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CLIMATE: Washington state allocates $52 million from its carbon cap-and-invest program to help relocate Indigenous communities threatened by climate change and rising sea levels. (Associated Press)
ALSO:
SOLAR: A developer secures $1 billion in financing for its proposed 400 MW solar-plus-battery storage facility in eastern Utah. (Solar Industry)
OIL & GAS:
UTILITIES: NorthWestern Energy plans to begin operations at a contested natural gas plant along the Yellowstone River in Montana this month, even as courts continue to consider legal challenges. (Billings Gazette)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: California officials say it is unlikely the state can meet its target of 1 million public electric vehicle chargers by the end of 2030 without substantial public and private investment, streamlined permitting and power grid upgrades. (CalMatters)
COAL: Wyoming’s congressional delegation calls on the Biden administration to abandon a proposal to end new federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, saying it would harm the state’s economy and grid reliability nationwide. (E&E News, subscription)
PUBLIC LANDS: Western oil and gas and mining groups file a lawsuit seeking to block the federal Bureau of Land Management’s new conservation-oriented public lands rule, saying it violates federal law. (E&E News, subscription)
GRID:
WIND: California regulators greenlight an offshore wind developer to conduct site surveys in Morro Bay on the state’s central coast. (Environment + Energy Leader)
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: A natural gas-fired backup power plant for a New Jersey wastewater facility will move forward in a mostly BIPOC Newark community already burdened by pollution, but with strict controls on pollution and a requirement for a solar and storage system. (Associated Press)
ALSO: While a state official says the restrictions will “improve baseline conditions,” advocates remain skeptical and contrast the decision with the recent rejection of a NJ Transit gas plant opposed by primarily White residents. (NJ Spotlight)
WIND:
NUCLEAR: Massachusetts regulators deny a request from the company decommissioning the Pilgrim nuclear plant to dump treated wastewater into Cape Cod Bay. (WBUR)
NATURAL GAS: While acknowledging it’s likely a “freak incident,” officials in a Vermont town are rattled after a truck hauling natural gas catches fire, roughly a year after a similar incident in the same location. (WCAX)
BIOENERGY: As New York dairy farmers increasingly adopt biodigesters to turn farm waste into energy, environmental advocates warn the technology could have unintended consequences. (WSKG)
SOLAR:
BUILDINGS:
COMMENTARY:
On June 7, 2023, exactly 2,206 large trucks and buses passed through the intersection of Kedzie Avenue and 31st Street in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood.
That’s an average of 1.5 heavy-duty vehicles per minute — much more in the morning and afternoon — rumbling through this crossroads in a dense, residential neighborhood near multiple parks and schools.
The numbers are the results of a groundbreaking truck counting program carried out by the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, which is using the information to bolster its demands for electric trucks and an end to development that burdens communities of color with diesel pollution.
The Chicago Truck Data Project, carried out by LVEJO along with the Center for Neighborhood Technology and Fish Transportation Group, used cameras and software to systematically measure the number and types of vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians for 24-hour periods at 35 intersections around the city. The project website launched this spring, and organizers hope to continue compiling, analyzing and modeling truck counts, as well as helping allies carry out similar work in other cities.
“This is the power of community science,” said José Miguel Acosta Córdova, LVEJO transportation justice program manager. “We’ve had to collect this data, when this is data the city should have been doing.”
The highest concentration of truck traffic was just south of Little Village in the Archer Heights neighborhood, where 5,159 trucks and buses passed in a day. A few miles east in the heavily residential McKinley Park neighborhood, in a single day over 4,000 trucks and buses passed, along with more than 800 pedestrians.
“It paints a picture of pedestrian proximity to truck traffic, which is an air pollution concern, and a safety concern,” said Paulina Vaca, urban resilience advocate with the Center for Neighborhood Technology.
In years past, LVEJO members had conducted grassroots manual truck counts — standing on corners to log the frequency of pollution-spewing traffic.
“Unfortunately we weren’t taken seriously by the Department of Planning,” said Vaca. “With [the Chicago Truck Data Project] we wanted to be more systematic with the research. This is hard evidence, hard proof. We wanted community advocates to be able to wield these numbers for organizing efforts, tying them to state-level policies.”
