Voters could flip legislatures in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, potentially opening the door to more aggressive climate policy.

©2020 E&E Publishing, LLC
Republished with permission

The battleground states of Minnesota, Pennsylvania and North Carolina could be pivotal in determining who occupies the White House in 2021.

The pace of the transition away from fossil fuels in all three states is also on the ballot tomorrow with Democrats vying for party control of state government. Enough wins could give Democrats control of governorships and state legislatures, and a clearer path for more aggressive carbon emissions reductions in energy and transportation.

In Minnesota, Republicans have a two-seat majority in the Senate. In Pennsylvania and North Carolina, the GOP has larger majorities in both the House and Senate.

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While Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has pledged to eliminate carbon from the power sector by 2035, whether and how he could do so remains unclear, even if Democrats take control of the Senate. That could put the spotlight on state action on low-carbon targets.

In each of the three states, all but a couple of polls during the past week show Biden leading the race for the White House, according to FiveThirtyEight.

To be sure, a Democratic trifecta in state government doesn’t guarantee action. Illinois, where Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) took office in 2019, is an example. The General Assembly there is solidly blue, yet the state has done little on energy policy since Pritzker took office.

Still, the stakes are high, especially in a state such as Pennsylvania, a big energy producer and consumer.

“If you could flip both the House and the Senate, it could be a big deal for Pennsylvania energy policy,” said University of Michigan environmental policy expert Barry Rabe. “It could be one of the most major state shifts anywhere in the United States.”

If successful, Democrats could pursue comprehensive climate change legislation on par with Virginia’s landmark Clean Economy Act, which was passed after the Legislature flipped in 2019 and required net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, analysts say.

A more modest goal is ramping up renewable energy standards. Pennsylvania’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act, first passed in 2004, expires next year, and Democrats will likely seek ways to increase the percentage of renewable generation it mandates. Currently, the law requires less than 10% of power purchased from Pennsylvania’s energy utilities to come from solar.

The renewable portfolio standard also includes requirements from resources such as converted coal waste and methane processed from landfills, which have lost popularity over the last decade.

Two bills — one promoting electric vehicle infrastructure, the other community solar — that have been languishing in committee would likely progress with ease under a Democratic majority. But David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, said those bills were written to garner bipartisan support. If Democrats control both chambers, they would likely push for stronger legislation.

“It’s possible they could get it done in the lame-duck session, but I wouldn’t bet $50 on it,” he said.

Democratic Pennsylvania state Rep. Greg Vitali, minority chair of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, said that in addition to climate-related actions, he would like to see energy efficiency standards — which currently apply to electric distribution companies — extended to the gas sector, and a strengthening of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

“A lot will depend on the margin of our majority because some House Democrats represent the oil and gas regions,” he said. “If we have a bare majority, they would not be supportive of certain environmental actions important to me.”

Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, said a Democratic majority would be “bad all around for Pennsylvania.”

“The voters in Pennsylvania won’t have the protection of their Legislature as a check on their governor with respect to [the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative],” he said.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has approved plans to join RGGI, a carbon cap-and-trade pact among Northeastern states, despite the Republican-controlled Legislature’s attempts to thwart the move (Energywire, Sept. 16).

“You could see a potential replay of what happened in Virginia, where they would ramp up green energy mandates, which will saddle Pennsylvania residents and businesses with higher energy costs right at a time where their natural gas industry is luring manufacturing back to the state,” Pyle said.

Terry Madonna, who runs the Franklin & Marshall College poll, said it’s unlikely Democrats will take the state Senate, but the House could be a close race. Two years ago, Democrats picked up 11 House seats from the Philadelphia suburbs. This time around, they would need nine.

“The suburbs are undergoing a major transition,” he said. “I don’t doubt they are going to pick up [Democratic] seats; the question is if they get to nine.”

Minnesota

Perhaps the easiest road to a Democratic trifecta in any state is Minnesota, which has the only split Legislature in the United States. There, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party needs to pick up just two seats in the Senate to capture a majority.

In an interview a week before Election Day, Todd Rapp, a political affairs consultant who previously worked in the DFL Party and in government relations for utility giant Xcel Energy Inc., said control of the Senate is neck and neck and will likely depend on how well Biden and Trump do.

“There’s no question the Minnesota Senate is pretty much a coin flip right now,” he said.

Rapp noted that control of Minnesota’s Legislature has been divided for 28 of the last 30 years, and during that time, it didn’t let gridlock get in the way of passing landmark energy and climate legislation, most notably the 2007 Next Generation Energy Act.

But today, there’s new pressure for different climate policies that would take Minnesota the next step toward decarbonizing its power system.

