehensive and consistent management of Maine’s energy system, according to a news release from the governor’s office Wednesday. 

If the budget proposal is approved by the Maine Legislature, the Governor’s Energy Office would transition to the Maine Department of Energy Resources by the end of this year. It would be led by a commissioner, who would be appointed by the governor and subject to legislative confirmation.

In recent years, the Maine Legislature has significantly expanded the responsibilities of the Governor’s Energy Office. For example, the office has secured more than $200 million in federal funding to support grid resilience and innovation, energy efficiency and workforce development. 

“By designating a cabinet seat focused solely on energy issues, Maine will be in a stronger position to deliver more affordable energy, advance our energy goals, and grow the state’s economy,” said Dan Burgess, director of the Governor’s Energy Office. 

The new energy department would be the lead agency on energy resources, policies, planning, data, markets, energy security and program implementation; all of which currently fall to the Governor’s Energy Office. 

Like those in other states, Maine’s new department would have additional authority to conduct competitive energy procurements to meet the state’s power demands and reliability needs. It would also continue to coordinate with the Maine Public Utilities Commission and other state, regional and federal partners. 

State law requires Maine to transition to renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions; however, it must be done while ensuring that Mainers will still have access to affordable, reliable and secure energy, said Maine Sen. Mark Lawrence (D-York) and state Rep. Melanie Sachs (D-Freeport), who serve as co-chairs of the Maine Legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee, in a joint statement.

In 2022, Mills signed into law a state goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. The next year, she set a new target of 100% clean electricity by 2040. She also established the Maine Climate Council, which is responsible for maintaining the state’s four-year roadmap to meeting those and other climate goals.

“Regular planning, evaluation, and education delivered by a dedicated agency will ensure the consistency needed to keep Maine on a path toward these goals,” Lawrence and Sachs said in the release. “There’s a reason why this concept has been proposed previously in bipartisan fashion.”

Maine also has a goal of creating three gigawatts of offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine — enough to power between 675,000 and 900,000 homes — installed by the end of 2040. While the state was awarded a lease for a research array with up to 12 floating turbines to help inform how floating offshore wind operates and interacts with ecosystems in the water, the future of the renewable energy source hangs in the balance with President-elect Donald Trump having said he would seek to halt all offshore wind projects. 

In 2017, during the LePage administration, state Rep. Kenneth Fredette (R-Newport) introduced legislation to establish an energy seat in the cabinet that would be responsible for energy planning, data analysis and the implementation of an oil dependence reduction plan. The bill was supported by the Legislature’s energy committee at the time, but died upon adjournment.

The Maine State Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday it supports Mills’ proposal, noting that energy is one of the most pressing issues for the state’s economy.

“Addressing energy affordability and meeting our state’s climate targets will require careful planning and execution and the Chamber looks forward to working with the Administration on those efforts with a cabinet-level Energy Department leading that effort,” said President and CEO Patrick Woodcock in the release.

Maine governor proposes cabinet-level department focused on energy needs and goals 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.

A planned 325-megawatt battery energy storage system at a key location on New England’s power grid could boost Connecticut’s access to carbon-free power — but only if it can overcome complicated legal and political barriers. 

An Israeli firm, Sunflower Sustainable Investments, filed an application in October for the project with the Connecticut Siting Council, which has regulatory authority over the siting of power facilities.

The $200 million project, called Windham Energy Center, would be located on a largely undeveloped 63-acre site in Killingly, Connecticut, that was slated for construction of a fossil fuel power plant a few years ago. There is existing electric transmission infrastructure immediately adjacent to the site, and the project will connect to the grid via a 345-kilovolt transmission line. 

A spokesman for Windham Energy, Jonathan Milley, said the location is ideal for a battery facility. 

“If you look at the topology of the New England grid, this is at the intersection of the Millstone nuclear power plant and Brayton Point,” in Somerset, Massachusetts, where approved offshore wind projects will eventually be connected to the grid, Milley said. “This nodal location will at certain times of the day and under certain conditions have some of the lowest cost energy available to it on the grid.” 

The project would consist of lithium-ion batteries installed in racks in prefabricated containers, and a switching station operated by Eversource to connect them to the transmission line. The equipment would be located within 20 acres of the total project site. 

But the project is currently hung up by an administrative roadblock. That’s because in 2019, the siting council approved an application from NTE Energy to build a 650-megawatt natural gas plant on a portion of the same property. 

That project, which ran into a storm of opposition from environmental advocates, was never built, and NTE Energy has since dissolved. But nevertheless, on Nov. 8, the siting council’s executive director, Melanie Bachman, notified Windham Energy that it is “premature” for the body to review their application because the Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need previously issued to NTE still exists. 

The certificate has not been surrendered to the council, she said. And it will otherwise only be void if construction on the gas plant has not been completed by September 28, 2026. 

Windham Energy has asked the council to declare the certificate no longer valid, noting that NTE Energy no longer exists nor holds an option to purchase the property, and that its energy supply agreement with regional grid operator ISO-New England was also revoked in 2022. 

Milley said battery storage is needed to complement the state’s offshore wind goals; the batteries can store surplus energy from wind sources when production is high, and then dispatch it to the grid when it is needed. In 2021, state lawmakers set a goal of at least 1,000 megawatts of energy storage deployment by December 31, 2030.

“If there’s a developer willing to build what the state is looking for and not asking for anything else, it doesn’t seem like asking too much for the council to nullify an existing certificate for an entity that doesn’t exist,” Milley said. 

For now, counsel for Windham Energy has sent a letter by certified mail to Stephanie Clarkson, who they say is the last known contact for NTE Energy, asking her to “advise whether the Certificate issued to NTE should be an impediment” to their proposed project.

Addressing safety concerns

The town of Killingly has requested party status in the hearings before the siting council. 

In a letter to Windham Energy following a meeting with the developers, Town Council chair Jason Alexander and vice chair Tammy Wakefield raised concerns about the potential for fire at the facility, pointing to a recent fire at a battery storage facility in New York, and asked how they would prevent a similar event.  

Three battery storage projects caught fire in New York in 2023, prompting Gov. Kathy Hochul to convene a working group to draft updates to the state’s fire code to improve safety and emergency preparedness in the planning of such projects. 

Other towns in Connecticut have also raised concerns about fires for much smaller battery storage projects proposed by Key Capture Energy, of Albany, New York.

Milley says town officials are “right to ask these questions,” and he is focused on addressing their concerns. He noted that Windham plans to use lithium iron phosphate batteries, a type of lithium battery he says is much less prone to fire.

“The element in the battery is iron, which doesn’t burn,” he said. 

However, he added, Windham fully intends to work with town and state fire authorities to develop a response plan “whether it’s a strict requirement or not.” 

In the meantime, Windham Energy has filed a motion with the siting council to reopen the docket concerning NTE Energy so that it might modify its decision and revoke the earlier issued certificate. 