Electrifying trucks is a primary way to reduce truck emissions, protecting public health while reducing carbon emissions, especially as increasing amounts of electricity come from renewables.
LVEJO and other groups have for years been calling on Illinois to adopt California’s standards on clean trucks and zero-emissions vehicles. Only 11 states — none of them in the Midwest — have adopted California’s Advanced Clean Trucks standard, according to analysis by the Alternative Fuels Data Center. The standard requires manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emissions trucks through 2035, and includes reporting requirements for large fleets. Seventeen states plus the District of Columbia have adopted California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle standards, which create similar requirements for cars and light trucks. Minnesota is the only Midwestern state to adopt those standards.
A 2022 study by the American Lung Association estimates that if truck fleets electrify by 2050, the cumulative benefits could include $735 billion in public health benefits, 66,800 fewer deaths, 1.75 million fewer asthma attacks and 8.5 million fewer lost workdays. The Chicago area would be among the top 10 metro areas — and the only Midwestern one — that would see the most health benefits from truck electrification, the report found.
The U.S. EPA reports that heavy duty trucks contribute more than 25% of greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector nationwide, though they make up only about 5% of traffic nationally. While greenhouse gases don’t have localized health impacts, such emissions from diesel vehicles come in tandem with particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and other compounds that hurt nearby residents most.
In Illinois, trucks are responsible for 67% of nitrogen oxide pollution, 59% of fine particulate pollution, and 36% of the greenhouse gas emissions from on-road vehicles despite making up only 7% of those vehicles, according to a 2022 study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Cleaning up truck emissions has long been a focus of advocates and policymakers, but progress has been slow.
An August 2021 executive order from President Joe Biden said that, “America must lead the world on clean and efficient cars and trucks,” and called for a rulemaking process for heavy-duty trucks under the Clean Air Act.
In December 2022 the EPA released a new rule regarding nitrogen oxides and other emissions from heavy-duty trucks starting with model year 2027, but environmental justice advocates blasted the rule as not protective enough.
In April 2023, the EPA launched a rulemaking to strengthen curbs on greenhouse gas emissions for heavy-duty trucks manufactured between 2027 and 2032. That led to a final “phase 3” rule governing truck greenhouse gas emissions, published in April 2024 and taking effect June 21.
The final phase 3 rule is billed by the EPA as more protective than the previous rule, but includes a slower phase-in of standards than an earlier phase 3 proposal backed by environmental justice advocates.
Union of Concerned Scientists senior vehicles analyst Dave Cooke wrote in a recent blog post that the phase 3 regulations mean up to 623,000 new electric trucks might hit the road between 2027 and 2032, “with zero-emission trucks making up over one third of all new truck sales by 2032.”
“But that number is highly dependent on manufacturer compliance strategy and complementary policies,” Cooke continued, “and the path to a zero-emission freight sector remains uncertain.”
Cooke fears that electric heavy-duty trucks will be sold primarily in states that have adopted California’s Advanced Clean Trucks rule, leaving fewer available for other states.
“The rule risks having communities of haves (in ACT states) and have-nots (in the remainder of the country),” wrote Cooke, “precisely the sort of situation a federal rule is supposed to ward against.”
Reducing heavy-duty truck emissions has long been a focus for Clean Air for the Long Haul, a national coalition of environmental justice groups including the Wisconsin Green Muslims, South Bronx Unite, the Green Door Initiative in Detroit, WE-ACT for Environmental Justice and the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.
Wisconsin Green Muslims has organized several in-person and virtual events for community members to talk with state and local officials about truck emissions.
Huda Alkaff, co-founder of the organization, noted that their office is on Fond du Lac Avenue, a major thoroughfare plied by truck traffic. Alkaff described the fight for clean air in a blog during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, writing that people can fast from food and even water for limited times but cannot abstain from breathing air.
Alkaff said local leaders would like to do mobile air monitoring and truck counting, similar to LVEJO.
“Learning from each other, that’s our power,” she said.
In Milwaukee residential areas bisected by highway-type roads like Fond du Lac and Capitol Drive, meanwhile, air pollution is compounded by the safety risks posed by trucks.
“Let’s look at the routes, let’s look at the timing, the types of things that might be able to happen with minimum disruption,” she said.
