Senator Manchin struggles to find common ground

From the Article by Karl Evers-Hillstrom, The Hill News Service, August 13, 2022

Coal country is still reeling from Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) decision to back a sweeping climate and energy package that will accelerate the nation’s transition away from coal.

In the Mountain State, the once-burgeoning coal industry says it feels betrayed, displaced coal workers are celebrating the bill’s black lubenefits and Republicans seeking Manchin’s seat in 2024 are licking their chops.

The Inflation Reduction Act includes several Appalachia-centric measures, including subsidies to build renewable energy projects on former coal fields and the permanent extension of a tax on coal companies that funds benefits for miners suffering from black lung disease.

Advocates who fought hard for the black lung fund extension — they warned Manchin that the benefits were at risk when the excise tax expired last year — hailed its inclusion as a breakthrough victory for workers who don’t typically wield influence in Washington.

“We were surprised. We thought it’d be a four-year or 10-year [extension],” said Gary Hairston, a former West Virginia coal miner of 27 years who now leads the National Black Lung Association. “So, when we got it permanently, we might not need to worry about it no more.”

The coal industry, on the other hand, attacked Manchin for making the tax permanent and pushing policies to subsidize alternative energy sources. Leaders of Appalachian coal groups, including the West Virginia Coal Association, wrote in a recent letter that the excise tax will cost them tens of millions of dollars and hurt their ability to compete and keep energy costs stable. “This legislation is so egregious, it leaves those of us that call Senator Manchin a friend, shocked and disheartened,” they wrote.

Backlash from the coal industry, conservative groups and GOP lawmakers has opened up an opportunity for political challengers ahead of Manchin’s upcoming reelection battle. Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) is running television ads accusing the Democratic senator of crossing the state’s coal industry, an apparent signal that he plans to challenge him in 2024. “Alex Mooney won’t let Joe Manchin and Joe Biden destroy our coal industry and devastate West Virginia,” the ad tells viewers.

Cecil Roberts, a longtime Manchin ally who leads the United Mine Workers of America, the nation’s largest coal miners’ union, called those critiques “absolute bull” in a recent statement. He noted that the bill includes tax credits for carbon capture that could extend the life of coal plants and authorizes $4 billion in tax credits exclusively for companies that create new clean energy jobs in coal communities. “I cannot understand how any politician who actually cares about working West Virginians and the quality of their lives can trash this bill,” Roberts said. “They should be thanking Senator Manchin, not attacking him.”

In a response to the West Virginia Coal Association, Manchin noted that the excise tax has consistently been extended at the same rate for nearly four decades and said that coal companies can take advantage of a $5 billion fund in the climate bill to boost their efficiency. “The big pushback I’m getting from the coal operators right now is having to pay the black lung fund, and that’s a shame,” Manchin told reporters on a recent conference call.

Manchin added that despite his best efforts to boost coal, its prevalence has declined under both Democratic and Republican presidents, indicating that his state needs to take advantage of emerging energy technologies to keep up. Hundreds of coal-fired power plants have shut down over the last decade amid the emergence of cleaner and more efficient energy sources, causing pain for Appalachia’s coal mining companies.

At its peak, the West Virginia coal industry employed more than 125,000 employees, a figure that dropped to less than 12,000 in addition to 36,000 independent contractors, according to estimates from the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training.

While they’ve been slow to adopt clean energy policies, West Virginia legislators in recent years passed bills to boost solar projects despite opposition from the coal industry.

The Nature Conservancy and West Virginia Chamber of Commerce released a survey last year finding that most West Virginians believe that the state should reduce its reliance on coal and shift to renewable energy sources, a significant shift in public opinion.

“This is a traditional energy state, but folks in West Virginia are also interested in looking at what the new energy economy can bring to the state in terms of jobs, and economic development and economic diversification,” said Thomas Minney, West Virginia state director at the Nature Conservancy.

As part of his climate deal, Manchin also secured an agreement from Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) that Democrats will pass legislation to expedite approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which spans hundreds of miles in West Virginia and Virginia. Manchin says the natural gas pipeline, which has drawn opposition from local environmental and property rights advocates, would create 2,500 jobs in his home state and help make up for coal’s decline.

Still, it’s not clear whether deep-red West Virginia will embrace Manchin’s climate deal, given that his popularity soared around the time that he told Democrats he couldn’t support the $2 trillion Build Back Better Act.

From the first quarter of 2021 to 2022, Manchin’s approval rating shot up 17 points to 57 percent, the biggest increase among all senators over that period, according to Morning Consult. Nearly 7 in 10 West Virginia Republicans expressed support for the Democratic senator as he railed against his own party’s spending package.

QUOTATION ~ Change is inevitable in life. You can either resist it and potentially get run over by it, or you can choose to cooperate with it, adapt to it, and learn how to benefit from it. Jack Canfield.

Many feel Sen. Manchin has been an agent for fossil fuels

From an Article by John Bachtell, People’s World, August 3, 2022

Senate Democrats appear on the verge of passing historic legislation to accelerate a national transition to clean energy, reduce energy costs, create tens of thousands of union jobs, and address environmental injustice.