The council is expected to take up that motion during its Feb. 6 meeting. 

Legal snafu over canceled natural gas plant site ensnares Connecticut energy storage project 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.

Environmental and community advocates in Massachusetts argue that making too much room for biofuels in a pending state plan to decarbonize heating systems would slow the transition from fossil fuels and cause more pollution than a plan that prioritizes electric heat pumps.

As the state works on the creation of a Clean Heat Standard, a report released last month by Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility raises questions about the effects using biodiesel in fuel-oil heating systems could have on air quality and public health, saying there is not enough information available about the pollutants released in the process. 

Advocates say there is no such uncertainty about electric heat pumps, which create no direct emissions and should therefore be heavily favored in the new state policy. 

“We absolutely think the thumb should be on the scale of electrification,” said Larry Chretien, executive director of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance. “If they give credit to biofuels, it ought to be conditional.”

Oil heating is much more prevalent in the Northeast than in the rest of the country. In Massachusetts, 22% of households are heated with oil, as compared to less than 5% nationwide. Moving homes and businesses off oil heat, therefore, is an important element of the state’s plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, which sets a target of reducing emissions from heating by 93% from 1990 levels in that timeframe. 

The process of developing a Clean Heat Standard began when then-Gov. Charlie Baker convened the Commission on Clean Heat in 2021. In 2022, the board recommended the creation of the standard, which was also included in the state’s Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2050, released later that year. A stakeholder process began in 2023, and in the fall of that year the state released a draft framework for the standard that included the expectation of issuing credits for some biofuel use. 

Open questions about public health

The program is expected to require gas utilities and importers of heating oil and propane to provide an increasing proportion of clean heating services like home heat pumps, networked geothermal, and other options, or buy credits from other parties that have implemented these solutions. 

Whether the other options that qualify as clean heat will include biofuels — fuels derived from renewable, organic sources — has been a matter of contention since the idea for the system was first raised.

Climate advocates have tended to oppose the inclusion of much, if any, biofuel in the standard. Though biodiesel creates lower lifetime greenhouse gas emissions than its conventional counterpart, the recent Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility report contends that there are many unanswered questions about how burning biodiesel impacts public health. 

“Given the sheer amount of doubt, there’s more research that should clearly be done before these fuels are subsidized by the state government,” said report author Carrie Katan, who also works as a Massachusetts policy advocate for the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, but compiled the report as an independent contractor for the physicians group. 

The physicians’ report notes a study by Trinity Consulting Group that found significant health benefits to switching from fossil diesel to biodiesel for building heating. The physicians’ report, however, questions the methodology used in that study, claiming it cherrypicks data and fails to cite sources. 

Katan’s report also notes that the health impacts of biofuels can vary widely depending on the organic matter used to create them, and points out that most of the research on burning biofuels is focused on the transportation sector. 

Climate advocates also argue that embracing biofuels in a Clean Heat Standard would unnecessarily prolong the transition to electric heat pumps while encouraging the continued burning of fossil heating oil. Typically, a heating oil customer using biodiesel receives a blend that is no more than 20% biofuel. Providing credit for that fraction of biofuel would therefore improve the economics of the entire heating oil system, contrary to the overall emissions reduction goals of the policy, Chretien said.

“We’re trying to create a system that is rewarding steps towards greenhouse gas reduction,” he said. 

Making the case for biofuel

Advocates of biofuels, however, say they are confident that existing science makes a solid case for the health and environmental benefits of biodiesel. 

“There’s a decades-long body of work showing the overall benefits to public health of biofuels, specifically biodiesel,” said Floyd Vergara, a consultant for Clean Fuels Alliance America, a national trade association representing the biodiesel, renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel industries.

Vergara, who was involved in the Trinity Consulting study, called out in the physicians’ report, also defended the methodologies and sourcing of that paper. 

Further, he said, though biodiesel is typically limited to 20% in current blends, it is quite possible to run a heating system entirely on biofuel, with just a few tweaks to the equipment. These conversions could yield immediate reductions in emissions, he said, rather than waiting for the slower process of replacing thousands of heating oil systems with electric heat pumps.

The difference could be particularly acute in low-income or other traditionally disadvantaged neighborhoods, where many residents can not afford to make the switch to heat pumps, he said. 

“You’re getting those benefits immediately, and you’re getting them while the states are pursuing zero-emissions technologies,” he said.

State environmental regulators expect to release a full draft of the clean heat standard for public comment sometime this winter.

Physicians group warns against propping up biodiesel as part of Massachusetts’ clean heat transition  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.

Massachusetts environmental advocates hope a provision in the state’s new climate law could be a final blow to a proposed expansion of private jet facilities at a suburban airport. 

Opponents say adding 500,000 square feet of hangar space at Hanscom Field, a general aviation airport that serves private and corporate aircraft in a town 20 miles outside of Boston, will inevitably mean more flights — mostly private jet travel to luxury locations — which will increase climate pollution with minimal public benefit.

“This is an industry that is highly polluting and yet serves only a very narrow slice of the public,” said Alex Chatfield, a local social worker and an activist fighting the project. 

The expansion plans have been in the works since 2021, but progress slowed in June after state regulators rejected the planners’ first environmental impact report. Since then, state lawmakers passed a new law requiring state agencies and boards, including the state port authority, to consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions in their decisions. 

The measure does not directly prohibit the Massachusetts Port Authority from proceeding with projects such as the Hanscom plan, but it does leave the agency vulnerable to legal action should it forge ahead without being able to show it weighed the likely greenhouse gas emissions against the benefits of the plan. 

Much-needed hangars

The expansion plan started with Massport, which oversees operations at Hanscom as well as Boston’s Logan International Airport and Worcester Regional Airport. In 2021, the agency released a request for proposals to develop “much-needed hangars” at the airport, said Massport spokesperson Jennifer Mehigan. A plan submitted by North Airfield Ventures and Runway Realty Ventures won the bid. 

The proposed facilities would be built on 47 acres of land, some of which is already owned by the developers and some of which would be leased to them by Massport. The project comprises 17 new hangars, the rehabilitation of a historic Navy hangar on the site, and fuel storage facilities. 

Planners argue the development would be environmentally beneficial, because the structures would be designed for net-zero energy use and built to LEED Gold standards, and buildings and equipment would be electrified whenever possible. They also claim the additional capacity would help cut down on emissions from so-called “ferry flights,” in which a plane hangared elsewhere flies to Hanscom to pick up passengers and then returns to its home airport at the end of the trip. 

Opponents, however, argue that more hangars will inevitably mean more flights. These flights, they say, are likely to be private jet travel to luxury locations, generating emissions for the benefit of just a privileged few. One report, by Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, found that 31,600 private flights departed Hanscom during an 18-month period in 2022 and 2023, and that roughly half of those were bound for high-end vacation destinations like the Bahamas, Palm Beach, and Nantucket.

