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The recent expansion of a groundbreaking transportation law in Minnesota means all major highway projects in the state will soon be scrutinized for their impact on climate emissions.
A year ago, the state legislature made headlines with a new law requiring the state transportation department and the Twin Cities’ regional planning agency to begin assessing whether highway expansion projects are consistent with state climate goals, including Minnesota’s aim for 20% reduction in driving by 2050.
A follow-up bill passed this spring expands the 2023 law to include all major highway projects statewide that exceed a $15 million budget in the Twin Cities or $5 million outside the metro, regardless of whether or not they would add new driving lanes. The updated legislation also established a technical advisory committee and a state fund to recommend and help pay for mitigation projects.
“It allows for some evolution of the law,” said Sam Rockwell, executive director of Move Minnesota, a nonprofit advocacy group that supported the legislation. “There’s more flexibility.”
The law requires transportation project planners to offset projected increases in greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled to qualify for state or federal highway dollars. Those mitigation efforts might include incorporating funding for transit, bicycle or pedestrian programs or environmental restoration projects.
Altogether, the law will now cover more than 12,000 miles of state trunk highways that account for more than 60% of all miles driven in the state. One high-profile project that may not have been covered under the initial law is the upcoming reconstruction of Interstate 94 between Minneapolis and St. Paul, which will now need to account for climate impacts.
The changes come as advocates and officials seek solutions to reverse the continued growth of transportation emissions, which surpassed electricity generation almost a decade ago as the state’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and are a major reason why Minnesota is not on track to meet its climate goals.
A disconnect has long existed between even progressive states’ climate goals and the status quo of highway construction, which has long focused on maximizing efficiency for drivers. The new Minnesota law is an attempt to integrate climate action into state and local transportation planning, and to recognize that electric vehicles alone won’t be enough to achieve climate targets.
Under the law, the Twin Cities’ regional planning agency, the Metropolitan Council, must include strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles driven in its next 25-year regional plan in 2026. All metro area communities will then use that plan as the basis for their local comprehensive plans, which are due to the regional council in 2028.
“It’s a waterfall effect here,” Rockwell said.
The Met Council’s last planning document, Thrive 2040, already outlined a focus on multimodal travel options, encouraging walking and biking options while setting a goal of decreasing vehicle miles traveled per capita by 20% by 2050, in line with the state’s official goal.
Many metro area communities are already having conversations about how to reduce dependency on driving. Abby Finis, a consultant who has helped several communities draft climate action plans, said reducing driving can bring broader benefits than simply focusing on electric vehicles.
“It offers more active lifestyles, more opportunities to incorporate nature, and has less impact on natural resources needed for electric vehicles,” she said.
Most communities focus on increasing the ability of residents to walk and bicycle for short trips by adding bike lanes, pedestrian islands and safer crosswalks, she said. Some cities see telecommuting and co-working spaces as options for reducing commutes.
But transforming the suburbs will be challenging, Finis said. Sustaining transit service often requires denser development, which continues to be politically controversial in many communities.
“I have yet to see any community push hard on those strategies in a way that meets what is necessary to reduce [vehicle miles traveled] and adapt to climate change,” Finis said.
For example, Minnetonka, a western suburb of Minneapolis with more than 52,000 residents, boasts a considerable bicycling community. But transit ridership is low except for a modest ridership at the regional mall, one commercial development area, and park-and-ride lots, said Minnetonka’s Community Development Director Julie Wischnack.
Developed in the 1950s and 1960s, Minnetonka’s current land use is a barrier to fixed route transit. But the city is among a collection of suburbs along Interstate 494 that has been pushing for transit and other commuting options, including telework.
Another member of that commission, Bloomington, faces many of the same challenges. The city has a few dense neighborhoods near transit stops and the Mall of America, but much of the community remains single-family homes and small apartments. A recent report Bloomington commissioned on transportation found that 75% of trips by residents were more than 10 miles.
Transit, biking, and other modes could replace trips that are less than 10 miles, said Bloomington Sustainability Coordinator Emma Struss. A recent city transportation study suggested several strategies to decrease driving, including transit-oriented development, free bus and rail passes, bike parking, subsidized e-bikes and more transit. Removing barriers to walking and biking were highlighted.