The surprise agreement, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), was brokered by Sens. Joe Manchin, W.Va, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, N.Y. All 50 Democratic senators, including Arizona Sen. Krysten Sinema, must support the IRA to pass. Every Republican, fossil fuel driller, and big corporation fiercely oppose it.

Environmental, labor, and social justice organizations, climate scientists, policymakers, and federal, state, and local Democratic lawmakers hailed the deal. They called for swift passage despite shortcomings and concessions to the fossil fuel industry.

The turn of events happened after Manchin torpedoed the Build Back Better (BBB) legislation while a record heat wave baked much of the planet, sparking wildfires and causing flash flooding in Kentucky. Most assumed climate legislation was dead for the remainder of this Congress.

The result was a bitter backlash directed against Manchin, protests, a sit-in by Congressional staffers, and calls for Biden to declare a National Emergency on climate. Guarantees for fossil leasing, extending financing of the Black Lung Trust Fund, separately expediting the permitting process for the Mountain Valley Pipeline across West Virginia, and convincing Manchin the bill would reduce inflation may have convinced him to agree.

The IRA marks the biggest investment in clean energy in U.S. history and is the result of decades of movement-building and battles to pass transformative climate legislation against entrenched opposition. “We’re going to look back in 50 years and say this was the beginning of a great transition,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.

“Rhodium Group modeling shows the IRA can absolutely cut carbon pollution by 40% by 2030. With additional executive and state action, we could be back on track to hit President Biden’s critical goal of a 50% cut this decade,” said Dr. Leah Stokes, leader of Evergreen Action and a climate policy maker involved in crafting the BBB legislation.

According to climate scientists, the world must reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2050 to avoid surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius and triggering far more catastrophic changes.

The bill strips from the BBB some provisions like the child tax credit. However, it retains most of the original bill’s critical programs, although at lower funding levels. They include $369 billion in funding and tax credits to accelerate the transition toward clean energy technologies, reduction in methane gas emissions, and investments in agriculture, rural economic development, and restoration.

It establishes environmental, labor, and equity standards in public investment. It directs about $60 billion in funding to historically discriminated and vulnerable communities suffering the worst climate change consequences.

One such mechanism is a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to make community renewable energy investments. The climate bank would lend $28 billion for “low-interest loans across the country. A small town in Ohio could say we want to do over our public housing stock completely. Okay, come to the climate bank. Or a community that wants to install solar panels on their town dump. Okay, we’ll help finance it,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

The bill contains tax credits for consumers to purchase new and used electric vehicles and partially funds the conversion of the USPS truck fleet to electric vehicles. It provides corporate tax credits to produce solar and offshore wind farms, geothermal infrastructure, batteries, and green technology production facilities.

The bill makes it easier for working-class households to winterize their homes and buy electric heat pumps and induction stoves. Studies show the more renewable energy, electric vehicles, and other products manufactured, the cheaper they become, which is not the case with fossil fuel energy production.

The bill also allocates $64 billion to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies through 2024 and allows Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices with Big Pharma.

Lawmakers maintain transitioning to renewables would also reduce energy costs and address Manchin’s stated concern about inflation. “Fossil fuels have driven 41% of inflation,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. “So, when we talk about investments in clean energy, that is one of the biggest components of price increases consumers face. Households will save on average about $1,800 a year in energy bills.”

Lawmakers drafted the bill to bypass Republican obstruction through the budget reconciliation process. It needs every Democrat on board, and with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote, only 51 votes are required rather than the 60 votes under the Senate filibuster rule.

Sinema has been silent on her support and is under enormous pressure from giant corporations to kill the bill. Her concerns seem to revolve around taxes on the wealthy and corporations, which raise $739 billion in revenue to cover the bill’s costs. The IRA does not raise taxes on workers making less than $400,000 annually.

Sinema has repeatedly expressed opposition to the “carried interest charge,” a tax on profits hedge fund managers make insisted on by Manchin. The far more significant issue is corporate opposition to a minimum 15% tax on corporate profits over $1 billion. Sinema has previously supported the tax, but the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, which shower her with contributions, wants it defeated.

“If Sinema, a one-time Green Party activist, derailed the most significant federal climate bill ever while Arizona faces mounting impacts of climate change, it would be an incredible repudiation of everything she’s stood for her entire life,” tweeted Atlantic columnist Ronald Brownstein. Markey also indicated senators would work with Sinema and get the deal done one way or another.

The IRA comes with difficult compromises to gain the vote of Manchin. The bill mandates onshore and offshore lease sales, but they are to be more restricted and carry higher royalty costs. Ultimately, the plummeting production costs of renewables will make oil drilling unnecessary.

Besides, the total impact of the new leasing on the climate could be minimal, according to one study. “For every ton of emissions increases generated by [the bill’s] oil and gas provisions, at least 24 tons of emissions are avoided by the other provisions,” concludes Energy Innovation.

NOTE ~ See the original Article (here) for four more paragraphs of political commentary.