“It’s very well known that private jets are the most polluting form of transportation per passenger ever devised,” Chatfield said. “It is on a scale that is really hard to imagine.”

State environmental regulators are also skeptical. The state response to the developers’ first environmental impact report, referred to the “fanciful nature of the proponents’ ‘ferry flight theory,’” pointing to a study that found only 132 ferry flights actually occurred at Hanscom rather than the 3,500 developers claimed. Regulators also suggested new hangars at Hanscom were unlikely to attract planes to relocate, and therefore would not reduce what ferry flights do occur.

The developers can resubmit their environmental impact report, addressing the state’s concerns. One of the founders of North Airfield Ventures said the company declines to comment on its plans at this time. 

Factoring in climate impacts

In the months since the state’s order was released, legislators created another obstacle for the project. 

As Massachusetts attempts to reach its goal of net-zero carbon emissions, an ongoing mundane-yet-important challenge has been the fact that some crucial state agencies and boards have lacked the authority to factor climate impacts in their decisions. These bodies were founded well before the climate crisis became such a pressing public policy question, and thus their rules never required or authorized them to consider greenhouse gas emissions or other climate impacts in their decision-making. 

In recent years, attempts have been made to integrate climate change mitigation into more statewide policies and processes. A climate law enacted in 2021 requires the administration to set greenhouse gas reduction goals to be realized by the state’s three-year energy efficiency plans, which were initially intended only to reduce the cost and quantity of electricity, gas, and oil used. The same bill instructed public utilities regulators to consider greenhouse gas impact as part of their decisions. 

“The department up to that point had just focused on reliability and affordability,” said state Sen. Michael Barrett, chair of the legislature’s committee on telecommunications, utilities, and energy, and one of the main authors of both the 2021 and 2024 climate bills. “I have wanted to reorient state agencies that don’t seem to have gotten the memo about climate change being an existential crisis.”

The latest bill included more such provisions, authorizing the Board of Building Regulations and Standards to give preference to building materials that boost emissions reductions, and requiring Massport to consider the greenhouse gas impacts of its decisions.

“I hope that Massport appreciates that what is done today on climate is inadequate, and I hope it also appreciates that the policies have changed,” said Barrett. “I don’t pretend to be able to predict particular outcomes on particular projects, but I do know that Massport needs to take this seriously.”

Plan to expand airport for private jets runs into new Massachusetts climate law 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.

A trailblazing regional greenhouse gas partnership on the East Coast is considering possible changes or expansion that would allow it to keep building on its success — and the stakes grew higher last month with the reelection of Donald Trump.

The 11-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, established in 2005, is the country’s first regional cap-and-invest system for reducing carbon emissions from power generation. Since 2021, administrators have been conducting a program review, analyzing its performance since the last review in 2017 and weighing potential adjustments to make sure it continues to deliver benefits to member states.

The role of such programs is more crucial as Trump’s pledges to roll back federal climate action leaves it up to cities, states, and the private sector to maintain the country’s momentum on clean energy over the next four years. In RGGI, as the regional initiative is known, states have a potential model for scaling their impact through collaboration. 

“RGGI has not only been an effective climate policy, it’s been an extraordinary example of how states can work together on common goals,” said Daniel Sosland, president of climate and energy nonprofit Acadia Center. “It is a major vehicle for climate policy now in the states, more than it might have seemed before the election.” 

How RGGI works

RGGI sets a cap for total power plant carbon emissions among member states. Individual generators must then buy allowances from the state, up to the total cap, for each ton of carbon dioxide they produce in a year. The cap lowers over time, forcing power plants to either reduce emissions or pay more to buy allowances from a shrinking pool.

States then reinvest the proceeds from these auctions into programs that further reduce emissions and help energy customers, including energy efficiency initiatives, direct bill assistance, and renewable energy projects. Since 2008, RGGI has generated $8.3 billion for participating states, and carbon dioxide emissions from power generation in the nine states that have consistently participated fell by about half between 2008 and 2021, a considerably faster rate than the rest of the country. 

“It has really thrived and been really effective across multiple administrations,” said Jackson Morris, state power sector director with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “RGGI is a winning model. It’s not theoretical — we’ve got numbers.”

Currently, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont are part of the program. Virginia joined RGGI in 2021, but in 2023 Gov. Glenn Youngkin repealed the state’s participation, a move immediately challenged in court; a judge ruled last month that the governor lacked the authority to withdraw the state from initiative, though a spokesman for the governor has declared the state’s intention to appeal. 

There is widespread agreement that RGGI will endure despite likely federal hostility to climate measures. There was no attempt to take direct action against it during Trump’s first term, nor has there been any concerted industry opposition, said Conservation Law Foundation president Bradley Campbell, who was involved in the founding of RGGI when he was commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Supporters also note that the program has historically had broad bipartisan support: Participating states have been led through the years by both Republican and Democratic governors and legislatures. 

Politics has had some influence over the years, though only at the margins. New Jersey, a founding member of RGGI, left in 2011 when Chris Christie was governor, but returned in 2020 following an executive order from his successor. Pennsylvania joined in 2022 through an executive order from the governor, but its participation is now being challenged in court. 

Still, RGGI’s foundations are solid and will remain so, experts said. 

“The basic infrastructure has weathered the political winds over the decades,” Campbell said.

Looking forward

Nonetheless, RGGI will need to make some carefully thought-out program design decisions during its current review to make an impact in the face of falling federal support for decarbonization. 

One question under consideration is whether to maintain the existing trajectory for the overall emissions cap for the program — a reduction of 30% between 2020 and 2030, then holding steady thereafter — or to continue lowering the limit after 2030. 

The RGGI states are also contemplating a possible change to the compliance schedule that would require power generators to acquire allowances worth 100% of their carbon emissions each year, and certify compliance annually. The current system calls for certification every three years, and only mandates allowances equivalent to half of carbon emissions for the first two years of each period.

The program is looking for ways to appeal to potential new participant states that have less aggressive decarbonization goals than current member states without watering down the program’s overall impact on decarbonization, said Acadia Center policy analyst Paola Tamayo. Acadia suggested possible program mechanisms such as giving proportionately more allowances to states with more stringent emissions targets to incentivize tighter limits.

“At this point it is critical for states to maintain a high level of ambition when it comes to programs like RGGI,” Tamayo said. “There are different mechanisms that they can implement to accommodate other states.”

The program review is expected to yield a model rule some time over the winter, though updates may be made into the spring as the RGGI states receive and consider feedback on how to accommodate potential new participants.  

States will also need to maintain and strengthen their own climate policies to magnify the impact of RGGI, Campbell said. He pointed to Massachusetts, where Gov. Maura Healey needs to show “bolder leadership,” he said, and Maine and Vermont, where the Conservation Law Foundation has filed lawsuits in an attempt to compel the states to meet their own carbon reduction deadlines. 