“We’re kind of entering a new period,” Rapp said. While many Republicans and Democrats alike, as well as utilities, recognize a need to shift away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources, there’s less agreement on how — and how fast — to achieve that transition.

“That debate right now is about the speed of change,” he said.

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz last year proposed a three-pronged energy plan that included a 100% clean energy standard by 2050. The plan also featured a “Clean Energy First” requirement that utilities prioritize use of carbon-free energy over fossil fuels, and it would bolster energy efficiency efforts in Minnesota.

While there seemed to be general support for the latter two pillars of Walz’s energy proposal, the 100% mandate was a non-starter for the GOP-led Senate.

So far, no Midwestern state has joined the list of states to have adopted a 100% clean energy requirement.

“Because of the split Legislature, we’ve seen that clean energy proposals have had to navigate that bipartisan window,” said Gabe Chan, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. But, he added, “[Democrats] are clear that they support that 100% clean energy mandate, and that’s where they are going.”

The CEO of state’s largest energy provider, Minneapolis-based Xcel, suggested last week that it’s comfortable with any outcome in the battle to control the Statehouse.

“We’re well-positioned whatever happens,” Ben Fowke told analysts and investors during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

Xcel aims to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2030 and be 100% carbon-free by midcentury, all while keeping bill increases below the rate of inflation. “We do that with economics and reliability in mind, so that tends to bring both sides of the aisle along,” Fowke said.

The governor’s proposal and a similar 100% clean energy standard proposed and passed by House Democrats last year haven’t been a key campaign issue in legislative races.

But according to MinnPost, Walz’s proposal to adopt California’s “clean cars” standard — a plan that the governor thinks can be implemented under existing state law — has gotten pushback from the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association, which is urging candidates to sign a pledge to fight the rules.

North Carolina

To the southeast, Democrats are threatening to take control of the Statehouse in North Carolina, where lawmakers could address elements of the North Carolina Clean Energy Plan next year.

That plan, prepared by the state Department of Environmental Quality, calls for a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2030 compared with 2005 levels, with a goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. It follows a 2018 executive order from Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.

Cooper is up for reelection this year, but he has a double-digit lead in many recent polls.

“The outcome on Tuesday is really going to impact the ability to advance the governor’s clean energy plan,” said Peter Ledford, general counsel and director of policy at the NC Sustainable Energy Association.

Ledford said legislation related to the plan could be tied to issues such as a power-sector clean energy standard, multiyear rate plans, performance incentives and other rate mechanisms.

There is some bipartisan support for clean energy, especially given solar’s foothold in North Carolina. But nationally, discussions of cutting carbon and having a cleaner power mix often receive more attention among Democrats. And the state utility commission relies on the Legislature for guidance.

“North Carolina has a really stringent ratemaking statute,” Ledford said. “Variations on how rates are set are likely to require some sort of legislative change.”

North Carolina-based utility owner Duke Energy Corp. said shifting to cleaner energy is a priority for the company — and that it would work with lawmakers from both parties on ideas while also keeping prices affordable. In a recent report, the Energy News Network said political contributions associated with Duke are bipartisan but tend to favor Republicans.

“[W]e’ve set a vision to achieve net-zero carbon emissions from electric generation by 2050,” Grace Rountree, a Duke spokeswoman, said in a statement. “It’s going to take collaboration to reach these goals and continue the progress we’ve made.”

Michael Bitzer, a political scientist at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., said the state Senate may be more likely than the state House to flip. He said having both chambers along with the governor’s office would be a sea change for Democrats.

“If the Legislature divides between the chambers,” he said, “there’s going to have to be compromise.”

Three state legislative battles could swing zero-carbon energy plans 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.

©2020 E&E Publishing, LLC
Republished with permission

Massachusetts is expected to pass clean energy and climate legislation in the coming months that would require the state to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, dividing conservative groups and environmentalists in atypical ways.

The state House and Senate, which are both controlled by Democrats, have yet to agree on final language. But both chambers have passed bills backing the net-zero goal, and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker has declared that his administration is planning to meet it.

If enacted, the law would place Massachusetts among a handful of states requiring a carbon-neutral economy by midcentury.

A special committee is set to negotiate the final shape of legislation during an extended legislative session. Members will have to decide on multiple issues, including whether to include a 40% renewable power mandate by 2030, a phaseout of gas-powered buses in the Boston area, an expanded carve-out for offshore wind, and new exemptions for net-metering caps. Legislators will also need to agree on whether to institute five-year or 10-year interim targets for greenhouse gas reductions, on the road to 2050.

[T]his bill lays out a comprehensive and bold plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050,” wrote the Massachusetts Progressive Caucus, a group of House Democrats, on Twitter.