She noted that residents don’t want to endanger the livelihood of truckers who can’t afford to invest in new equipment. But she’s hopeful the transition can be facilitated by federal funding, like recently announced EPA grants of $932 million for clean heavy-duty vehicles for government agencies, tribes and school districts.
In Detroit, construction of a new international bridge to Canada is expected to increase the heavy diesel burden on local residents already affected by trucks crossing the international Ambassador Bridge, as well as heavy industry.
“We have a huge issue with maternal health outcomes because Black moms are living near freeways and mobile sources [of pollution],” said Donele Wilkins, CEO of the Green Door Initiative and a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. “Birth outcomes are huge issues, asthma, issues with heart disease are elevated in ways they should not be because of exposure to mobile sources.”
The under-construction Gordie Howe International Bridge is aimed specifically at commercial truck traffic, and unlike the Ambassador, it will allow hazardous materials. The new bridge culminates in the Delray neighborhood, a heavily industrial enclave that has a much higher Latino population — 77% — than the city as a whole.
In Detroit, Chicago and other cities, warehouses are a major and growing source of diesel emissions from trucks. A 2023 investigation involving manual truck counts by Bridge Detroit and Outlier Media found that one truck per minute passes homes near an auto warehouse on Detroit’s East Side.
An Environmental Defense Fund study found that in Illinois, 1.9 million people live within half a mile of a warehouse, and Latino people make up 33% of such warehouse neighbors, while they make up only 17% of the total state population. Black people are also disproportionately represented among warehouse neighbors, while white people are underrepresented.
Little Village gained national attention with the closure of a coal plant in 2012, and city officials worked with community members on a stakeholder process to envision alternate uses for the site. Residents envisioned a community commercial kitchen, indoor sustainable agriculture and renewable energy-related light manufacturing as possible new identities.
Many were furious when the site became a Target warehouse, a magnet for truck traffic. LVEJO is now working with elected officials on drafting city and state legislation that would regulate and limit new warehouse development, even as new warehouses are proposed in the area, including a controversial 15-acre plan on Little Village’s northern border.
LVEJO’s Acosta notes that environmental justice is “not only about electrification but land-use reform.”
“The reason why all these facilities are concentrated where they are is because of zoning, historically racist practices,” said Acosta, who is pursuing a doctorate in geography and GIS mapping at the University of Illinois. “We want to completely reform the way we do land-use planning and industrial planning, not forcing our communities to coexist with trucks every day. It’s also thinking about pedestrian and bicyclist access and safety, mobility justice.”
COAL: A former Pennsylvania coal community says the federal government has forgotten about them as they struggle to replace lost jobs and tax income, highlighting President Biden’s need to convince similar communities that they won’t be left behind in a clean energy transition. (Washington Post)
SOLAR:
GRID:
TRANSIT: New York’s governor dodges questions about replacement funding for New York City’s transit agency in light of her indefinite delay of Manhattan’s congestion tolls; a reporter is booted from her event after asking about her plan. (New York Focus)
POLICY: Easthampton, Massachusetts, releases a draft climate action plan that includes electrifying buildings and increasing low-emissions transit options. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)
WORKFORCE: As Massachusetts looks to achieve climate goals that will require over 30,000 new workers, five high schools use state grants to create renewable energy career pathway programs in the renewable energy field. (WBUR)
GAS: A fuel provider opens a renewable natural gas station in Carney’s Point, New Jersey, to fuel up heavy-duty trucks and vehicles traveling between Philadelphia, Delaware and the New Jersey Turnpike. (news release)
COMMENTARY: Maryland’s public advocate writes that ratepayers in the state are left paying higher rates because of three Exelon utilities’ “aggressive and highly profitable capital spending.’ (Baltimore Sun)
Editor’s note: Maryland’s Montgomery County is using an automated permitting system to hasten rooftop solar installations. An item in yesterday’s digest misstated the location.