“It’s especially important that the states that have strong emissions reduction mandates speed up the implementation of their climate laws,” he said. “State leadership on these issues is going to be more important than ever.”

As climate focus shifts to states, East Coast partnership offers model for multi-state collaboration 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.

This article was originally published by CT Mirror.

Donald Trump’s return to power comes against a backdrop of the well-known anti-environmental legacy of his first term. His assertion that climate change was a “hoax,” was followed by the rolling back or outright revocation of more than 100 environmental regulations and policies, as tracked by numerous universities and newspapers at the time.

Blue-state attorneys general let none of this go without a fight — filing dozens of lawsuits and taking other actions on all manner of Trump administration moves, not just those connected to the environment, energy and climate. Connecticut was in the thick of it, especially on climate issues related to air quality and the emissions known to contribute to global warming and climate change.

But the second Trump administration could prove even more challenging for the attorneys general. It arrives with previous experience and a team potentially less prone to the mistakes that often caused failures in court in the first go-round. Trump will also have majorities in both chambers of Congress to bolster his agenda.

There are also the very specific policy and action recommendations in Project 2025, the conservative governing plan developed by the Heritage Foundation with assistance from many officials connected to Trump’s first term. After facing serious blowback to the plan during the campaign, Trump claimed he knew nothing about it, though his campaign website contained some of the same ideas.

Trump has since hired several Project 2025 authors for his new administration including a key architect, Russell Vought, to run the Office of Management and Budget. Vought held that same position for part of Trump’s first administration.

There is also a super-majority conservative U.S. Supreme Court that has already flexed its muscles. It has issued a number of rulings that have effectively closed off avenues for challenges. The Chevron decision in June and the court’s use of the so-called major questions doctrine both generally now restrict what agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Department can do without specific direction from Congress.

“It’s changed everything,” said Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who took office halfway through Trump’s first term, picking up the fight from his predecessor George Jepsen, in conjunction with attorneys general around the country.

“It’s hard to overstate how profound this change is,” Tong said. “It essentially overturns the whole apple cart of regulatory infrastructure in this country.”

“I think we’re expecting a fight on everything. And that regulatory process — in changes in rulemaking — is going to grind to a very slow crawl and in some cases, to a halt. And that was the point of the people that initiated this.”

The Supreme Court rulings were destined to cause difficulties for Connecticut and other states regardless of whether Trump or Harris won. Tong said he and his blue-state brethren had been planning for both contingencies, though he wouldn’t say what the strategies will be.

“We’ve been preparing for the prospect of the Trump presidency for a long time now, and we are very closely coordinated and aligned,” he said. “We are ready.”

Roger Reynolds, senior legal director with the advocacy group Save the Sound called the Supreme Court rulings hugely concerning. “We’re in a really critical place right now. They have a clear anti-regulatory agenda,” he said. “It’s about putting their hands on the scales on the side of the regulated industries.”

Connecticut’s Democratic senate leaders, President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, and Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, sent a letter last week to Gov. Ned Lamont urging him to prepare to combat Trump administration actions that could hurt the state and the region. The request follows California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to hold a special legislative session to ensure there is enough money to take legal action against the Trump administration when necessary. Meanwhile, the governors of Colorado and Illinois are forming a blue state governors’ coalition to oppose Trump administration efforts.

The Biden administration has methodically reinstated many of Trump’s first administration rollbacks and fortified them with both regulatory-enhanced programs and funding, such as in the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure act.

Trump’s own campaign statements and promises as presented in his platform, Agenda 47, as well as Project 2025, could initiate another round of climate change, energy and environmental whiplash.

According to published reports, two of the first administration’s more effective members, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, both former fossil fuel industry lobbyists, are back at work in the transition and could be in line for positions in the new administration.

Within a week of the election Trump named former Long Island Republican congressman Lee Zeldin to run the EPA. He has limited environmental expertise but is a Trump loyalist. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a fossil fuel proponent, was nominated to head the Interior Department and to lead a new National Energy Council. And a fracking company executive, Chris Wright, was named to lead the Energy Department and sit on that council. Wright has said there is no climate crisis.

A close review of the nearly 900-page Project 2025 shows that it targets climate change, as well as energy and environmental programs and regulations. The project seeks to cripple the EPA, curtail if not eliminate funding and subsidies for clean and renewable energy programs — including for electric vehicles — as well as eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. And it would eliminate any focus on environmental justice.

It seeks to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which is popular enough among Republicans whose states and districts have benefitted that 18 members of the House Republican Caucus sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson asking that it not be repealed.

Project 2025 also derides the idea of addressing climate change as a policy goal and seeks to remove even the mention of it broadly throughout government.

It contains pointed political statements such as this: “Mischaracterizing the state of our environment generally and the actual harms reasonably attributable to climate change specifically is a favored tool that the Left uses to scare the American public into accepting their ineffective, liberty-crushing regulations, diminished private property rights, and exorbitant costs.”

And it makes a number of specific recommendations to remove climate change as a consideration, such as with the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: “End the focus on climate change and green subsidies;” and for the Energy Department: “Eliminate political and climate-change interference in DOE approvals of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.”

Project 2025 would privatize the National Weather Service and dramatically reduce the percentage of funding provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for recovery from disasters like the historic flooding Connecticut, and other states, have experienced due to climate change.

During the campaign Trump disavowed knowledge of the plan, although Agenda 47 says some of the same things in far less detail. It reads: “On Day One, President Trump will rescind every one of Joe Biden’s industry-killing, jobs-killing, pro-China and anti-American electricity regulations,” and “President Trump will DRILL, BABY, DRILL.”

The impacts of any of these would likely be felt down to state and local levels.

Connecticut’s biggest worries

If the Trump administration implements the environmental recommendations of Project 2025, Connecticut as well as other states face the possibility that unspent federal funds for climate and energy projects could be clawed back, costing jobs and the economic development around them.

Among 11 bullet points a conservative administration should pursue in energy policy: “Support repeal of massive spending bills like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which established new programs and are providing hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to renewable energy developers, their investors, and special interests, and support the rescinding of all funds not already spent by these programs.”

There is also the potential that the funding Connecticut and nearly all states have grown to rely on for large energy and electric grid projects could disappear. Project 2025 calls for eliminating and defunding the Grid Deployment Office.

And there could be the kinds of regulatory shifts seen during the first administration when approvals for offshore wind were slow-walked. Trump, who for years has stated his hatred for offshore wind, has threatened to stop all offshore wind projects on day one, referring to subsidies for them as “insane.”

Connecticut and the entire New England grid has been counting on offshore wind development to bolster its energy capabilities in the face of expanding power needs for economic development around data centers and other large businesses, as well as for electrification needs for motor vehicle charging and heat pump conversions.

Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes steered clear of any hand-wringing when asked what she expects from a second Trump administration. She did, however, note that roughly a quarter of DEEP’s budget for both programs and personnel comes from a variety of different federal grants across a number of different federal agencies, EPA being the big one.

“There are a lot of different scenarios that people are contemplating with the new Congress and with the new administration, but it’s early to say what may happen,” she said. “We’re assessing options under different scenarios, but it’s too early to tell what the impacts will be.”

She ticked off a laundry list of programs that recently received federal money and noted the need to get the funds distributed and implemented. “We’re staying in touch with our neighboring states and with project developers to help understand how we can be nimble in the face of any changes that may come.”

And she said DEEP will be collaborating with the state Attorney General’s office and will follow its lead on any steps that need to be taken to protect Connecticut’s mission and interests.

One likely impact for Connecticut is that Trump’s policies will further prolong the now 50-year battle for clean air.

The state continues to face pollution and ozone levels that have long kept it from meeting federal air quality standards. The entire state does not meet 2015 standards and the southern part doesn’t even meet more lenient ones from 2008. That’s even as still tighter standards were issued in February.

The heat of this summer has once again resulted in a large number of bad air days — 23. The result over time has been persistently high asthma rates in the state, especially among vulnerable populations.

A principal cause is pollution and greenhouse gases that blow in from Midwest power plants running on fossil fuels of oil, gas and coal. Connecticut has long contended the situation violates the Good Neighbor provision of the Clean Air Act designed to keep upwind states from polluting downwind ones.

After four years fighting the first Trump administration’s efforts to loosen regulations on both greenhouse gas and standard pollutant emissions, Tong’s office has remained active the last four years, battling red-state attorneys general attempting to thwart the Biden administration’s tighter Good Neighbor regulations. In June, the Supreme Court stayed those regulations and sent them back to the lower courts.

“It’s not great,” Tong said, when asked whether the case is now stuck. “That doesn’t mean I’m gonna fight any less hard than I have. It doesn’t mean that we are any less focused on it. No one’s giving up, and no one’s saying darn it, because we have Lee Zeldin and a six-three conservative court that we should just move on to other things. It’s clean air; it’s foundational and fundamental to public health, so we’re just gonna keep at it. It’s not optional.”

Reynolds at Save the Sound is equally gloomy, saying the current litigation scenario puts everything several years out — again. “It doesn’t mean that it’s not necessarily going to go forward, but it certainly means it’s not going to be implemented anytime in the near future,” he said. “It’s absolutely a fair assessment that we’re not going to see clean air in Connecticut anytime soon.”

And the axis on environmental and climate regulation is likely to flip again as the Trump administration is expected to replace the Biden rules with their own less restrictive ones. The rulemaking process takes time and is likely to set off a whole new wave of court challenges, delaying things even more.

This session, the Supreme Court is taking up a challenge to the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act that requires in-depth environmental reviews for federal projects. A recent federal appeals court ruling curtailed how those reviews can be structured.

There are also hints in Project 2025 that the second Trump administration might try to overturn the so-called Endangerment Finding, which allowed greenhouse gases to be regulated — specifically as part of motor vehicle, power plant and industrial emissions.

All of these could further limit the tools attorneys general and others have for challenging environmental laws and regulations the new administration may want to overturn from the Biden era and before, or may seek to put in place.

Reynolds points out that states still have a lot of power — to approve power plants and review pipelines, among other things. And he notes that the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts specifically allow citizen suits if the federal government isn’t complying with those laws. He said that’s been Save the Sound’s bread and butter in upholding environmental regulations.

“That’s why, since the ‘70s, through all the administrations we’ve had, many of which have put a bull’s eye on environmental regulations, we’ve continued to have progress,” he said. “Our strategy is going to continue to be to enforce these incredibly powerful acts, and fight rollbacks and do what we can to get funding for these initiatives, and to get states and municipalities to take the lead.”

Reynolds isn’t the only one talking about states and municipalities taking the lead.

Brad Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation and a former EPA regional administrator, said simply opposing Trump as state and local officials did during the first administration will not be enough this time, based on what Project 2025 espouses and what Trump has already said, because both clearly cater to the fossil fuel industry.

“What we’ll be pushing for is for states to fill in any gaps that are created by Trump’s attacks on federal agencies and the rollback of some standards,” he said. “A major concern in New England is the climate investments that Biden was able to secure in Congress. Those are enormously important to accelerating New England’s energy transition.”

But if the Trump administration embraces Project 2025’s threat to cut funding to clean energy and other climate-targeted programs, tax incentives and entire programs and offices — across all government, not just environment and energy areas — will states have the money to take the lead?

“States may have to come up with additional funding for the energy transition if the federal government goes into full retreat,” Campbell said.

Focus on the states

“Not going to happen this year,” said Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex and co-chair of the Energy and Technology Committee. “The state budgets before Trump won are already out of balance.”

He noted that many state employees — including at DEEP — are paid in whole or part with federal funds. “If you lose 10% of state employees because their funding is cut directly by federal budget changes,” he said. “I don’t know how we make that up, right? I just think it’s going to be a stressful, difficult time.”

Needleman said he still plans to hold a series of meetings before the legislative session begins to formulate policies and initiatives.

“I do not believe that anyone can fight a battle with only a strong defense. I think we need a combination of a sensible offense and a thoughtful defense about the damage that they can do, because we are going to have a target on our back,” he said.  

His co-chair, Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, said he and Needleman are already trying to figure out whether to resurrect some of the major energy, environmental and climate legislation that failed in the last two sessions. The presumption at that time was that the federal government would be at least neutral, if not supportive broadly of climate change initiatives.

“This may further chill our willingness to take on big things,” he said. “I would never throw up my hands and walk away. But coming into the session I was already feeling frustrated, constrained, finding it difficult to do the things that I think we really need to do, which are of bigger consequence, like a lot of this necessary investment in infrastructure.

“Now you layer in on top of it, either federal preemption of any regulatory framework we might choose, or certainly a cessation or diminishment of funding for the things that we’ve counted on the feds for in the past. It’s very hard to figure, what do we do first?”

Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich and ranking member on the committee, said his goal is to make the best policy he can in alignment with his goals of low cost, reliable and environmentally responsible energy.

“Whether there’s a Democratic presidential administration or a Republican one, and there is going to be both in the next 20 years, and policy at the federal level — you make the best of it,” he said. “I haven’t seen, really in any substantial way, that federal policy has helped us meet those goals in Connecticut over the last decade or so.

“The goal is to make policy on a state level. You can’t count on federal policies. We need things to be sustainable on their own. Subsidies will not solve our woes.”