The net-zero strategy, which would preserve a role for energy sources outside of wind and solar, has so far won the support of the majority of clean energy advocates and the fossil fuel industry. On July 20, a coalition of 21 environmental, labor, conservation and renewable business groups signed a letter in favor of a House net-zero bill, which was approved Friday by the chamber. The state Senate passed its version in January.

“We are pleased that both chambers recognize the role natural gas and other fuels will continue to play in meeting Massachusetts’ energy needs as the commonwealth moves towards its 2050 net-zero carbon goal,” wrote Steve Dodge, the Massachusetts Petroleum Council’s executive director, in an email to E&E News.

Yet the bills also have sparked backlash from some groups that typically aren’t in agreement.

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a conservative anti-tax group, has said it is alarmed by language in both bills — and backed by the governor — that would allow the state to impose a carbon price and join the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a regional cap-and-trade-style initiative. Neither chamber’s legislation explicitly mandates either idea, but Gov. Baker backs joining TCI and passing a carbon price.

In a July 30 letter to legislators, the Fiscal Alliance warned that the House’s bill would be “a vote to give the Governor authority to proceed forward with enrolling Massachusetts” into TCI — a program it described as “essentially another gasoline and diesel tax.”

The state’s unemployment rate, it said, is at 17%, the highest in the nation. Implementing TCI, it said, would be “not only ill advised from an economic standpoint, but extremely callous and insensitive towards the thousands of families who are currently struggling without work.”

‘Fundamentally flawed’

One environmental group, Environment Massachusetts, has set itself apart from most clean energy organizations in the state by opposing the net-zero bills.

Instead of simply mandating emissions reductions and allowing for energy officials to regulate the technologies involved, the state should create 100% mandates for renewable power, electric cars and other zero-carbon technologies, the group has argued.

“The underlying framework of this bill is fundamentally flawed,” said Ben Hellerstein, the group’s state director, adding that it could “leave Massachusetts dependent on dirty energy for decades to come.”

In April, he noted, the Baker administration declared the net-zero goal part of the state’s emissions obligation under an earlier climate law passed in 2008. That declaration found that reducing emissions by 85%, over 1990 levels, was “technically feasible.”

The remaining 15%, said Hellerstein, would presumably be met through CO2 offsets — a percentage that his group claims would equate to today’s pollution from 1 million cars and 1.5 million homes.

That offset is similar to what some leading states have permitted for their own 2050 goals; New York, for instance, has allowed for an identical 15% offset as part of its net-zero target.

Still, said Hellerstein, “it’s disappointing to me that Massachusetts didn’t choose to join the ranks this year” of states with 100% renewable mandates. “Rather than being a leader on clean energy, we’re at risk of falling behind,” he said.

Massachusetts set to pass landmark clean energy law to reach net-zero by 2050 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.

©2020 E&E Publishing, LLC
Republished with permission

Following in the footsteps of several other states with clean energy goals, Hawaii lawmakers passed a bill this month banning utilities from using coal in a bid to curb carbon emissions, reduce electricity costs and promote environmental justice in the island state.

Advocates say the measure sends an important message on climate and addresses long-standing environmental justice issues in the state, where electricity costs are much higher than in the continental United States because of Hawaii’s historical reliance on fossil fuel imports. They say it could encourage more states to phase out coal-fired electricity.

“If we can make this statement here, maybe we can help lead the way for other jurisdictions to see that this is possible and this is the future,” said Democratic state Rep. Nicole Lowen, chair of Hawaii’s House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee, which championed the bill.

State bans also ensure that utilities follow through with their commitments to phase out coal, said Jeff Deyette, director of state policies and analysis for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate and energy program.

“It really does solidify the intentions of these states to move toward renewables and fossil-free generation,” Deyette said. “So they may appear to many people as largely symbolic, but I think there’s more to it than that.”

In 2016, Oregon became the first state in the nation to require its utilities to eliminate coal-fired power from the electricity supply. New York and Washington state passed similar measures last year.

States banning coal — including Hawaii — had mostly already committed to reducing carbon emissions, said Gregory Dotson, an assistant professor at the University of Oregon School of Law focused on energy and environmental law and policy. But the combined impacts of coal bans and related measures raise questions about the future of U.S. coal use elsewhere, Dotson said.

“It fits into this mosaic of state actions,” he said. “You just have to think about a dynamic of a [coal-heavy] state like Wyoming, in which you now have California, Washington, New Mexico and Colorado all working toward 100% renewable energy — where are you selling your coal-fired electricity to as all of these states are taking their actions?”

‘Irreversible changes’

But while Democratic Gov. David Ige is expected to sign the Hawaii bill, S.B. 2629, into law, its immediate impacts on coal use and climate emissions are questionable, considering the state’s remaining coal plant is set to retire before the ban takes effect.