GRID: Two utilities argue that allowing the colocation of an Amazon data center at Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna nuclear plant as the current deal is written would allow the tech company to shift up to $140 million in transmission costs to ratepayers. (Utility Dive)
ALSO:
TRANSIT: The board of New York City’s transit agency votes to confirm the governor’s widely contested request to indefinitely delay the start of the Manhattan traffic congestion tolls, stopping over $16 billion in system upgrades and maintenance. (NBC New York, Gothamist)
WIND:
SOLAR:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: New York City’s public housing authority explains its new rules for lithium-ion battery use in their units and the consequences of breaking them, months after setting them. (City Limits)
UTILITIES: New Hampshire’s public advocate wants the state utility commission to investigate an electricity co-op over concerns with its power purchase practices and allegations its board is struggling with sexism and bullying. (In-Depth NH)
GAS: Maryland’s public advocate says the utilities in the state are spending, on average, over $700 million a year on gas infrastructure, a practice that is making it harder for the state to hit its climate goals and reduce costs for low-income households. (Inside Climate News)
EMISSIONS:
GRID:
TECH: In Maryland, Johns Hopkins University plans to significantly expand its renewable energy technology lab using a state grant, focusing on carbon management, energy storage, grid optimization and wind power. (news release)
SOLAR:
GEOTHERMAL: A Salem, Massachusetts, church signs with a renewable energy company to study the feasibility of generating geothermal energy. (Salem News)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: New electric vehicle registration fees will soon come into effect in Vermont, helping replace revenue from gasoline taxes. (NBC 5)
EFFICIENCY: Federal agriculture officials send over $1.26 million to 17 small Vermont and New Hampshire businesses through its rural energy clean energy grant program. (news release)
HEAT: In Washington, D.C., a lower-income neighborhood with many children and elderly folks struggles to deal with the heat island effect, magnified in their community because of a lack of trees and many impervious surfaces. (Washington Post)
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with High Country News.
When Yakama Nation leaders learned in 2017 of a plan to tunnel through some of their ancestral land for a green energy development, they were caught off guard.
While the tribal nation had come out in favor of climate-friendly projects, this one appeared poised to damage Pushpum, a privately owned ridgeline overlooking the Columbia River in Washington. The nation holds treaty rights to gather traditional foods there, and tribal officials knew they had to stop the project.
Problems arose when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency in charge of permitting hydro energy projects, offered the Yakama Nation what tribal leaders considered an impossible choice: disclose confidential ceremonial, archaeological and cultural knowledge, or waive the right to consult on whether and how the site is developed.
This put the Yakama Nation in a bind. Disclosing exactly what made the land sacred risked revealing to outsiders what they treasured most about it. In the past, disclosure of information about everything from food to archaeological sites enabled non-Natives to loot or otherwise desecrate the land.
Even now, tribal leaders struggle to safely express what the Pushpum project threatens. “I don’t know how in-depth I can go,” said Elaine Harvey, a tribal member and former environmental coordinator for the tribal fisheries department, when asked about the foods and medicines that grow on the land.
“It provides for us,” echoed Yakama Nation Councilmember Jeremy Takala. “Sometimes we do get really protective.”
Although government agencies have sometimes taken significant steps to protect tribal confidentiality, that didn’t happen with the Pushpum proposal, known as the Goldendale Energy Storage Project. Tribal leaders repeatedly objected, telling the agency that if a tribal nation deems a place sacred, they shouldn’t have to break confidentiality to prove it — a position supported by state agency leaders and, new reporting shows, at least one other federal agency.
Nonetheless, after seven years, in February FERC moved the project forward without consulting with the Yakama Nation.
The process known as consultation is often fraught. Federal laws and agency rules require that tribes be able to weigh in on decisions that affect their treaty lands. But in practice, consultation procedures sometimes force tribes to reveal information that makes them more vulnerable, without offering any guaranteed benefit.
The risks of disclosure are not hypothetical: Looting and vandalism are common when information about Indigenous resources becomes public. One important mid-Columbia petroglyph, called Tsagaglalal, or She Who Watches, had to be removed from its original site because of vandalism. And recreational and commercial pickers have flooded one of Washington’s best huckleberry picking areas, called Indian Heaven Wilderness, pushing out Native families trying to stock up for the winter.
The Yakama Nation feared similar outcomes if it fully participated in FERC’s consultation process over the Goldendale development. But there are alternatives. The United Nations recognizes Indigenous peoples’ right to affirmatively consent to development on their sacred lands. A similar model was included in state legislation in Washington three years ago, but Gov. Jay Inslee vetoed it.