Steinberg offers some ideas for getting money if federal funding decreases or disappears. He suggests collaborations with the business community or investors. He said it might be worth considering something like taxing data center developers to cover the energy burden they bring. Such a tax could be reduced or eliminated if the company installs solar, geothermal, or some other energy reduction mechanism. “Anything to mitigate their energy burden by like a third or 50% before they can escape this tax,” he said.

The point, Steinberg said, is to figure out ways to get things done. It could be opting for low cost solutions in the near term or working with the Green Bank on private funding sources.

“I think that there are things that we must explore doing, even if it’s going to be harder,” he said.

Others said the transition to clean energy in New England is well underway which will help survive another round of Donald Trump.

“There is so much momentum behind clean energy technologies in particular,” said Julie McNamara, deputy policy director climate and energy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s two things at once. There will continue to be progress and there will not be as much progress as there could or must have been.

“Certain things will slow or stop because we’re approaching the parts of the clean energy transition where it gets hard. A lot of the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and so we’re starting to need to take those next further steps, the kind of things where It takes real, intentional work to couple policy with economics and a vision for the future.”

But Steinberg warned against the impulse to just wait Trump out. “It is not only not an answer; it would be irresponsible, in my view.”

He said everyone will need to be creative. “But the one thing we cannot lose is our resolve,” he said. “We just need to keep doing it, because we don’t have a choice.”

Connecticut took on Trump on climate before. It will probably be harder to do it again. 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.

After the reelection of former President Donald Trump, clean energy advocates across the country are preparing for a White House that will no doubt pursue aggressive rollbacks of climate policies and further expand fossil-fuel production.

Now more than ever, states will need to step up and pursue climate efforts on their own to ​“ensure continued progress toward clean energy,” said Caroline Spears, executive director of the advocacy group Climate Cabinet.

Few states are as important as New York, which is large, Democrat-controlled — and already committed to ambitious clean energy goals. In 2019, the state passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which pledged to reach 70 percent renewable energy by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050.

“New York State can continue to lead without federal support or federal oversight,” said Mandy DeRoche, deputy managing attorney at the advocacy group Earthjustice. ​“We’ll continue our progress regardless, and that will happen in every state no matter what.”

But so far, the Empire State is falling behind on its climate goals. Across a slew of initiatives under New York’s 2019 climate law, regulators are missing key rulemaking deadlines. According to a July report from the state, New York will likely miss its landmark clean energy target for 2030. Right now, it’s on track to get just 53 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by that date, far short of 70 percent.

The report mostly blamed external economic factors, including supply-chain disruptions and high interest rates that led to a spate of major renewable project cancellations. Another issue is skyrocketing energy demand, largely driven by new data centers for crypto mining and AI, as well as microchip manufacturing facilities and the rise in electric vehicles and appliances.

Environmental advocates argue that faltering political will contributes just as much, if not more, to the state’s lackluster progress. Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has expressed ambivalence over meeting looming clean energy targets.

“The costs have gone up so much I now have to say, ​‘What is the cost on the typical New York family?’” Hochul said in a recent TV interview. ​“The goals are still worthy. But we have to think about the collateral damage of these decisions.”

Missing the 2030 deadline would jeopardize many of the state’s other climate goals, including achieving 100 percent zero-emissions energy by 2040 and shuttering ​“peaker” fossil-gas plants that disproportionately spew toxic pollutants into low-income communities and communities of color, in addition to emitting large amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide.

But missing these goals is far from inevitable. From raising energy procurement targets to leaning on public power agencies, climate and legal experts say that there’s still plenty of ways New York can make good on its clean energy pledge.

“We’re not ready to say we can’t meet the 2030 goal,” said DeRoche. ​“Of course, there are obstacles, but the messaging and the approach from the state should be, ​‘This is a statutory obligation, and we will do everything in our power to meet it.’”

How New York could get back on track

On some level, New York’s struggles come down to a straightforward problem: The state doesn’t have enough existing or upcoming renewable energy projects to meet its goals. 

About 30 percent of the state’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources, mostly from upstate hydropower plants built many decades ago.

One bright spot is that New York has already outpaced its 6-gigawatt goal for rooftop and community solar — but its targets for utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage projects, which make up the bulk of its clean energy plan, remain well off-track.

To help solve this, DeRoche and her team at Earthjustice argue in public comments to state energy regulators that New York should vastly increase its renewable energy procurement targets, which set guidelines for how much clean power the state should purchase from private developers. State agencies have determined that they would need to purchase about 14,000 gigawatt hours each year for the next three years to meet the 2030 deadline, yet have recommended procuring only 5,600 gigawatt hours per year.

“The Draft Review provides no basis for setting the target so low,” her team wrote, arguing that state agencies should reevaluate how feasible it would be to procure a higher volume.

New clean energy construction should be prioritized in downstate New York, DeRoche adds, a region that houses most of the state’s population yet relies heavily on fossil fuels compared with the largely hydro- and nuclear-powered upstate areas. The state will also need to address transmission and interconnection backlogs that make it harder to connect new power generation to the grid. Earlier this year, lawmakers passed the RAPID Act to expedite that process for clean energy projects and transmission lines.

Some activists argue that the state itself should take a leading role to develop more clean energy.

Last year, an amendment to the state budget granted the New York Power Authority the ability to build, own, and operate renewable energy projects for the first time. Organizers at the grassroots coalition Public Power New York say that government leaders have yet to capitalize on the change, commonly referred to as the Build Public Renewables Act. In October, NYPA released its first strategic plan for developing renewable energy projects, proposing the installation of 3.5 gigawatts of new clean energy in the next several years.

“This is only the first tranche of NYPA renewables projects,” the report said, with potentially ​“further projects for consideration.”

Andrea Johnson, an organizer with the New York City chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, a member group of Public Power New York, called that number ​“measly.” Public Power New York is rallying for the authority to commit to 15 gigawatts of new clean power by 2030, an amount based on research commissioned by the group.

Expanding clean power at a faster rate would fulfill NYPA’s responsibilities under last year’s expanded authority, which calls on it to build projects when the state falls short on its climate mandates, Johnson said. ​“When the private sector fails — and the private sector is failing — the state needs to step in and actually fill the gap.”

Leveraging NYPA can also allow New York to meet its climate goals at a lower cost, Johnson said. As a nonprofit, public institution, NYPA can access more favorable financing. It also owns and builds transmission lines, allowing it to plan for both energy generation and distribution at the same time, she said. NYPA is also required to provide utility bill credits to low- and moderate-income households for any clean energy produced from its projects.

Beyond building more clean energy, the state should also take steps to ease growing power demand, including strengthening building efficiency standards and accelerating the installation of heat pumps, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.

That includes addressing the rapid growth of crypto mining and AI electricity use and its effects on residents, said DeRoche. State officials noted that those rising energy demands have made it far more difficult to reach clean energy targets. But agencies have policy tools available to understand and reduce unabated growth — and they should start with making sure that discounted electricity rates for cryptocurrency and AI companies aren’t being subsidized by residents, DeRoche said.