Virginia environmental groups call for a declaration of climate emergency & protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Richmond (8/2/22)

From an Article by Sarah Vogelsong, Virginia Mercury, August 2, 2022

A deal between Democratic congressional leadership and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III over sweeping federal climate legislation could force the completion of Mountain Valley Pipeline, according to a one-page summary of the agreement’s provisions obtained by The Washington Post.

The final item on the summary reads: “Complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

Since the surprise 11th-hour deal between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Manchin resurrected President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda last week, Virginia environmental groups and many landowners in the state’s southwestern region have been waiting uneasily to learn the agreement’s terms.

Numerous national news outlets reported that Manchin’s support was linked to promises by Democratic leaders to pass separate legislation smoothing the fraught federal permitting process for fossil fuel pipelines such as Mountain Valley, a 303-mile-long conduit planned to carry gas from the Marcellus shale fields of West Virginia into Virginia.

The summary released Monday, which a Manchin spokesperson confirmed Tuesday reflects the provisions the senator is seeking, offers the clearest look yet at what those promises are. For Mountain Valley, the asks are twofold: First, require federal agencies “to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation” of the pipeline. Second, transfer jurisdiction over legal cases concerning the pipeline from the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to the D.C. Circuit.

Lee Williams, director of Green New Deal Virginia and advocacy chair of the Richmond-area Falls of the James chapter of the Sierra Club, reacted to the proposal with dismay. Environmental groups “want everything” that’s in the federal climate bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, she said. “We’ve been asking for it for the last decade. Unfortunately, to get Sen. Manchin to vote for it, they literally threw Southwest Virginia under the bus.”

Exactly what Democratic leaders promised Manchin, however, remains unclear. Despite the one-page summary that has been released, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) said during a Tuesday teleconference that “there is no connection between voting on the Inflation Reduction Act and then having to vote for the Mountain Valley Pipeline or a permitting bill.” Also, “The deal was (that) in exchange for getting an agreement on the Inflation Reduction Act, we will have the opportunity to debate and vote on permitting improvements, but no one’s made commitments about how they’re going to vote, and I’m certainly not going to make a commitment until I see what that bill is,” he said.

Valeria Rivadeneira, a spokesperson for Virginia Sen. Mark Warner (D), said the senator would review the proposal “once the full legislative text is made available.”

Originally expected to be completed by 2018, Mountain Valley Pipeline has been hampered by staunch opposition in both Virginia and West Virginia, hundreds of environmental violations and a string of successful legal challenges in the 4th Circuit that have repeatedly stripped the project of necessary federal permits. Construction has proved especially halting along a Southwest Virginia corridor that crosses through part of the Jefferson National Forest in Giles, Craig and Montgomery counties.

This summer, with few immediate breakthroughs evident, the developers sought permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has authority over pipeline construction, to extend its deadline another four years.

With delays and costs mounting, investors have become increasingly skeptical that the pipeline will ever be completed. In a February filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, project investor NextEra Energy wrote that “continued legal and regulatory challenges have resulted in a very low probability of pipeline completion.”

The deal with Manchin could change all that. Amid news of the agreement, shares in lead pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream soared to a three-month high Tuesday.

“MVP is being recognized as a critical infrastructure project that is essential for our nation’s energy security, energy reliability, and ability to effectively transition to a lower-carbon future,” Equitrans spokesperson Natalie Cox wrote in an email.

More than 300,000 miles of natural gas pipelines exist in the U.S., she noted in a lengthy statement. “None of these existing pipelines have undergone the extensive level of environmental research, analysis and review that has been performed on the MVP project.”

The reforms to the federal energy permitting process outlined in the summary document, which would include timelines for permitting reviews and a statute of limitations for court challenges, leave Virginia environmental groups in a tight spot. Organizations that last week hailed the sudden reappearance of federal climate action are now left scrambling to decide whether they can swallow a deal that includes Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project many have spent years opposing.

“We’re not going to sit by and roll over and let Southwest Virginia be a sacrifice zone,” Williams told the Mercury Tuesday after leading a demonstration in downtown Richmond calling on Biden to declare a climate emergency, one of many organized by activists nationwide. “But we don’t want to blow up the deal. It’s a fine line.”

We don’t want to blow up the deal. It’s a fine line. Some groups have already come out in opposition.

“We firmly oppose any approach by Congress that sacrifices frontline communities as part of a political bargain,” said Jessica Sims, Virginia field coordinator for environmental and economic development nonprofit Appalachian Voices, in a statement. The group’s North Carolina field coordinator, Ridge Graham, called any legislation requiring completion of Mountain Valley “unacceptable.”

But others were reluctant to speak on the record, indicating they are still sorting out their stances in a rapidly evolving situation.

Regardless of the Manchin deal, Kaine on Tuesday emphasized the need for reforms to federal pipeline permitting, saying he thought FERC’s initial review of Mountain Valley had been “shoddy.” Also, “I view many of the controversies that are connected with the Mountain Valley Pipeline as having been sort of stoked by an inadequate federal permitting process through FERC,” he said, citing “in particular the unwillingness or inability of FERC to get information out to the public and appropriately take public comment and then take that into account in terms of deciding (a) whether a pipeline was necessary and (b) whether the proposed route was the right route.”