“It looks more like something that is a political statement,” said Ben Nelson, lead global coal analyst at Moody’s Investors Service.

Even in coal-banning states, falling costs of natural gas and renewable energy resources have probably contributed more to reductions in coal burning than the moratoriums, Nelson said.

Coal industry representatives also say the bans are short-sighted. Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of the pro-coal advocacy group America’s Power, said lawmakers would be better served using “a technology-based strategy” to improve coal plants’ efficiencies and curb emissions.

“In addition, we need to reduce the cost of carbon capture and storage and other technologies so they can be deployed widely in the future,” Bloodworth said in a statement.

Ashley Burke, senior vice president of communications at the National Mining Association, said states should focus on measures to reduce electricity bills rather than eliminate particular fuel sources.

“State lawmakers would do well to consider voter needs and concerns before making sweeping and irreversible changes to the grid that will impact the affordability and reliability of electricity in their state for the future,” Burke said in a statement.

Still, Tristan Brown, associate professor of energy resource economics at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, said it is possible more states will embrace bans on coal-burning power plants in the coming years. It’s unlikely such measures will come at a high economic cost, he said.

“You’re reducing greenhouse gas emissions while saving money in the process, so it’s a win-win scenario,” Brown said. “As long as that dynamic continues to stay in place, I think we’re going to see more states doing this because it’s a really easy environmental win for them.”

Coal ash concerns

Hawaii’s only coal-burning power station is on O’ahu and accounted for 13% of the state’s electricity generation in 2018. Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. has said it does not intend to extend its contract with the AES Hawaii Power Plant past 2022.

Along with barring utilities from adding new coal-fired electricity generation, S.B. 2629 bans them from extending existing purchase agreements with coal-burning facilities past 2022.

Supporters of the bill say it also addresses environmental justice concerns, according to written testimony from a June 29 hearing on the measure.

Coal ash produced at the AES plant in O’ahu is disposed of in a landfill near Nānākuli, a community with a high Native Hawaiian population where nearly 1 in 5 residents live below the poverty line, according to the Census Bureau.

The transfer of coal ash to the landfill can release “fugitive dust and particulate matter,” the Hawaii State Department of Health said in its comments on the bill. This can expose landfill workers and the larger community in Nānākuli to potential health hazards, said Jodi Malinoski, policy advocate for the Sierra Club of Hawaii.

The bill “really helps advance some of the public health goals that need to be a priority and ensures that this community doesn’t suffer the burden of our energy facilities any longer,” Malinoski said.

In addition to coal’s carbon emissions, the use of the fossil fuel in Hawaii comes at a high price. The state imports coal from Indonesia, which contributes to Hawaii’s high electricity costs, Malinoski said. Retail electricity prices are higher in Hawaii than in any other U.S. state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“Passing this bill and banning coal furthers this commitment to clean energy, and it just shows our Legislature’s leadership to address the harmful effects of climate change in a way that is equitable,” Malinoski said.

Reprinted from Energywire with permission from E&E News, LLC. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environment news at www.eenews.net.

States are banning coal. Will it change the electricity mix? 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.

©2020 E&E Publishing, LLC
Republished with permission

As the long-shrinking coal industry hemorrhages jobs, states and local groups are seeking new ways to transition to a lower-carbon economy without leaving coal workers behind.

Dozens of coal workers stormed the Senate office building during the Maryland legislative session earlier this year to protest a plan that would phase out the state’s remaining six coal-fired power plants.

The bill in question included grant money for displaced workers and affected communities, but the local labor union dismissed the provision as inadequate.

“It was a non-starter,” said Jim Griffin, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1900. “Those bills were essentially written by the Sierra Club.”

David Smedick, a campaign representative with the Sierra Club who was active in supporting the measure, said Maryland’s transition away from coal should include support for affected workers, but he stressed the urgency of shutting the plants down.

“We need a clear end deadline for burning coal in our country,” he said. “Seeing a coal plant in the rearview mirror is positive for climate.”

This tug of war between preserving living-wage, unionized coal jobs and addressing climate change is playing out across the country at every level of government, pitting environmental and clean energy interests against unions and fossil fuel companies favored by the Trump administration.

But as the long-shrinking coal industry hemorrhages jobs and coronavirus shutdowns further plunge coal consumption, states and local groups are seeking new ways to bridge the blue-green divide and transition to a lower-carbon economy without leaving anyone behind.

“There are a lot of states that are really trying to be proactive, and there are individual plants where there have been some good outcomes,” said Jeremy Richardson, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “But we need federal investment because the scale of the problem is so large.”

It is unclear, however, whether any efforts will be effective in supporting workers with highly paid jobs that may not have immediate replacements in communities long dependent on coal.