“We’re hearing more and more from residents that they want safe ways to get around the community without needing to take a car,” Struss said.
St. Paul has made changes to create denser neighborhoods, including removing parking minimums for new development and letting up-to-four-unit complexes be built in single-family neighborhoods. The biggest challenge continues to be the spread-out nature of the region, which forces people to drive to suburban jobs and big-box merchants.
“The fundamental nature of those trips is hard to serve with anything but driving in the car,” said Russ Stark, St. Paul’s chief resilience officer.
Minneapolis has focused less on vehicle miles and more on “mode shift,” or decreasing trips, said the city’s Public Works Director Tim Sexton. The goal is to replace three of five trips by car with walking, biking, or other modes. A city transportation action plan features more than 100 strategies, including creating around 60 mobility hubs where residents can rent e-bikes, scooters or electric vehicles, or take transit.
Patrick Hanlon, the city’s deputy commissioner of sustainability, healthy homes and the environment, pointed out that Minneapolis has one of the country’s best-developed bike networks, which continues to grow. The city’s comprehensive plan drew national attention for removing barriers preventing denser development, which typically leads to fewer transportation emissions. Several transportation corridors now feature bus rapid transit lines.
What Finis described as a “patchwork” of conversations around developments like these are expected to become more comprehensive as the state law’s planning requirements take effect in the coming years.
The legislation has also made Minnesota a national inspiration for other states looking to make progressive changes to highway planning, Rockwell said.
“We know of a number of other states that are looking at trying to replicate parts of this (law), which is great,” he said. “We’ve been on the phone with folks from New York, Michigan, Illinois and Maryland who are trying to bring some pieces of this into their legislative sessions and their legal framework. That’s exciting.”
CLIMATE: Oil and gas corporations ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block lawsuits brought by Hawaii, California and other states seeking to hold the industry liable for billions of dollars of climate change-caused damage. (Los Angeles Times)
ALSO: An energy think tank calls on California regulators to reduce carbon cap-and-trade allowances, saying doing so would trigger deeper emissions cuts and help the state reach climate goals. (E&E News, subscription)
OIL & GAS: A peer-reviewed study finds industrial air pollution contributes to low birth weights in New Mexico, with the effects most pronounced in the San Juan and Permian Basin oil and gas fields. (news release)
UTILITIES:
COAL:
SOLAR:
GRID:
MICROGRIDS: A California university plans to install a solar-plus-battery microgrid expected to be able to power the campus for up to two days. (news release)
STORAGE:
TRANSPORTATION:
Activists pushing San Diego to take over the city’s investor-owned utility aren’t letting last year’s defeat of a similar effort in Maine deter their goal of establishing a nonprofit power company. They recently submitted petitions bearing more than 30,000 signatures from residents who want the City Council to let voters decide the matter this fall.
Advocates say a municipal takeover of San Diego Gas & Electric would deliver cheaper rates and a faster, more affordable, and more equitable transition to clean energy. Still, the measure faces long odds from skeptical council members who have twice rejected similar proposals.
The campaign is the first public power ballot initiative since 70 percent of voters in Maine rejected a proposal to take over the state’s two largest utilities. A group called Power San Diego delivered several cardboard boxes filled with petitions to the San Diego city registrar’s office on May 14. If just over 24,000 of the signatures on those documents are deemed valid, the Council will have to decide whether to put the question to voters in the next election.
What’s happening in Southern California reflects growing frustration with the high rates and lackluster service investor-owned utilities often provide — and a desire to accelerate the green transition. Similar campaigns are afoot in Rochester, New York and San Francisco, and Empire State lawmakers recently introduced a bill to buy out Central Hudson Gas & Electric and create a public power authority.
“Across the country, people are talking about public ownership of energy,” Sarahana Shrestha, a New York state assembly member who co-sponsored the bill, told Grist. “If we want a just transition — taking care of workers, and making sure that it’s affordable and brings benefits back into communities — there’s no effective way of doing that while you’re still answering to shareholders.”