A spokesperson later said that Sen. Kaine believes improving permitting “is preferable to having members of Congress decide outcomes on individual energy infrastructure projects.”

Both Kaine and Warner, as well as Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, have previously proposed federal legislation to change the federal review process for proposals and clarify when eminent domain can be exercised. Those bills were crafted in response to not only Mountain Valley Pipeline but the Dominion Energy and Duke Energy-backed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have stretched from West Virginia to North Carolina via Virginia but was canceled in July 2020.

Floating solar panels now in use

From an Article by Gabrielle See, CNBC Cable News, May 18, 2022

ARTICLE PHOTO ~ Power workers inspect photovoltaic power generation facilities at a 35 MW “fish-light complementary” photovoltaic power station in Binhai New Area, Haian City, East China’s Jiangsu Province, on March 15, 2022.

Record-high coal and gas prices have been pushing prices higher for consumers and businesses alike, but there could be a silver lining. According to the findings of climate analytics firm TransitionZero, it is now cheaper to switch from coal to clean energy, compared to switching from coal to gas — thanks to the falling cost of renewables and battery storage, coupled with the rising volatility of gas prices.

“The carbon price needed to incentivize the switch from coal generation to renewable energy for storage has dipped to a negative price,” said Jacqueline Tao, an analyst at TransitionZero. “So essentially that means that you can actually switch to renewables at a cost saving,” she told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Wednesday.

The report claims that the global average cost of switching from coal to renewable energy has plunged by 99% since 2010, compared to switching from coal to gas.

Using its Coal to Clean Carbon Price Index — or C3PI project — the company measured the carbon price level it takes to motivate 25 countries to switch fuels, from existing coal to renewables such as new onshore wind or solar photovoltaics plus battery.

Their findings show that the carbon price required to incentivize the coal-to-clean energy switch has plummeted to -$62 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted on average in 2022. That’s compared to $235/tCO2 to incentive them to switch from coal to gas.

This challenges the place of natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to transition from coal to clean energy like wind, solar and other renewables. Traditionally, gas has been considered a bridge from coal to renewables because burning gas has a lower carbon intensity than burning coal.

The coal-to-clean carbon price varies across regions, and the picture isn’t “as rosy” in Asia compared to the European Union due to differences in market structure and fuel price mechanisms, Tao said.

Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam still face a relatively high cost of transitioning directly to renewables from coal. According to Tao, these countries have traditionally lagged in the renewable energy transition due to fossil fuel subsidies for domestic producers of coal and gas.

Hedging against climate risks

But beyond cost savings, renewable energy also helps “enhance energy security concerns,” Tao said.

Investing in renewables provides a hedge against climate change risks, she told CNBC. “Banks are increasingly finding it risky to lend to these fossil fuel assets in the concern that they will become stranded assets in the near term down the road due to the global energy transition,” she explained.

“That’s going to mean that there’s going to be limited upstream supply that’s going to come online, and we are going to see increasingly tight gas markets and fossil fuel markets in general that will be prone to demand and supply shocks.”

On the other hand, fossil fuel infrastructures could face physical risks as a result of climate change and extreme-weather events, she added. “We think that investing in renewable energy now would provide a hedge.”

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NOTE ~ Waiting for Godot | Summary, Characters, & Facts | Britannica

“Waiting for Godot” is a tragicomedy in two acts by Irish writer Samuel Beckett that was published in 1952 in French as “En attendant Godotand” first produced in 1953. “Waiting for Godot” was a true innovation in drama and the Theatre of the Absurd’s first theatrical success.

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) may be accepted sources of power

Article by Jeff St. John, Green Tech Media, September 17, 2020

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has passed a long-awaited order to open up the country’s wholesale energy markets to distributed energy resources (DERs) like rooftop solar, behind-the-meter batteries and electric vehicles.

Now comes the hard part: creating market rules that allow these DERs to play in bulk energy markets while retaining the role of state regulators and utilities to maintain the soundness of their distribution grid operations and retail DER programs.

Order 2222, passed by a 2-1 vote Thursday during FERC’s open meeting in Washington, D.C., is the culmination of years of work on how to allow DER aggregations to compete in the energy, capacity and ancillary services markets operated by the regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) that manage the transmission grids carrying electricity to about two-thirds of the country.

The new order is an outgrowth of FERC Order 841, passed in 2018 to set similar rules for batteries and other energy storage systems to serve in wholesale markets. But with its much broader scope, Order 2222 could have an even more profound impact on the value of DERs in U.S. markets, as well as the operations of its wholesale markets.

“DERs can hide in plain sight in our homes, businesses and communities, but their power is mighty,” FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee said at Thursday’s meeting. Projections indicate that from 65 gigawatts to more than 380 gigawatts of DERs could be added to the country’s power grids over the next four years, he noted.