Offshore wind’s uncertain future

Any effort to accelerate New York’s adoption of clean energy will need to grapple with challenges in the offshore wind sector, a cornerstone of the state’s strategy that is likely to face even more setbacks under the incoming Trump administration.

New York aims to install 9 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2035, but in the past four years, inflation, high interest rates, and supply-chain issues led developers to pull out of contracts in the state.

That challenging economic environment is now improving, however, according to Atin Jain, an offshore wind analyst at the energy consulting firm BloombergNEF. As inflation has started to ease and interest rates have begun to come down, ​“We have probably passed the worst of it,” Jain said. State officials have been quick to respond to the industry’s economic pressures, he added, expediting auctions to renegotiate previous agreements and adding language in contracts to allow for inflation adjustments.

Two new projects, Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind 1, with 924 and 810 megawatts of capacity, respectively, are currently moving forward in New York. The 132-megawatt South Fork Wind farm went live in March off the coast of Long Island.

But Trump’s reelection casts a new uncertainty over the industry. Trump has vowed to stop offshore wind development ​“on day one” and to ​“terminate” the Inflation Reduction Act. If those declarations end up translating to real policy, then offshore wind, which relies heavily on federal tax credits and requires federal approval and permits to build and operate, could suffer — in New York and beyond.

Still, New York has enshrined a legal mandate to decarbonize its economy — meaning no matter the headwinds, the state has an obligation to follow through, DeRoche said. 

“We hear from the governor that the CLCPA is the nation’s leading climate law,” said DeRoche. ​“Well, it’s only the nation’s leading climate law if we’re implementing it.”

How New York can get on track to meet its big clean energy goals 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.

A Massachusetts university is developing technology that aims to use lasers to drastically cut emissions and energy use from Maine’s paper and pulp industry. 

Worcester Polytechnic Institute recently received a $2.75 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to help ready the industrial drying technology for commercial use.

“We are all excited about this — this is potentially a groundbreaking technology,” said Jamal Yagoobi, founding director of the institute’s Center for Advanced Research in Drying.

In Maine, the paper and pulp business generates about 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, roughly half of the state’s industrial emissions. Much of these emissions come from the process of drying mashed, pressed, and rolled wood pulp to yield paper products. The emissions come mainly from three major operations across the state; three additional facilities contribute smaller amounts.

These plants’ emissions will need to be addressed if Maine is to reach its goal of going carbon neutral by 2045. Furthermore, each of these plants is located in an area with an above-average population of low-income residents, according to data assembled by Industrious Labs, an environmental organization focused on the impact of industry. And two are located in areas with a higher-than-average risk of cancer from air toxins, suggesting a correlation between their operations and the incidence of cancer in the area. 

At the same, the paper and pulp industry remains economically important to Maine, said Matt Cannon, state conservation and energy director for the Maine chapter of the Sierra Club. 

“It’s got real union jobs — the paper industry is still very important to our community,” he said. 

Worcester Polytechnic’s drying research center has been working on ways to dry paper, pulp, and other materials using the concentrated energy found in lasers. The lasers Yagoobi’s team is using are not the lasers of the public imagination, like a red beam zapping at alien enemies. Though the lasers are quite strong — they can melt metal, Yagoobi says — they are dispersed over a larger area, spreading out the energy to evenly and gently dry the target material. 

Testing on food products has shown that the technology can work. Now, researchers need to learn more about how the laser energy affects different materials to make sure the product quality is not compromised during the drying process. 

“For paper, it’s important to make sure the tensile strength is not degrading,” Yagoobi said. “For food products, you want to make sure the color and sensory qualities do not degrade.”

Therefore, before the system is ready for a commercial pilot, the team has to gather a lot more data about how much laser energy is incident on different parts of the surface and how deeply the energy penetrates different materials. Once gathered, this data will be used to determine what system sizes and operating conditions are best for different materials, and to design laser modules for each intended use. 

Once these details are worked out, the laser technology can be installed in new commercial-scale drying equipment or existing systems. “This particular technology will be easy to retrofit,” Yagoobi said. 

Industrial sources were responsible for about 1.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States in 2023, about 28% of the country’s overall emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heating processes, often powered by natural gas or other fossil fuels, are responsible for about half of those emissions, said Evan Gillespie, one of the co-founders of Industrious Labs. Many industrial drying processes require high temperatures that have traditionally been hard to reach without fossil fuels, giving the sector a reputation as hard to decarbonize, Gillespie said.

“The key challenge here is: How do you remove natural gas as a heating source inside industrial facilities?” said Richard Hart, industry director at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. “The scale of what is happening in industry is enormous, and the potential for change is very powerful.”

To make the new technology effective, industry leaders and policymakers will need to commit to reinvesting in old facilities, Gillespie noted. And doing so will be well worth it by strengthening an economically important industry, keeping jobs in place, and creating important environmental benefits, he added.

“There’s often this old story of tensions between climate and jobs,” Gillespie said. “But what we’re trying to do is modernize these facilities and stabilize them so they’ll be around for decades to come.”

Paper and pulp mills produce half of Maine’s industrial CO2 emissions. Could lasers help slash their climate impact?    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.

As a state committee studies ways to wean Rhode Island off of natural gas, several of its members want the group’s final report to dismiss one potential pathway as wholly unrealistic.

Switching to renewable natural gas or other alternative fuels appears to be neither a feasible nor a financially viable solution at this time, say multiple stakeholders who have commented on a draft outline of a report a consulting group prepared for Rhode Island regulators.

RNG is derived from biomass or other renewable resources. It is a biogas, captured from the decomposition of organic matter, such as animal manure or food waste.

Many gas utilities around the country are pushing for RNG as part of the solution to lowering greenhouse gas emissions. But Michael Walsh, a partner at Groundwork Data, a clean energy consultancy that worked with the Conservation Law Foundation and the Sierra Club in the committee process, told the Energy News Network that “we don’t see a lot of viability with the RNG pathway,” both because of limited availability and because it is much more expensive then fossil fuel gas to produce.

While RNG is interchangeable with conventional natural gas, “realism about the availability and cost of alternative fuels for the gas system is necessary” for the planning process, wrote Nicholas Vaz, Rhode Island special assistant attorney general, in his comments on the draft. 

Vaz cited a 2019 study prepared for the American Gas Foundation that looked at RNG production potential by 2040, based on the availability of source materials and utilization. Based on those findings, Vaz concluded that the amount of RNG available by 2050 would only allow for about 17% of Rhode Island households to remain connected to the gas system.

Currently, more than half of Rhode Island homes receive natural gas service.

The state Public Utilities Commission established the stakeholder committee as part of its “Future of Gas” docket, an investigation of the future of the regulated gas distribution business in Rhode Island. That docket was opened in 2022 in response to the passage of the state’s Act on Climate, which mandates a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2030, 80% by 2040, and net-zero by 2050.