San Diego residents pay some of the nation’s highest electricity rates, and by one estimate, more than a quarter of customers are behind on their payments. (The utility has attributed its high rates to the cost of everything from wildfire prevention to building transmission lines and other clean energy infrastructure.) Takeover advocates say the move would save residents 20 percent on their utility bills because a nonprofit model eliminates the need to provide shareholders with a return. It estimates the cost at $3.5 billion, citing a study commissioned by the city last year.
That analysis found that the utility’s 700,000 customers who live within the city of San Diego could save 13 to 14 percent annually if the city bought the utility’s grid assets for $2 billion and created a municipal utility. The math is less favorable if the cost of the buyout goes up, however; at a price of $6 billion, ratepayers could face additional costs of $60 million over the first decade but see long-term savings after 20 years.
San Diego Gas & Electric vehemently opposes the effort and has backed the political action committee Responsible Energy San Diego to block it. The organization calls itself “a coalition of diverse San Diego leaders” fighting “a reckless ballot initiative to force a government takeover of the energy grid.” The utility has contributed well over $700,000 to the committee, according to records on the San Diego Ethics Commission website.
That’s more than twice what Power San Diego has raised and reflects a dynamic in which political action committees supported by Maine’s two investor-owned utilities received 34 times more money than public power advocates. Activists there say that allowed the utilities to finance a robust campaign of advertising and misinformation to defeat the referendum.
San Diego Gas & Electric has hired Concentric Energy Advisors, the same consultants who helped defeat the effort in Maine. The company’s study commissioned by the San Diego utility estimated the cost of a public takeover of the grid at $9.3 billion.
Matt Awbrey of Responsible Energy San Diego told Grist the city should address other priorities like affordable housing rather than a proposal “to create a new government-run utility that has no plan, budget, or verifiable cost estimates.” He said the cost of the takeover likely would bring “higher taxes, higher electric bills, and/or cuts to essential city services we all depend on.”
Power San Diego intended to gather 80,000 signatures by July, which would have placed the proposal on November’s ballot. But it lacked the funding for such an effort and decided to seek 30,000 signatures, or roughly 3 percent of registered voters. That would require the City Council to vote on whether to put the matter to voters.
Dorrie Bruggeman, senior campaign coordinator for Power San Diego, doesn’t expect the council to do that; it already has rejected such a proposal on two occasions, with council members calling for greater detail on costs and projected revenues. Council President Sean Elo-Rivera is among those with reservations.
“I have no love for corporate monopolies reaching into the pockets of everyday working people,” he told the local news outlet La Jolla Light. “But this is a very complex and important issue and I don’t think this is baked enough to go to the voters.”
Regardless of any qualms the council may have, Bill Powers, chair of Power San Diego, said his organization has prompted an important discussion within the community and sparked voter engagement on the issue. The next step is getting policymakers behind the idea.
“If we can get a couple of council members that are open to public power, if we can get a mayor who is open to public power, which we’ve had in the past, then the movement isn’t dependent on the endpoint of a ballot initiative,” Powers said.
Such campaigns are gaining momentum elsewhere. Public power advocates in Rochester, New York, want the city to evaluate the costs and benefits of a municipal utility. In San Francisco, city officials are currently working with the California Public Utilities Commission to determine how to set a fair price for Pacific Gas & Electric’s distribution grid, in the hopes of creating a citywide public power system.
On May 17, New York Assemblymember Shrestha and State Senator Michelle Hinchey introduced a bill to create the Hudson Valley Power Authority, a public power entity that would buy out Central Hudson Gas & Electric. The utility has drawn criticism for its high rates and a string of billing failures since 2021. If the measure passes, the Hudson Valley Power Authority would seek to lower rates, improve service, and hasten the green transition while protecting labor rights.
Joe Jenkins, Central Hudson’s director of media relations, told Grist the proposed takeover would involve “significant hidden costs, loss of jobs, and loss of tax revenue for towns and schools,” adding that rates for municipal utilities in New York are nearly 9 percent more expensive than those of investor-owned utilities.