“Today’s order is designed to capitalize on those shifts,” he said. “[It] will help us increase competition and efficiencies in our markets. It will enhance grid flexibility and reliability attributes. And it will stimulate the kind of innovation that’s needed to keep pace with our ever-evolving energy demand.”

DERs do participate in wholesale energy markets today, but almost exclusively under traditional demand-response constructs that limit their full effectiveness, he said. This status quo represents a violation of FERC’s responsibility to assure “just and reasonable” rates for electricity consumers, which serves as the basis of issuing the new order, according to Chatterjee.

Aggregated rooftop solar, batteries, EV chargers, grid-responsive water heaters and air conditioners, and other DERs can be installed much more quickly than large-scale resources in locations where “price signals indicate they’re most needed,” driving down congestion costs and reducing market inefficiencies that add to customers’ electricity bills, Chatterjee said.

They’re also “more nimble,” with inverters and software controls that allow them to “serve multiple functions” and “meet various grid needs as they arise,” he said. Batteries, EV chargers and other fast-acting resources have already proven their ability to regulate grid frequencies and deliver localized capacity in utility pilot projects across the country.

A big challenge: Merging distribution grids and retail programs with wholesale markets

But much like Order 841, the new DER order ushers in a complex set of challenges for grid operators, utilities and state regulators to align the rules for operating behind-the-meter assets connected to low-voltage distribution grids to those governing bulk markets.

Those cross-jurisdictional complications have already drawn the opposition of state regulator and utility groups. In June, a federal court denied their efforts to challenge Order 841 on the grounds that FERC can’t impose rules on DERs connected to distribution grids under state regulations. The court also denied a request for states to be able to “opt out” of participating in Order 841-created markets.

That court victory has given FERC confidence to assert broad authority over how DERs beyond energy storage assets can take part in wholesale markets under Order 2222, Chatterjee said. For example, the order doesn’t offer states the option of opting out of the market structures that ISOs and RTOs will create to comply with it.

But it does offer small utilities — those whose annual electricity sales are below 4 million megawatt-hours — an opportunity to decide not to opt into those markets, to avoid “overburdening them” with the costs and complexities of complying, Chatterjee noted.

And much like Order 841, the new DER construct will give states and utilities “the authority to oversee the interconnection of individual DERs,” he said. That’s a key concern, given that DERs have significant impacts on distribution grid operations and reliability.

Order 2222 also requires RTOs and ISOs to “establish a comprehensive process ensuring distribution utilities can review the individual DERs that [are the constituent parts of] an aggregation,” Chatterjee said. “We understand the importance of real-time coordination to guarantee safe and reliable operations of both the transmission and distribution systems.”

Finally, FERC’s order will allow state regulators to set up rules to avoid the market distortions that could arise from DERs earning money for the same services simultaneously from utility retail programs and wholesale markets, he said.

FERC Commissioner Richard Glick, a Democrat who has opposed Chatterjee and FERC’s other Republican commissioners on many issues, including capacity market rules for mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM and New York grid operator NYISO that are expected to have a negative impact on clean energy resources, offered his full support of Order 2222.

With DERs becoming a more and more integral part of the country’s electric grid, “options for the supply of energy, capacity and ancillary services will increase” as the ruling is implemented, he said. Order 2222 will also “enhance reliability as ISO and RTO operators will have greater visibility into behind-the-meter” DERs, something they lack today, he pointed out.

The next steps in sequence for the new plans

Order 2222 will go into effect in 60 days, and RTOs and ISOs will have 270 days to create compliance filings on how they’ll implement it. The timeline for full implementation will likely take longer, however, given the experience with Order 841, which some grid operators have already implemented in part or in full but others are still working on.

“This is undoubtedly a game-changer, in some ways more profound than its sibling Order 841,” said Ravi Manghani, head of solar research for Wood Mackenzie. “I think the key action now moves to individual ISOs and RTOs. Each will interpret and implement tariffs based on their respective market realities.”

As for potential pushback from distribution utilities, “the order provides sufficient cover on metering and telemetry and expected jurisdictional coordination,” Manghani said.

There are certainly some complexities to be worked out, however. Allowing utilities and state regulators to manage DER interconnection rules to prevent them from destabilizing distribution grids through wholesale market operations could present challenges for ISOs and RTOs. So could state regulator rules seeking to differentiate between retail and wholesale market participation.

Clean energy groups including the Solar Energy Industries Association, Advanced Energy Economy and the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) expressed support of FERC’s new order in Thursday statements.

“Integrating aggregated DERs will lower consumer costs, increase electric reliability and unlock the potential for new innovation,” Gregory Wetstone, ACORE president and CEO, wrote. On the other hand, FERC’s orders for PJM’s and NYISO’s capacity markets “erect barriers to the entry of new technologies” in those markets, he said — a fact that could bear on how state-supported, carbon-free DERs are valued in them.