The requirements of the consultation process are poorly defined, and state and federal agencies interpret them in a broad range of ways. In the case of Pushpum, critics say that has allowed FERC to overlook tribal concerns.
“They’re just being totally disregarded,” said Simone Anter, an attorney at the environmental nonprofit Columbia Riverkeeper and a descendant of the Pascua Yaqui and Jicarilla Apache nations. “What FERC is doing is so blatantly, blatantly wrong.”
The Yakama Nation has been outspoken in its support for renewable energy development, including solar and small-scale hydro projects. But not at Pushpum; it’s sacred to the Kah-milt-pah people, one of the bands within the Yakama Nation, who still regularly use the site.
The proposal would transform this area into a facility intended to store renewable energy in a low-carbon way. Rye Development, a Florida-based company, submitted an application for permits for a “pumped hydro” system, where a pair of reservoirs connected by a tunnel store energy for future use.
FERC has offered few accommodations for the Yakama Nation on the Goldendale project.
FERC spokesperson Celeste Miller told High Country News and ProPublica in an email that “we will work to address the effects of proposed projects on Tribal rights and resources to the greatest extent we can, consistent with federal law and regulations. This is a pending matter before the Commission, so we cannot discuss the merits of this proceeding.”
“FERC legally doesn’t have to do very much here,” said Kevin Washburn, a dean of the University of Iowa College of Law, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and a former assistant secretary of Indian affairs at the Department of the Interior. “Consultation is designed to open the door so tribes can get in the door to talk to decision-makers.” According to experts, the process can range from collaborative planning that addresses tribal concerns to a perfunctory discussion with minimal impacts, depending on the agency.
“This is the problem with consultation and its lack of teeth,” said Anter. “If the federal government is saying, ‘Hey, we consulted, check that box,’ who’s to say they didn’t?”
There’s another problem with consultation, too: Any discussions with a federal entity are subject to public disclosure. That’s good for government transparency, Washburn said, but it can make tribal nations even more vulnerable. “And it’s why tribes are right to be cautious in what they share with feds,” he said.
That’s an obstacle at Pushpum. Things became even harder there in August 2021, when FERC notified the Yakama Nation that federal consultation would be carried out not by the agency itself, but by the developer. The Yakama Nation pushed back, asserting its treaty rights to negotiate as a sovereign nation only with another nation, not with a private entity. FERC, however, insisted that designating a third party was “standard practice.” The National Historic Preservation Act, signed into law in 1966, says an agency “may authorize an applicant or group of applicants to initiate consultation,” but maintains that the federal agency is still “responsible for their government to government relationships with Indian tribes.”
The Yakama Nation also worried about commission rules that require anything the tribal nation says to FERC be shared with the developer. “It gets very sensitive when we share those kinds of stories,” said Takala, the tribal councilmember. “We just don’t share to anyone, especially a developer.”
Some say FERC could change that internal rule, since it isn’t required by law. “For them to cite their own regulations and be like, ‘Our hands are tied,’ is ridiculous,” Anter said. For months, FERC and the Yakama Nation went back and forth over the conditions under which the tribal government would share sensitive information, with the Yakama Nation repeatedly asking to share information only with FERC.
Ultimately, FERC proposed four ways the Yakama Nation could participate in consultation. In the eyes of tribal leaders, all these options either posed significant risks to the privacy of their information or rendered consultation meaningless.
The first three were laid out in a letter from Vince Yearick, director of FERC’s division of hydropower licensing, sent on Dec. 9, 2021. For option one, it suggested the tribal nation request nondisclosure agreements from anyone accessing sensitive information. Yearick did not specify whether FERC would be responsible for issuing or enforcing these NDAs.
Delano Saluskin, then-chair of the Yakama Nation, called this option “far from the requirements of NHPA or in line with the trust responsibility that the Federal Agency has to Yakama Nation,” citing FERC policies and National Historic Preservation Act law in a February 2022 letter to state and federal government officials requesting support. He added that it “describes a process that does not protect information that is sacred and sensitive from disclosure.”
Alternatively, FERC said, the Yakama Nation could simply redact any sensitive information from documents it filed. This option, however, would leave FERC in the dark about the details of what cultural resources the project would imperil. That would make it harder for FERC to require project adjustments or weigh the specific impacts in its decision about whether to permit construction.