Shrestha said the legislation reflects her constituents’ growing interest in public power. Her office has hosted seven town halls this past year to discuss energy democracy. “People are so fed up with getting bills that are inconsistent and late,” she said. “People are really excited about learning how we can actually get public power done.”
OIL & GAS: Colorado advocates prepare to sue a Denver-area petroleum refinery, citing 9,205 air pollution violations over five years and accusing state and federal regulators of inadequate enforcement. (Colorado Sun)
ALSO:
NUCLEAR: California lawmakers reject Gov. Gavin Newsom’s bid to include another $400 million loan to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant operating as the state faces a budget deficit. (Modesto Bee)
CLIMATE: An Alaska wildlife refuge plans to step up firefighting against blazes that don’t threaten humans or property in an effort to keep carbon sequestered in the ground. (Anchorage Daily News)
CLEAN ENERGY:
SOLAR:
UTILITIES: A San Diego community power authority begins offering a more carbon intensive, less-expensive energy mix to compete with investor-owned utilities. (Voice of San Diego)
HYDROGEN: An Oregon utility partners with a startup to produce “turquoise” hydrogen fuel from methane and blend it into natural gas distribution lines. (KGW 8)
LITHIUM:
GEOTHERMAL: Colorado awards $312,000 to a community in the western part of the state for designing and constructing a geothermal heating and cooling network. (Sopris Sun)
COAL: A Wyoming county’s officials express frustration after only a handful of residents and no industry representatives attend their meeting to protest a Biden administration proposal to end federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin. (WyoFile)
POLITICS: U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, accuses the Biden administration of unfairly targeting red states with its fossil fuel policies, even though domestic oil and gas production is at all-time highs. (E&E News, subscription)
COMMENTARY: Hawaii energy analysts say severe weather and unexpected oil plant failures — not increasing reliance on renewable energy — led to the state’s recent power outages. (Honolulu Civil Beat)
If you’re not familiar with New England, two important things to know are A) electricity is expensive there and B) New Hampshire is a little different.
And while all of the states in the region have taken steps to reduce emissions, New Hampshire’s efforts have been more modest, in keeping with the state’s long-standing ethos of limited government.
Gov. Chris Sununu sought to capitalize on that distinction last week in a news release, which included the chart below, appearing to show dramatic rate increases in neighboring states with New Hampshire rates staying flat:
“While other states have let politics drive policy, New Hampshire has always put the ratepayer’s bottom line first,” the governor declared, “…and because of it, residential customers across New Hampshire have benefitted.”
Sununu’s administration made a similar claim in the state’s 2022 energy plan, blaming neighboring states for spiking electricity prices, which were mostly due to global natural gas shortages following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But back to that chart. What exactly does “cost increase compared to NH” mean? What is this chart actually measuring?
On Friday, Boston Globe reporters Steven Porter and Amanda Gokee took a closer look at Sununu’s math, and found it to be misleading in three critical ways:
It uses a weird calculation: The governor’s release takes the monetary amount of the rate increases for different states and then calculates the percentage differences between those numbers. That means even though New Hampshire’s rates have gone up 28% since 2017, it appears as zero in the chart, because the difference between a number and itself is 0%. And Rhode Island’s 63% increase becomes 127%. The differences are real, but the chart exaggerates them.
It cherry-picks the start and end points: The governor’s analysis compares January 2017 to February 2024, disregarding fluctuations in between. The 2022-23 gas shortage we mentioned a little bit ago? New Hampshire had the highest rates in the region for nearly six months during that time. For the most part, New Hampshire’s rates have been slightly below the regional average, according to EIA data cited by the Globe.
It leaves out an important state: Vermont, New Hampshire’s neighbor to the west, has had lower rates than New Hampshire for most of the period since 2017, despite relatively aggressive clean energy requirements. “If energy and climate goals were driving this trend, why is Vermont so affordable?” asked Sam Evans-Brown, director of Clean Energy New Hampshire, in the Globe article.
While it’s true that New Hampshire’s rates are lower than other states at the moment, the price spikes of 2022 suggest there is a more nuanced conversation to be had about the role of clean energy policy in shaping what customers pay.