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See also: ‘Game-changer’: FERC order opens door for renewables, Arianna Skibell, E&E News, September 18, 2020

Wind farms are already operating in the Allegheny Highlands of WV

From an Article by Tara Lohan, The Revelator, May 30, 2020

The first official tallies are in: Coronavirus-related shutdowns helped slash daily global emissions of carbon dioxide by 14 percent in April. But the drop won’t last, and experts estimate that annual emissions of the greenhouse gas are likely to fall only about 7 percent this year.

After that, unless we make substantial changes to global economies, it will be back to business as usual — and a path that leads directly to runaway climate change. If we want to reverse course, say the world’s leading scientists, we have about a decade to right the ship.

That’s because we’ve squandered a lot of time. “The 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s were lost decades for preventing global climate disaster,” political scientist Leah Stokes writes in her new book Short Circuiting Policy, which looks at the history of clean energy policy in the U.S.

But we don’t all bear equal responsibility for the tragic delay.

“Some actors in society have more power than others to shape how our economy is fueled,” writes Stokes, an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “We are not all equally to blame.”

This book Short Circuiting Policy focuses on the role of one particularly bad actor: electric utilities. Their history of obstructing a clean-energy transition in the U.S. has been largely overlooked, with most of the finger-pointing aimed at fossil fuel companies (and for good reason).

We spoke with Stokes about this history of delay and denial from the utility industry, how to accelerate the speed and scale of clean-energy growth, and whether we can get past the polarizing rhetoric and politics around clean energy.

QUESTION — What lessons can we learn from your research to guide us right now, in what seems like a really critical time in the fight to halt climate change?

PROF. STOKES — What a lot of people don’t understand is that to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we actually have to reduce emissions by around 7-8 percent every single year from now until 2030, which is what the emissions drop is likely to be this year because of the COVID-19 crisis.

So think about what it took to reduce emissions by that much and think about how we have to do that every single year.

It doesn’t mean that it’s going to be some big sacrifice, but it does mean that we need government policy, particularly at the federal level, because state policy can only go so far. We’ve been living off state policy for more than three decades now and we need our federal government to act.

Where are we now, in terms of our progress on renewable energy and how far we need to go?

A lot of people think renewable energy is growing “so fast” and it’s “so amazing.” But first of all, during the coronavirus pandemic, the renewable energy industry is actually doing very poorly. It’s losing a lot of jobs. And secondly, we were not moving fast enough even before the coronavirus crisis, because renewable energy in the best year grew by only 1.3 percent.

Right now we’re at around 36-37 percent clean energy. That includes nuclear, hydropower and new renewables like wind, solar and geothermal. But hydropower and nuclear aren’t growing. Nuclear supplies about 20 percent of the grid and hydro about 5 percent depending on the year. And then the rest is renewable. So we’re at about 10 percent renewables, and in the best year, we’re only adding 1 percent to that.

Generally, we need to be moving about eight times faster than we’ve been moving in our best years. (To visualize this idea, I came up with the narwhal curve.)

QUESTION — How do we overcome these fundamental issues of speed and scale?

PROF. STOKES — We need actual government policy that supports it. We have never had a clean electricity standard or renewable portfolio standard at the federal level. That’s the main law that I write all about at the state level. Where those policies are in place, a lot of progress has been made — places like California and even, to a limited extent, Texas.

We need our federal government to be focusing on this crisis. Even the really small, piecemeal clean-energy policies we have at the federal level are going away. In December Congress didn’t extend the investment tax credit and the production tax credit, just like they didn’t extend or improve the electric vehicle tax credit.

And now during the COVID-19 crisis, a lot of the money going toward the energy sector in the CARES Act is going toward propping up dying fossil fuel companies and not toward supporting the renewable energy industry.

So we are moving in the wrong direction.

QUESTION— Clean energy hasn’t always been such a partisan issue. Why did it become so polarizing?

PROF. STOKES— What I argue in my book, with evidence, is that electric utilities and fossil fuel companies have been intentionally driving polarization. And they’ve done this in part by running challengers in primary elections against Republicans who don’t agree with them.

Basically, fossil fuel companies and electric utilities are telling Republicans that you can’t hold office and support climate action. That has really shifted the incentives within the party in a very short time period.

It’s not like the Democrats have moved so far left on climate. The Democrats have stayed in pretty much the same place and the Republicans have moved to the right. And I argue that that’s because of electric utilities and fossil fuel companies trying to delay action.

And their reason for doing that is simply about their bottom line and keeping their share of the market?

Exactly. You have to remember that delay and denial on climate change is a profitable enterprise for fossil fuel companies and electric utilities. The longer we wait to act on the crisis, the more money they can make because they can extract more fossil fuels from their reserves and they can pay more of their debt at their coal plants and natural gas plants. So delay and denial is a money-making business for fossil fuel companies and electric utilities.

There’s been a lot of research, reporting and even legal action in recent years about the role of fossil fuel companies in discrediting climate science. From reading your book, it seems that electric utilities are just as guilty. Is that right?

Yes, far less attention has been paid to electric utilities, which play a really critical role. They preside over legacy investments into coal and natural gas, and some of them continue to propose building new natural gas.

They were just as involved in promoting climate denial in the 1980s and 90s as fossil fuel companies, as I document in my book. And some of them, like Southern Company, have continued to promote climate denial to basically the present day.