“We do not have, at a national level, the systems and programs in place to adequately assist workers that are dislocated from the coal economy or the communities that have relied on the coal economy for generations,” said Jason Walsh, head of the BlueGreen Alliance, a national partnership of unions and environmental organizations.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were close to 90,000 coal mining jobs in 2012, compared with 46,600 today. In the last decade, more than 300 coal-fired power plants have retired, eliminating coal-related jobs in the power sector.

The decline has decimated local economies that relied on associated tax revenue like Boone County, W.Va., which used to draw a surplus of money from a state tax on coal companies. With bankruptcies and layoffs, the resulting budget deficit and population exodus have led to rounds of teacher layoffs and slashed county jobs and benefits, according to county data. Other coal-reliant towns have closed schools and laid off hundreds in the public service sector.

President Trump promised on the 2016 campaign trail to preserve the coal industry, but jobs hit a record low under his administration. The administration has defended its policies, saying in a statement this week that “President Trump ended the Obama Administration’s eight-year war on coal by eliminating the top down federal mandates that were destroying coal producing communities” (Climatewire, June 22).

Many analysts say coal’s decline was inevitable because of market dynamics, fueled by competition from natural gas, flatlining electricity demand and cheaper renewable power. Last year alone saw a historic drop in coal generation, and for the first time, renewables are expected to generate more electricity than coal this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

There were efforts during the Obama administration to help coal workers and economies transition, but not at the scale necessary, according to Walsh, who led the push at the time as senior policy adviser in the White House Domestic Policy Council.

Under pressure for years to address the thousands of coal worker layoffs, President Obama introduced an initiative in 2015 that would make up to $38 million available in grant funding as a “down payment” for affected communities (Greenwire, March 30, 2015).

“We had some success, but not nearly at the scale that was necessary then and not anywhere close to the scale that’s necessary now,” Walsh said.

The debate comes as many of the job losses in coal and other fossil fuel sectors are occurring in swing states like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Minnesota and New Mexico.

AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of labor unions, endorsed presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president, and he has said he supports transitioning coal workers to other jobs. If history is a guide, that might not translate into votes. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost coal states despite a $30 billion transition proposal to support displaced workers.

AFL-CIO and some of its constituent unions also have expressed skepticism about some of the climate change and environmental policies Democrats have embraced, like the Green New Deal. The federation’s Energy Committee, led by the heads of the United Mine Workers of America and the electrical workers union, called the proposal “not achievable or realistic” in a letter last year.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything available right now nationwide,” Griffin of IBEW said. “So the only thing we have left to do is to fight and claw to keep their jobs. There are no options for these folks.”

‘Eat an environmentalist’

Joe Uehlein, the founding president of the Labor Network for Sustainability, said there is a historical lack of trust between the environmental and labor movements.

“Every time a union member has to walk across a picket line of environmental groups, it does something to damage the relationship,” Uehlein said. “Environmentalists loudly celebrate every time a coal plant closes without any thought or concern for the workers at that plant who are losing really good jobs with good pay and good benefits.”

Uehlein, who works to mobilize the labor movement to fight climate change, pointed to when he was an employee at the now-shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear generating station in Pennsylvania, known for its partial meltdown in 1979. Uehlein said he crossed a throng of angry protesters every day on his way to work.

“But I took their literature, and I read it and it made sense to me,” he said. “For me, it opened my eyes to their arguments, but for a lot of people, these incidents don’t help.”

He recalled a popular bumper sticker at the time that read, “If You’re Hungry and Out of Work, Eat an Environmentalist.”

Uehlein said there is growing recognition, however, that the labor and environmental communities need each other to achieve their respective goals. Environmental groups are adopting workers’ concerns into their lobbying agendas, and labor unions are realizing that climate change, and not Obama’s “War on Coal,” as the popular Republican refrain goes, is the real job killer, he said.

“Things look bleak, but at the same time I think we’re sitting right at the edge of a huge progressive uprising,” Uehlein said.

He cited Colorado, where Gov. Jared Polis (D) enacted a series of clean energy laws last year with the backing of the state’s labor movement.

Unions and environmental activists coalesced around the creation of an Office of Just Transition in the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. The office has a dedicated staff and a diverse advisory committee charged with creating an equitable plan for coal-dependent communities and workers as the state transitions to 100% renewable energy by 2040.

For many labor advocates, the term “just transition” refers to policies to ensure workers displaced by a shift away from coal and fossil fuels have a fair shot in a low-carbon economy.

In Colorado, unions successfully pushed for language in the bill requiring the Office of Just Transition to include supplemental income to cover “all or part of the difference” between coal workers’ old jobs and their new ones. The language aims to mitigate the fear that clean energy and other jobs pay less than the fossil fuel industry.