“Comparing two points in time in this way just invites spurious conclusions,” Evans-Brown said.
🚗 EVs revving up again: Worrying headlines earlier this year didn’t tell the whole story: most electric vehicle makers have seen scorching sales growth, even as GM and Tesla struggle to find momentum. (Bloomberg)
🍳 Full of hot gas?: U.S. gas utilities are partnering with Habitat for Humanity affiliates to build “zero-net energy homes” with gas appliances in what critics call a “cynical PR stunt” to combat efforts to curb fossil fuel use. (The Guardian)
🌤️Solar pushback: Colorado counties temporarily ban utility-scale solar developments on private land following residents’ opposition, slowing the state’s energy transition. (Denver Post)
💲 The right rate at the right time: Minnesota consumer advocates say Xcel Energy’s proposed time-of-use pricing is too aggressive, with a pilot program proving to be expensive for customers without achieving a goal of reducing peak demand. (Star Tribune)
🌲 Clarifying climate claims: The Biden administration issues federal guidelines around the use of voluntary carbon offsets, as studies have undercut the credibility of such products to deliver their promised benefits. (New York Times)
🏗️ Cleaning up industry: The Biden administration is banking on “green steel” factories in Mississippi and Ohio that will run on clean hydrogen to provide a model to decarbonize one of the world’s dirtiest industries. (Canary Media)
POLICY: Vermont’s governor allows the Climate Superfund Act to become law without his signature, becoming the first state to pass a measure requiring major oil companies to pay for climate damages. (VT Digger)
ALSO: New York advocates continue to push legislators to pass the NY Heat Act before the end of their current legislative session. (News 10)
FOSSIL FUELS:
BUILDINGS: New York opens up the country’s first energy rebate program supported by $158 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds, providing up to $14,000 to low-to-moderate-income homeowners for energy efficient upgrades. (Spectrum News 1; Gothamist)
WIND:
HYDROGEN: In Pennsylvania, a gas company is pushing its allies in the governor’s office to help ensure it can tap into the most lucrative tier of hydrogen production federal tax credits. (Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
BATTERIES: Energy storage experts say Massachusetts’ battery storage sector will be able to mature to the point it no longer relies on state incentives, pointing out that an intermittent resources-heavy grid pairs well with the tech. (RTO Insider, subscription)
TRANSPORTATION: The Trucking Association of New York sues New York City’s transit agency, seeking to block the higher fees it says it will “unfairly and unconstitutionally” have to pay through the Manhattan traffic congestion tolling plan. (NBC New York)
SOLAR:
COMMENTARY: Two biofuel advocates point out outdated information used in a recent newspaper op-ed, saying the piece was “downplaying the merits of clean, commercially available biofuels” as a decarbonization strategy. (CT Mirror)
FOSSIL FUELS: The world already has enough planned fossil fuel projects in the pipeline to cover predicted energy demand through 2050, a study finds, suggesting countries should halt new permits. (Guardian)
ALSO: Democratic senators call on the U.S. Justice Department to “use every tool” it has to combat oil industry price fixing. (Associated Press)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
CLIMATE:
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NUCLEAR: Biden administration officials tout Georgia Power’s recent expansion of Plant Vogtle — long-delayed and far over-budget — as they pledge federal support for nuclear projects. (Georgia Recorder, E&E News)
WIND: Federal regulators decide to lease a 15.2-square-mile site in the Gulf of Maine to the state of Maine to form the first U.S. floating offshore wind research site in federal waters. (Mainebiz)
BUILDINGS: New York launches the country’s first energy rebate program supported by $158 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds, providing up to $14,000 to low-to-moderate-income homeowners for energy efficient upgrades. (Spectrum News 1; Gothamist)
GRID: Data centers are on track to consume 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030, though better efficiency measures and grid technology upgrades can help address the surge, a research group finds. (Utility Dive)
COAL ASH: The U.S. EPA’s rejection of Alabama’s coal ash plan raises questions in Georgia, where Georgia Power also plans to leave millions of tons of coal ash submerged in groundwater. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