But that’s not the only dark part of their history.

Electric utilities promoted energy systems that are pretty wasteful. They built these centralized fossil fuel power plants rather than having co-generation plants that were onsite at industrial locations where manufacturing is happening, and where you need both steam heat — which is a waste product from electricity — and the electricity itself. That actually created a lot of waste in the system and we burned a lot more fossil fuels than if we had a decentralized system.

The other thing they’ve done in the more modern period is really resisted the energy transition. They’ve resisted renewable portfolio standards and net metering laws that allow for more clean energy to come onto the grid. They’ve tried to roll them back. They’ve been successful in some cases, and they’ve blocked new laws from passing when targets were met.

QUESTION — You wrote that, “Partisan polarization on climate is not inevitable — support could shift back to the bipartisanship we saw before 2008.” What would it take to actually make that happen?

PROF. STOKES — Well, on the one hand, you need to get the Democratic Party to care more about climate change and to really understand the stakes. And if you want to do that, I think the work of the Justice Democrats is important. They have primary-challenged incumbent Democrats who don’t care enough about climate change. That is how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected. She was a primary challenger and she has really championed climate action in the Green New Deal.

The other thing is that the public supports climate action. Democrats do in huge numbers. Independents do. And to some extent Republicans do, particularly young Republicans.

So communicating the extent of public concern on these issues is really important because, as I’ve shown in other research, politicians don’t know how much public concern there is on climate change. They dramatically underestimate support for climate action.

I think the media has a really important role to play because it’s very rare that a climate event, like a disaster that is caused by climate change, is actually linked to climate change in media reporting.

But people might live through a wildfire or a hurricane or a heat wave, but nobody’s going to tell them through the media that this is climate change. So we really need our reporters to be doing a better job linking people’s lived experiences to climate change.

QUESTION — With economic stimulus efforts ramping up because of the COVD-19 pandemic, are we in danger of missing a chance to help boost a clean energy economy?

PROF. STOKES — I think so many people understand that stimulus spending is an opportunity to rebuild our economy in a way that creates good-paying jobs in the clean-energy sector that protects Americans’ health.

We know that breathing dirty air makes people more likely to die from COVID-19. So this is a big opportunity to create an economy that’s more just for all Americans.

But unfortunately, we really are not pivoting toward creating a clean economy, which is what we need to be doing. This is an opportunity to really focus on the climate crisis because we have delayed for more than 30 years. There is not another decade to waste.

PJM Grid Generation Outlook to 2040

From an Article by Chloe Holden, Green Tech Media, May 20, 2019

Solar and wind have struggled to compete against a flood of cheap natural gas in the largest U.S. wholesale power market, operated by PJM, the Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland Interconnect System which includes the electrical grid in the middle Atlantic states even WV, Ohio, Indiana, and VA.

Interconnection queue requests across all the major North American markets show that over 90 percent of new requests now consist of solar, wind and storage. This is the result of state-level policies and declining costs.

Even in PJM, where natural gas has dominated the generation queue, new requests are now giving way to wind, solar and battery storage projects. (PJM is the country’s leader for front-of-the-meter storage, though it will likely be overtaken by California in 2020.)

However, as utilities replace retiring coal assets in PJM, coal capacity has been replaced at almost a one-for-one rate with new combined-cycle natural-gas generation. Over the last several years, 29 gigawatts of retiring coal plants in PJM have been replaced with 23 gigawatts of natural gas, according to a recent Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables webinar.

PJM Generation Outlook (GW) is shown the color graphic insert above.

PJM’s natural-gas plant building boom has been centered in northeast Pennsylvania, with additional recent activity in southwest Pennsylvania, West Virginia and eastern Ohio, near natural-gas resources. Operation costs are low and gas supplies plentiful, driving the cost of electricity down.

Because of this plentiful natural gas, wind and solar are not yet competing with natural gas on price in PJM when it comes to replacing coal. Wood Mackenzie’s analysts contrasted PJM with Texas’ ERCOT territory, where wind and solar dominate the generation queue.

In ERCOT, plenty of coal plants have been retired, including 4 gigawatts in 2018 alone. Prices in ERCOT’s energy-only market are not consistently high enough to make the market attractive for new natural-gas development. Wind and solar are picking up the slack; even small solar installations under 1 megawatt have flourished, nearly doubling capacity in just two years from 2016 to 2018.

With PJM’s natural-gas boom in full swing, will the region be locked into natural-gas generation for the lifetime of today’s new plants?

Wood Mackenzie analysis for 20 years out suggests gas will continue to make up around 40 percent of the generation mix, barring dramatic changes to how the energy mix is determined. Resources still must compete in an open market, and PJM holds a forward capacity auction three years in advance. (This year’s 2022/2023 Base Residual Auction will be held in August 2019.)

While front-of-the-meter renewables struggle to gain ground relative to natural gas in PJM due to low prices, one area to keep an eye on is flexibility and distributed energy resources in PJM. Organizations like the Solar Energy Industries Association argue that to level the playing field in PJM, grid operators will need to evolve power markets in order to take advantage of “inverter-based resources.”