Third, the Yakama Nation could withhold sensitive information altogether, which would present similar problems.
Lastly, in a June 2022 follow-up letter, the commission suggested that the Yakama Nation submit a document “with more details regarding the resources of concern” and a request that some of the information be treated as privileged or withheld from public disclosure.
Overall, Saluskin described FERC’s options as a “failure” to conduct legal consultation in good faith.
A federal agency similarly raised concerns: In May 2023, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which advises the president and the Congress on protecting historic properties across the country, wrote to FERC suggesting that it “provide the Tribes with opportunities to share information that will be kept confidential.” FERC’s rule regarding disclosure, the council said, could insulate the agency from meaningful consultation, “and as a result from any real understanding of the nature and significance of properties of religious and cultural significance for Tribes.”
The concerns over FERC’s engagement with the Yakama Nation are part of a wider discussion of whether and how the U.S. government should protect tribal privacy and cultural resources. Speaking at a tribal energy summit in Tacoma in June 2023, Allyson Brooks, Washington’s state historic preservation officer, said that even though the consent language was vetoed by the governor, state law for protecting confidentiality around tribal cultural properties is still stronger than federal law, which only protects confidentiality if a site is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
In Washington, if a tribal historic preservation officer says, “‘X marks the spot; this is sacred,’ we say, ‘OK,’” Brooks declared. She said asking tribal nations to prove a site’s sacredness is like asking to see a photo of baby Jesus before accepting the sanctity of Christmas. “You don’t. You say ‘nice tree’ and take it at face value. When tribes say ‘X is sacred,’ you should take that at face value too.”
That approach is vital to the Yakama Nation, which recently saw a developer involved with a project proposed in nearby Benton County leak information that the nation believed was private.
The Horse Heaven Hills wind farm would be the biggest energy development of any kind in Washington state history. But the sprawling 72,000-acre project overlaps with nesting habitat for migratory ferruginous hawks, a raptor state-listed as endangered.
Court documents related to the permitting proceedings show that the Yakama Nation believed it had identified the locations of the ferruginous hawks’ nests as confidential, in part because the hawks are ceremonially important. In May 2023, the Yakama Nation requested a protective order from the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, a state-level analog of FERC. The order, which the council issued, instructed all parties to sign a confidentiality agreement before accessing confidential information, similar to the nondisclosure agreements FERC proposed. If any party disclosed that information, they could be liable for damages.
But the order didn’t stop that information from getting out. In February 2024, the Seattle Times published a story on the Horse Heaven Hills wind farm, which included a map of ferruginous hawk nests — a map that was credited to Scout Clean Energy, the developer.
The Yakama Nation quickly filed a motion to enforce the protective order, alleging that Scout Clean Energy had transgressed by passing protected cultural information to the press.
The developer counter-filed, claiming that even if nest locations were a part of confidentiality discussion, the map itself was not, and that it was so imprecise that the critical details remained confidential. The council ultimately agreed.
Despite the risks, Washburn said that tribes should take any opportunity to share their stories with federal officials, even if the conditions aren’t perfect. “I wouldn’t necessarily encourage tribes to give their deepest, darkest secrets to a federal agency,” he said. “But I would encourage them to meet with FERC and try to give FERC a first-person account of why they think this is important.”
Not all experts agree. Brett Lee Shelton, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and an attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, said FERC is out of step with other federal and state agencies. “It’s hard to believe that it’s anything but disingenuous, using that tactic,” he said. “It’s pretty well known by any agency officials who deal with Indian tribes that sometimes certain specifics about sacred places need to remain confidential.”
And for Bronsco Jim, a spiritual leader of the Kah-milt-pah people, sharing too many details is out of the question. Cultural specifics stay within the oral teachings of the longhouse, the site of the Kah-milt-pah spiritual community. Jim said he doesn’t even know how to translate all of the information into English. “We don’t write it, you won’t see it posted. You won’t see it in books. It’s our oral history. It’s sacred.”