The law, the first of its kind in the United States, was called a potential road map by supporters for other coal-reliant communities in Appalachia, the Powder River Basin and Hopi-Navajo lands in Arizona. New Mexico enacted similar legislation last year. Advocates in other states with clean energy goals, like Virginia, say they will push for similar legislation next session.

Large environmental groups in recent years also have expanded their focus to include labor concerns. In 2017, for instance, the Sierra Club joined the Service Employees International Union’s fight for a $15 minimum wage to highlight the need for good union jobs.

Other nonprofits and philanthropic organizations have formed to support displaced workers, such as the Equitable and Just National Climate Platform and the Just Transition Fund.

The BlueGreen Alliance’s members assembled an action plan this year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while ensuring quality jobs for workers.

“Beyond the trust it builds, it demonstrates an agenda that is ambitious at the scale that the climate emergency requires that can be supported by not just environmental organizations, but labor organizations, as well,” Walsh of the BlueGreen Alliance said of the plan. “If done right, we can create millions and millions of high-quality jobs.”

‘Those skills will be hard to transfer’

In the absence of federal support or other financial assistance, however, states and community groups say they are grappling with the reality of coal’s decline.

In Maryland, the Legislature adjourned early over COVID-19 concerns before the coal phaseout bill could move forward. Two months later, a Houston-based company, GenOn Holdings Inc., announced the closure of three coal-fired units in the state. It cited unfavorable economic conditions and increased costs associated with environmental compliance as its reason for retiring the units in Dickerson, Md.

Without a legislative plan to cushion the blow, upward of 63 people will lose their jobs, according to the company.

“We do have a severance program we’ve negotiated, but it’s not going to change the fact these folks are going to lose their jobs,” Griffin of IBEW said. “Working in a power plant is pretty specialized, and those skills will be hard to transfer to another career. There are some options with other power plants, but they’d have to pick up and move to another state.”

But for others, the closure at Dickerson is a win, in particular for low-income people and communities of color, who are often disproportionately affected by power plant pollution. Nationally, over 60% of African Americans and 40% of Latinos live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, and those residents are typically exposed to upward of 60% more pollution than they produce through consumption and daily activities, according to the NAACP.

“Dickerson has been a major contributor to particulate matter pollution,” said Tim Whitehouse, the executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “It has also been a major polluter of the Potomac River.”

Ramón Palencia-Calvo, deputy executive director of Chispa Maryland, a program seeking to empower the state’s Latino community, added that Latino children are 40% more likely to die from asthma than their white counterparts. “We find ourselves as one of the most affected in terms of health; there is a high prevalence of asthma and chronic bronchitis,” he said.

In nearby Virginia — which became the first Southern state this year to pass legislation to reach net-zero carbon emissions — there was not a just transition section commensurate with Colorado’s law. But Chelsea Barnes, a program manager with Appalachian Voices, a grassroots advocacy group, said she’s confident there will be a groundswell of support in the next legislative session.

“We’ll have a lot of partners when we go to the Legislature next year who will help us advocate for a just transition,” Barnes said.

In the meantime, local groups like Appalachian Voices, with help from the Just Transition Fund, are working to clean up abandoned mine lands and use the space to create locally driven economic opportunities, such as building solar farms.

The Just Transition Fund began five years ago with backing from the Rockefeller Family Fund. It seeks to invest in local efforts to help coal communities build resilience and low-carbon energy economies.

“The most durable solutions are the ones that are community driven and built by local leaders,” Executive Director Heidi Binko said. “But federal and state investment is really important.”

Coronavirus, EPA and recession

Community-led efforts to pass legislation are an important step, but those laws must also be funded and enforced, according to Rebecca Newberry, the executive director of the Clean Air Coalition, which is working in the town of Tonawanda in upstate New York to support a shift from coal jobs to other employment.

“There is work being done, it’s just not being coordinated as well as it should be,” she said.

Newberry teamed up with the local unions, teachers association and environmental groups after it became clear the coal-fired Huntley Generating Station would retire. The plant, located on the banks of the Niagara River, was Erie County’s largest polluter but also the biggest source of taxpayer income in the working-class Buffalo suburb.

The groups formed the Huntley Alliance and pushed the New York Legislature to create a transition fund for the town. In 2015, when the plant announced it would retire, the Legislature dedicated $30 million in gap funding, which increased to $45 million in 2017, to maintain public services while the local economy regained its footing after the coal plant closure. The fund was the first of its kind in the United States.

Over 1,000 community members came together to develop an economic transition plan for the town, which would begin with site cleanup and redevelopment. Newberry said a lack of a sufficient federal enforcement mechanism has slowed down implementation of the plan.