The natural gas system operated by Rhode Island Energy accounts for almost 40% of statewide emissions. So the PUC, which regulates the utility, is in the tricky position of having to craft a plan for getting commercial and residential customers off natural gas, finding a way to pay for it, and ensuring that consumers aren’t harmed in the process. Regulators will use the committee’s report to help inform the strategy it lays out.

The neighboring state of Massachusetts is a little farther along in that process; its state Department of Public Utilities issued an order last December outlining a strategy for getting the state off natural gas.

While utilities there initially pushed for a plan that was heavily reliant on RNG, regulators ultimately rejected that approach, citing concerns about availability, cost and whether such alternative fuels will actually lead to a reduction in emissions.

To some extent, Massachusetts’ work to date helped inform the committee process in Rhode Island, Walsh said.

“We had a lot of Massachusetts folks in the room to share lessons learned,” he said. “We at least got through some of the questions faster.”

Ben Butterworth, director of climate, energy and equity analysis for the nonprofit Acadia Center, told ENN his organization would like to see Rhode Island prioritize much of what is in the Massachusetts strategy: a focus on electrification and energy efficiency, disincentivizing further expansion of the gas system, and pilot programs focused on the strategic decommissioning of the gas system.

The PUC must also consider how to fund the transition, Butterworth noted. Vermont and Massachusetts are pursuing a clean heat standard as a funding mechanism for climate goals, while New York is pursuing a cap-and-invest approach. 

“Finding that mechanism is critical, and the report should include at least those options,” Butterworth said.

At the same time, the report should include a discussion of possible mechanisms to protect low-income ratepayers from “the inevitable initially increased costs of electrification,” urged Jennifer Wood, executive director of the Rhode Island Center for Justice, in her comments on the draft.

These might include capping the amount a household pays for electricity as a percentage of their income; rate reforms; and assistance programs to defray the costs of installing electric heat pumps.

“Low-income utility customers living in rented homes that are least well equipped for energy efficiency are already most harmed by the social effects of climate change,” Wood wrote. “The only way to ensure that they will not be doubly harmed by unsustainably higher utility bills during the transition…is to decouple income-eligible consumers’ energy costs from the near-term impacts of necessary, but initially more costly, electrification.”

The committee is expected to issue a final report with its findings and recommendations to the PUC by the end of the year.

As Rhode Island considers future of gas, advocates call for ‘realism’ on cost, availability of RNG 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.

Nearly a year after Massachusetts regulators laid out a vision for the state’s evolution from natural gas distribution to clean energy use, lawmakers are coalescing around legislation that would start converting principles into policy. 

The wide-ranging climate bill includes several provisions that would allow utilities to explore alternatives to gas and empower regulators to place more limits on the expansion and continuation of natural gas infrastructure, changes that supporters say are critical to a successful transition away from fossil fuels. 

“This bill is a major first step in empowering [regulators] to do something rather than just rubber stamping the utilities’ plans,” said Lisa Cunningham, co-founder of ZeroCarbonMA.

Natural gas is currently the primary heating source for half the homes in Massachusetts, a number that needs to drop if the state is going to meet its ambitious climate goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, advocates and state leaders say. In 2020, the state department of public utilities opened an investigation into the role natural gas utilities would play in the transition to cleaner energy. In December 2023, the department issued a lengthy order concluding that the state must move “beyond gas” and outlining a broad framework for making the shift. 

Lawmakers attempted to start turning these general ideas into binding law earlier this year, but the legislative session closed at the end of July before the Senate and House reconciled the differences between their versions of a climate bill. Legislators returned to work this fall and hammered out an agreement, and the Senate passed the resulting bill last month. The House speaker has said the body will vote when it returns to formal session later this year. The bill is generally expected to pass and be signed into law. 

“A lot of people were skeptical we’d get a bill at all, but I’m happy with where this bill ended up,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director for climate nonprofit Acadia Center. “It shows a step toward that needed urgency.”

At the heart of the bill’s energy transition provisions is a change to the definition of a natural gas utility that allows the companies to also provide geothermal power. Networked geothermal — systems that draw heat from the earth and deliver it to a group of buildings — is widely seen as a promising alternative to natural gas, and both National Grid and Eversource have pilot projects in the works. However, current law prevents the utilities from pursuing such projects without specific authorization from regulators. The climate bill would remove this barrier, making it easier for gas companies to explore new approaches to business.

“The gas utilities deeply need a new business model that can help them step into the future,” said Audrey Schulman, founder of climate solutions incubator HEETlabs. “That allows them to potentially evolve.”

This definition change supports other provisions aimed at slowing the expansion of natural gas use in the state. The bill would end the requirement that natural gas utilities provide service to any customer in their service area who requests it, with few exceptions. Under the new law, utilities could decline these requests when other alternatives are available. 

The bill would also allow regulators to consider the impact of emissions when deciding whether to approve requests to expand natural gas service into new communities. In 2023, the state approved a request to bring gas service to the central Massachusetts town of Douglas. Regulators at the time noted that the decision works against the state’s goal of phasing out natural gas, but said the law gave them no choice but to approve the plan. Provisions in the climate bill would untie regulators’ hands in such cases in the future.

“The [Department of Public Utilities] can consider the public interest, including climate, it doesn’t have to say yes to more gas service,” said Amy Boyd Rabin, vice president of policy at the Environmental League of Massachusetts. And the inclusion of geothermal in gas utilities’ definition means “now there’s also something else to offer the customers.” 

Another major element of the bill would reform the state’s Gas System Enhancement Plans program, which encourages utilities to repair or replace pipes in the state’s aging and leak-prone natural gas distribution system. Clean energy advocates have often argued that these plans are problematic, investing billions of ratepayer dollars into shoring up a system that is increasingly obsolete. The climate bill would allow utilities to choose to retire segments of pipe rather than fixing them. 

“For the first time ever they are able to look at a pipe and say, ‘You know what, this is not worth the cost,’” Murray said. “We don’t want ratepayers shouldering the burden for a lot of stuff that’s not going to be useful in five to 10 years.”

Environmental advocates praised the bill’s gas provisions, and are already focusing on what more there is to be done. Several would have liked to see a more aggressive phasing out of Gas System Enhancement Plans, with a specific end date. Others champion an expansion of a pilot program that allows cities and towns to ban fossil fuel use in new construction and major renovations. 

“There is no reason why communities that want to enact this via home rule petition should be restricted from enacting the will of their constituents,” Cunningham said. 

In the meantime, advocates are ready to see the climate bill turning into reality. 

“There’s a lot of good stuff in there that will do a lot of good for the commonwealth,” Boyd Rabin says.

Massachusetts legislation looks to remove barriers to the state’s shift from natural gas 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.