OIL & GAS: A federal judge orders BNSF Railway to pay nearly $400 million to the Swinomish Tribe for violating an easement agreement by repeatedly running 100-car oil trains across its land in Washington state. (Associated Press)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
TRANSPORTATION: Colorado regulators find a Denver-area transit agency failed to address escalating light rail maintenance problems that have slowed trains and stymied service. (CPR)
CLEAN ENERGY:
SOLAR:
ELECTRIFICATION: A California startup develops software aimed at helping people cost-effectively pair home electrification and rooftop solar. (Canary Media)
UTILITIES:
CLIMATE: Conservation groups call on the Biden administration to define extreme heat and wildfire smoke as major disasters and unlock relief funding for affected local governments. (Los Angeles Times)
NUCLEAR: Federal regulators seek public input on a Bill Gates-backed plan to build an advanced nuclear reactor in a Wyoming coal community. (WyoFile)
MINING: State and federal regulators approve a uranium mining firm’s proposed exploratory drilling project in western Colorado. (Resource World)
Massachusetts environmental justice advocates say the $5 billion statewide energy efficiency plan that could take effect next year needs to do even more to reach low-income residents, renters, and other populations who have traditionally received fewer benefits.
The plan, which will guide efficiency programming from 2025 through 2027, outlines wide-ranging initiatives that would support weatherization and heat pumps for homes and small businesses, improve the customer experience with more timely rebate processing and increased multilingual support, and expand the energy efficiency workforce. The proposed plan calls out equity as a major priority.
“There have certainly been some changes in this latest draft we’re pleased to see, but there is definitely a lot more that needs to be done, especially in the realms of equity and affordability and justice,” said Priya Gandbhir, senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation. “The good news is we’re still working on this, so there’s some time for improvement.”
Massachusetts has long been considered a leader in energy efficiency, ranking at or near the top of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s annual State Energy Efficiency Scorecard for more than 10 years. The core of the state’s efficiency efforts is Mass Save, a partnership between gas and electric utilities, created in 2008, that provides education, energy audits, rebates on efficient appliances, low and no-cost weatherization services, and financing for efficiency projects.
Mass Save programming is guided by the three-year energy efficiency plans put forth by the major utilities in collaboration with the state Energy Efficiency Advisory Council, and approved by state public utilities regulators. Over the past several years, legislation has required that Mass Save prioritize reducing greenhouse gas emissions, rather than focusing only on using less energy.
“Mass Save needs to be a tool not just for energy efficiency but also for decarbonization,” said Hessann Farooqi, executive director of the Boston Climate Action Network.
In recent years, there has also been an effort to ensure the benefits of Mass Save programs are distributed equitably. A 2020 study by the utilities found that communities with lower incomes, higher proportions of residents of color, and more renters were far less likely to have used Mass Save services.
Following this report, the three-year plan covering 2022 to 2024 included several provisions intended to address these disparities, including a 50% higher budget for income-eligible services, financial incentives for utilities to serve lower-income households, and grants to community organizations that can help connect residents to information about Mass Save benefits.
The plan’s focus on equity was hailed by advocates.
“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in production and service and savings because of the increased budget,” said Brian Beote, an Energy Efficiency Advisory Council member and director of energy efficiency operations for housing security nonprofit Action Inc. “We’ve been able to bring on more contractors and serve more households.”
This latest plan continues the focus on equity for underserved populations in several ways. The draft plan increases the budget for services to income-eligible households, defined as those with incomes below 80% of the area median, from roughly $600 million to nearly $1 billion, the highest number ever proposed.
The draft plan also attempts to simplify the process of obtaining benefits for residents in areas that have been marginalized in the past. The plan identifies 21 “equity communities” – municipalities in which more than 35% of residents are renters and more than half of households qualify as low or moderate income. Residents in these communities would be eligible for no-cost weatherization and electrification, often without income verification, and rental properties would be able to receive low-cost weatherization and electrification services.
This approach might mean higher-income customers receive no-cost services they might otherwise have had to pay for, but supporters say the likely benefits outweigh this possibility.
“On balance, we’re going to get more of those low- to moderate-income customers and that is really a key goal,” Farooqi said.
In addition, the proposed plan would expand the Community First Partnership program, which provides funding to nonprofits and municipalities to target outreach and education about Mass Save’s offerings, using their knowledge of their communities and populations.
Still, the plan misses several opportunities to make even greater strides toward equity, advocates said. At the heart of their argument are funding levels: The budget for low- and moderate-income services is about 19% of the total budget, even as nearly half of the state’s households fall into that category.