“If Trump did not disband the EPA’s enforcement ability, that would make it easier,” she said.

Trump’s EPA completed the fewest cleanups of toxic Superfund sites last year than any administration since the program’s first years in the 1980s, according to EPA records (Greenwire, Feb. 20). EPA has sharply defended its record, saying in a statement in April in response to an EPA inspector general report that “its enforcement and compliance program focuses on achieving compliance using many tools” (Greenwire, April 1).

Newberry said the coronavirus and subsequent lockdown have paused progress. But New York is beginning to reopen.

“As we continue to open up, there needs to be a priority to have these billion-dollar corporations to clean up their shit,” she said. “The fact this burden is passed onto taxpayers is completely out of line. We need leadership in D.C. that cares about poor and working-class people because there’s going to be a lot more of us as this recession hits.”

The U.S. economy lost over 20 million jobs in April with the unemployment rate spiking to 14.7%, the worst since the Great Depression, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has predicted a slow recovery, with the unemployment rate falling to 9.3% by the end of this year and 6.5% by the end of 2021. He said a substantial number of Americans may never get their jobs back.

Binko of the Just Transition Fund said it’s crucial to develop a road map for transitioning coal-reliant communities. Since January, 4,500 coal jobs have been lost, according to federal data.

“Getting it right is going to help ensure other communities down the road benefit as we transition to a more carbon-constrained world,” Binko said.

Reprinted from Energywire with permission from E&E News, LLC. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environment news at www.eenews.net.

Thousands of coal workers lost jobs. Where will they go? 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.

©2020 E&E Publishing, LLC
Republished with permission

Illinois went from a solar laggard to one of the hottest U.S. markets thanks to the Future Energy Jobs Act — a sweeping energy law signed in 2016 that is spurring hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment.

From urban rooftops to sprawling arrays spanning dozens of acres, the law known as FEJA has sparked more than 2,000 megawatts of solar development, compared with less than 100 MW in 2018, before the policy took hold.

But the boom is just as quickly turning to bust due to the one-two punch of COVID-19-related challenges that are slowing both sales and installations and a funding crunch that could starve the industry for years to come.

While money remains for some residential projects, Illinois’ exponential solar growth is already slowing, prompting installers to cut jobs and putting the state’s renewable energy goals further out of reach.

Lisa Albrecht, the owner of All Bright Solar, which specializes in small commercial and residential projects, has been involved with the Illinois solar industry for 13 years and thought FEJA would provide a secure future for the industry. “But here we are, barely 18 months into the program, heading to a bigger cliff than we initially realized.

“It seems wrong to have done all this work, achieved all these successes in such a short term only to let it die,” she said.

The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated the problem, slowing sales and installations and making it difficult in some places to get local permits and inspections (Energywire, March 27).

Installers have adapted to some of the challenges. But additional solar funding likely won’t be available until the middle of the decade unless legislators take action during a brief six-day “veto” session in November.

“The momentum we lose will be terrible,” said MeLena Hessel, a senior policy advocate at the Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC). “We can’t just regain momentum overnight. But we can kill it overnight.”

Exacerbating the challenge, the Illinois Power Agency (IPA), the agency responsible for buying renewable energy credits to help meet the state’s renewable energy standard, may be forced to give back $200 million to $400 million of existing funding to consumers absent a legislative fix. The reason for the funding crunch is a mismatch between when funds collected from utility customers flow into the power agency’s renewable account and the rate at which they’re paid out.

As the solar industry waits for the General Assembly, which cut its session short because of the pandemic, installers are scrambling to adapt.

Among them is StraightUp Solar, a St. Louis-based solar installer with 70 employees that expanded in neighboring Illinois following passage of FEJA.

Under the law, about $230 million a year (about $1 a month for the typical residential customer) is collected by utilities to help fund new renewables through purchases of renewable energy credits. Funding is allocated to provide incentives for a wide variety of project types, from residential rooftop and community solar arrays to projects in low-income neighborhoods and larger, utility-scale projects.

Founded in 2006, StraightUp is among dozens of FEJA success stories in Illinois, which as recently as 2017 was a bottom 10 market for solar nationally with less than 100 MW installed.

The company, which had been focused on the residential market in Illinois, expanded into larger commercial projects such as a 2-MW ground-mounted array completed last year at a community college in Illinois coal country.

But like so many other solar installers, StraightUp has been forced to retrench. It has laid off and furloughed workers, cut pay, and sought Paycheck Protection Program assistance from the federal government in response to economic headwinds, said Shannon Fulton, the company’s vice president of Illinois development.

The company is still finishing development of commercial projects, but “our large [distributed generation] pipeline is nearly complete,” Fulton said. That means unless and until additional funding becomes available, the company’s Illinois office will rely on the residential rooftop market until those funds, too, run out.