SOLAR: California regulators side with utilities and adopt rules slashing compensation for community solar providers and subscribers, raising concerns for the program’s future viability. (CalMatters)
ALSO:
TRANSITION: New Mexico regulators approve a utility’s proposed solar-plus-storage projects, even though they lie outside the school district most in need of revenue after the 2022 San Juan coal plant closure. (NM Political Report)
GRID: California energy officials expect 18.5 gigawatts of battery energy storage capacity added to the grid in recent years to lower the risk of outages this summer, but warn unanticipated events could still knock out power. (Bloomberg)
UTILITIES:
CLIMATE: Washington conservative groups ramp up spending on a campaign to rescind the state’s new carbon cap-and-invest program. (Crosscut)
OIL & GAS:
COAL:
WIND: Federal regulators extend the public comment period on proposed offshore wind leasing and development along Oregon’s coast. (KOBI)
POLLUTION: A California court orders the Port of Los Angeles and a shipping company to implement pollution control measures, resolving a decades-long legal battle waged by residents and environmental justice advocates. (news release)
COMMENTARY: A California columnist calls state regulators’ decision to trim incentives for community solar “the latest stain” on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s climate record. (Los Angeles Times)
UTILITIES: U.S. gas utilities are partnering with Habitat for Humanity affiliates to build “zero-net energy homes” with gas appliances in what critics call a “cynical PR stunt” to combat efforts to curb fossil fuel use. (The Guardian)
INDUSTRY: The Biden administration is banking on “green steel” factories in Mississippi and Ohio that will run on clean hydrogen to provide a model to decarbonize one of the world’s dirtiest industries. (Canary Media)
OIL & GAS: The Department of Energy is closing a 1-million-barrel Northeast gasoline reserve established in 2014 in response to Superstorm Sandy, releasing the fuel into the market at a time when summer driving ramps up. (Reuters)
POLLUTION: A Government Accountability Office report finds natural gas peaker plants, which are more likely to be located near poor and minority communities, emit more pollution than conventional power plants. (E&E News, subscription)
CO2 CAPTURE:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
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EFFICIENCY: Ohio regulators last week rejected most of an energy efficiency proposal by FirstEnergy, but said in their ruling that the state’s infamous 2019 utility law doesn’t necessarily prohibit such programs. (Energy News Network)
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OIL & GAS: Advocates say a loophole in New Mexico’s methane emission rules allows oil and gas companies to vent record-high volumes of the potent greenhouse gas, endangering the state’s climate goals. (Capital & Main)
ALSO: Alaska lawmakers advance legislation that would reduce state oil and gas royalties in hopes of spurring production and avoiding a looming natural gas shortage. (Alaska Beacon)
CARBON CAPTURE: A California oil-reliant community looks to spur economic development by building a carbon capture and sequestration industry utilizing depleted oil fields. (High Country News)
UTILITIES:
CLIMATE:
MICROGRIDS: Pacific Gas & Electric plans to build six remote microgrids in wildfire prone parts of northern California. (Microgrid Knowledge)
SOLAR: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis slams the Biden administration’s plan to increase tariffs on China-made solar panels, lithium ion batteries and other goods, saying it will hurt consumers and clean energy development. (Colorado Newsline)
CLEAN ENERGY: New Mexico awards seven companies $3.4 million to fund clean energy research and development. (news release)
MINING: An Indigenous advocacy group petitions the U.S. Supreme Court to block a proposed copper mine in Arizona that would destroy a site considered sacred by tribal nations. (Arizona Republic)
TRANSMISSION: Developers propose a 137-mile high-voltage transmission line to carry solar, wind and geothermal power from Arizona to southern California. (Coast News)
COAL: Wyoming lawmakers consider slashing coal severance taxes to help the beleaguered industry even though studies have shown such incentives don’t affect employment or production. (WyoFile)
TRANSPORTATION:
COMMENTARY: A California columnist urges state lawmakers to reform a property tax law to make it easier to site utility-scale solar installations on non-productive farmland. (Los Angeles Times)
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