“We just need to be making sure that we are distributing the benefits of this program proportionally to where people are actually at in the population,” Farooqi said.
The plan’s targets for heat pump installations are another point of contention. The plan calls for installing 115,000 heat pumps during the plan period, with 16,000 of these going to low- and moderate-income households. This target is not nearly high enough, advocates said.
“That’s a major failure,” said Mary Wambui-Ekop, an energy justice activist and co-chair of the Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee’s equity working group. “They definitely need to increase that target to 30,000, and even that is really low.”
Switching from gas heating to heat pumps at current high electricity rates could increase costs for customers, so it is also important that the push to electrify heating for lower-income residents focus on households currently using higher-emissions, higher-cost fuels like heating oil or propane, Wambui-Ekop said.
In Massachusetts, some 800,000 households use heating oil and propane; more than 151,000 of these households fall within the plan’s designated equity communities.
“If they switch to heat pumps, they will see their energy bills go down, their energy burdens will go down, they will have good indoor air quality, and the commonwealth will benefit because of the greenhouse gas reductions,” Wambui-Ekop said.
Advocates are also waiting to see the details for the plans to expand the Community First Partnership program. At current levels, the funding can pay a part-time energy staffer at a modest rate, which can make it difficult to find and keep qualified employees, said Susan Olshuff, a town liaison with Ener-G-Save, a Community First Partner organization in western Massachusetts. She’s gone through six different staffers since the program began and is anxiously waiting to see the final funding that comes out of the new plan.
“I like to think it will be enough,” she said, “but I am nervous to see what numbers they come down on.”
The final plan will be submitted to the state in October. Public utilities regulators will then be able to approve the plan as a whole, or to suggest modifications. Advocates are hoping to see an even more equitable plan filed and approved.
“The people who can afford to do it will do it on their own,” Gandbhir said. “We need to make sure that people who are renting or who aren’t able to afford the upfront costs are provided with the assistance that’s needed.”
OIL & GAS: A New Mexico court rejects an industry request to toss out an environmentalists’ lawsuit accusing the state of failing to meet its constitutional obligation to protect citizens from oil and gas pollution. (Associated Press)
ALSO: Environmentalists sue to block federal Bureau of Land Management oil and gas drilling permit approvals in and around an eastern Colorado national grassland, saying the agency didn’t adequately consider impacts. (news release)
CLIMATE:
GRID: Amazon scraps a plan to power its eastern Oregon data centers with natural gas-powered fuel cells after advocates protest its reliance on methane. (Oregonian)
NUCLEAR: Bill Gates attends his company’s liquid sodium testing facility groundbreaking ceremony at the site of an advanced nuclear reactor planned for a Wyoming coal community. (WyoFile)
OVERSIGHT: Arizona advocates push back on a company’s bid to exempt its proposed 200 MW natural gas plant expansion from environmental review, saying it would undermine regulators’ oversight. (KJZZ)
UTILITIES: San Diego’s city council votes to reject a bid that would allow voters to decide whether to replace SDG&E with a municipal utility. (KUSI)
SOLAR:
SYNTHETIC FUELS: A Nevada startup working to convert solid landfill waste into synthetic petroleum lays off most of its staff and shutters its Reno facility following permitting and operational setbacks. (Chemical & Engineering News)
HYDROGEN: An Oregon startup says it has successfully produced green hydrogen using power from a wind turbine mounted on a ship. (Power)
COAL: Utah energy experts predict lawmakers’ push to block federal regulations and keep coal plants running may hamper energy innovation and ultimately lead to more expensive, dirtier and less reliable power generation. (Utah News Dispatch)
MINING: Nevada environmental and Indigenous advocates slam the federal Bureau of Land Management’s review of the proposed Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron mine, saying it imperils endangered species and fails to include a groundwater mitigation plan. (Nevada Current)
METHANE: Washington state implements rules aimed at reducing solid waste landfills’ methane emissions by requiring them to monitor and repair leaks and install equipment to capture the potent greenhouse gas. (Washington State Standard)
COMMENTARY: An Indigenous advocate calls on the federal Bureau of Land Management to avoid perpetuating energy injustice by engaging with tribal nations as it develops its new Western solar plan. (Santa Fe New Mexican)
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