Solar installers and clean energy advocates say more job losses are almost certain in the weeks and months ahead.

“The hundreds of job losses that we’ve seen so far from COVID may well turn to thousands next year,” Josh Lutton, the CEO of Illinois-based solar developer Certasun, said in a recent press briefing organized by the ELPC.

The Midwest chapter of the Solar Energy Industries Association didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Missing clean power goals

In addition to the jobs and the risk of losing other economic benefits that come with solar development is the environmental and climate impact.

Illinois is almost guaranteed to badly miss achieving its 25% renewable portfolio standard (RPS) by 2025.

Even if all currently funded projects come online, the two large utilities in the state, Commonwealth Edison and Ameren Illinois, will get just 8% of their energy from renewables by 2025, according to IPA data.

Meeting the 25% RPS goal would require an additional 6,500 to 7,000 MW of solar and 4,000 MW more of wind development, IPA Director Anthony Star told a Senate committee this spring.

Without that additional renewable development, fossil generation from coal and natural gas plants in Illinois and neighboring states will make up a larger share of the state’s energy mix.

The so-called renewable funding cliff in Illinois didn’t crop up overnight. It’s been on the industry’s radar for more than a year.

Several bills were filed last year in response to the brewing renewable energy funding crisis, including the “Path to 100 Act.”

The bill, by the wind and solar industries, would generate new funding for wind and solar by raising a statutory cap limiting the rate impact of the state’s RPS to 4% of electric bills from the current 2% (Energywire, Feb. 11, 2019).

Heading into spring, the solar industry was hoping that funding challenges would be addressed as Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) made clear in his January State of the State speech that clean energy and climate would be priorities in the legislative session.

Pritzker’s administration had just organized a work group to try to hammer out differences among competing bills, and the Legislature held hearings on the issue in early March.

Star, the IPA director, made clear to lawmakers during testimony at those hearings that renewable funding was running dry.

“The RPS faces a funding crunch over the next two to three years that will restrict additional new project development,” he told legislators.

Refunds for utility customers

In Illinois, small distributed generation projects are paid for 15 years of renewable energy credits within the first year after they’re energized. Larger projects, up to 2 MW, are paid for the full 15 years within about four years of when they come online.

While the power agency still has tens of millions of dollars in the state’s RPS budget, the funds are already obligated to existing projects. And new funds won’t be available until 2024 at the earliest.

Meanwhile, the 2016 law also stipulates that funds not spent by mid-2021 must be refunded to utility customers.

The solar industry and advocates have argued for an extension of the deadline. While it’s been called a Band-Aid fix to a larger structural issue in the law, it’s one that would give developers more time to complete projects, some of which have been delayed by the pandemic.

But at least one of Illinois’ largest utilities opposes the idea.

“Solar advocates knew the rules when this legislation was crafted and actually helped write them,” Ameren Illinois spokesman Tucker Kennedy said in an email. “At a time when many Illinois residents are experiencing economic hardship due to COVID-19, we need to do anything we can to give them a financial boost. Returning their money is the right thing to do.”

St. Louis-based Ameren, which has proposed legislation that would allow the company to develop and own renewable energy projects, also criticized the structure of the RPS.

“The RPS program has been costly and inefficient, and there is no indication that it will deliver the intended results in the future if it continues to operate as it does currently,” Kennedy said.

Chicago-based ComEd didn’t comment on the potential refund of renewable energy incentive funding. But the utility did express support for expanding clean energy in the state.

“It is critical to pass comprehensive energy policy that enables Illinois to retain its clean energy resources and expand renewables so that we can guarantee clean air in our state and stay on track to meet the Paris climate agreement goals,” utility spokesman David O’Dowd said in a statement.

Solar advocates said the benefits of Illinois’ renewable standard go beyond just generating cleaner electricity. It’s also about creating jobs and stimulating investment — a benefit that’s needed now more than ever as the state tries to dig out from the economic hole from COVID-19.

But that, too, is at risk if solar development is starved of funding, ELPC’s Hessel said.

Smaller homegrown companies may not survive if funding dries up completely. And for those installers that remain, it will take time to get access to capital, hire and retrain new employees, and develop sales pipelines.

A key component of the 2016 energy law was a solar job training program to help provide new opportunities for employment across the state.

That, too, is at risk of going bust if lawmakers don’t find a way to help the industry survive.

“We had made such a commitment to building a solar job training program,” Fulton said. “But you just can’t put people through a [training] program and not have any opportunities when they come out of that.”

Reprinted from Energywire with permission from E&E News, LLC. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environment news at www.eenews.net.

Booming Illinois solar industry falls off ‘funding cliff’ 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.