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs)

Recent developments have shown what’s possible, as changes to wholesale markets are poised to bring more storage and DERs into the mix in the independent system operator and regional transmission organization footprints. FERC Order 841 has nudged market operators to take a closer look at storage, although the commission still has to rule on the pending DER proceeding.

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See Also: PJM and Argonne National Laboratory Collaborate to Study Guidelines for Solar Resources, PJM News Release, April 2, 2019

From Dominion Energy Virginia’s 2018 Integrated Resource Plan

From an Essay by Ivy Main, Power for the People VA, May 22, 2019

Recently I criticized a Dominion Energy advertisement that boasted, misleadingly and inaccurately, about the company’s investments in solar energy.

By contrast, the company’s investments in greenwashing are transparent and heartfelt. Dominion has suffered through several bad months here in Virginia and would very much like to change the conversation.

Indeed, the company’s problems keep mounting. In the course of just two days this month, SCC commissioners lit into the company for telling Wall Street one thing and regulators another; the corporate customers behind Virginia’s data center boom filed a letter saying they want no part of Dominion’s fracked-gas build-out; and a coalition of libertarian, environmental and social justice groups called for a breakup of Dominion’s monopoly.

Fortunately, Dominion’s PR offensive was only just ramping up. A full-page newspaper ad, predictably light on detail, promises the company will cut its climate-heating methane emissions in half. That would be a nice trick from the company whose Atlantic Coast Pipeline will be responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all Virginia’s power plants put together.

In case you doubt the company’s sincerity, Dominion just joined a corporate coalition calling for a price on carbon. This must have been in the works about the same time Dominion was criticizing Virginia’s proposed entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which actually puts a price on carbon.

Hey, The Washington Post fell for it. Greenwashing works.

And that brings us to the (literally) incredible claim that recently appeared in Dominion Energy’s Twitter feed: “The future of our planet depends on clean energy, which is why more than 85% of our generation comes from clean energy sources such as solar.”

Let us pause for a moment to reflect that this tweet comes from a company whose solar generation amounts to a rounding error.

Dominion Energy Virginia’s most recent Integrated Resource Plan includes a handy pie chart revealing what is actually in its energy mix:

Nuclear: 33% — Natural gas: 32% — Coal: 18% —
Purchased (wholesale) power: 10% (that’s coal and gas)
Non-Utility Generation (purchased under contract): 5% (more coal)
Renewable: 2% (almost all hydro and biomass, plus a smidgen of solar) and Oil: 0%

Now, it is true that Dominion Energy the holding company owns more generation than Dominion Energy Virginia the electric utility. For one thing, it just bought another utility in South Carolina. According to the information Dominion provided to investors in March, its South Carolina generation looks like this:

Natural gas: 39% — Coal: 36% — Nuclear: 21% — Hydro: 3%

Nobody looking at these figures could find a basis in reality for a claim of 85% clean energy. It is so preposterous that I just have to ask: Why only 85%?

I mean, seriously, if you have traveled this far into the realm of fantasy, why not claim 100%? Or heck, with a nod to Spinal Tap, why not 110%? Clearly the people making this stuff up are rank amateurs.

All of which is to say: come on, Dominion, you can do better.

WV repealed a renewable energy portfolio standard in 2015

Letter by Joey James and Evan Hansen, Charleston Gazette, March 18, 2018

For many years, private and government forecasts have predicted sharp declines in Central Appalachian coal production in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee. These declines have occurred, largely as predicted, and our region has suffered.

Even after Donald Trump’s election, headlines tell stories of miners losing their jobs, mines closing, companies filing for bankruptcy and decreases in severance tax revenues — which have significant impacts on local economies and the wellbeing of Central Appalachia’s people.

Meanwhile, in what seems like an entirely different world, investment across the country in renewable energy is at an all-time high. While our coal-fired power plants are closing, new plants fueled by natural gas, wind farms and solar arrays are being built in large numbers. In recent years, global investments in renewables were more than double those for new coal and natural gas generation.

There is no silver bullet to solve Central Appalachia’s economic woes, and modernizing our region’s generation portfolio is only part of the solution. However, when taken together, three state-sponsored incentives have been proven to attract significant investments, and at this point, that is what we need — significant investments.

If Central Appalachia wishes to promote growth in the renewable energy industry, the following policies should receive support:
• Renewable portfolio standards.
• Renewable portfolio standards require
• electricity producers to integrate a certain amount of renewable energy. Most states have an RPS, and in 2016, the 29 states with an RPS and Washington, D.C., accounted for nearly 75 percent of our nation’s GDP. States without an RPS contributed just over 16 percent. The rest have enacted voluntary goals rather than standards. No Central Appalachian states have enacted mandatory standards, and only Virginia has enacted a goal.
• Net metering.
• For electric customers that generate their own electricity, net metering allows for the flow of electricity both to and from the customer — typically through a bi-directional meter. When generation exceeds use, electricity from the customer flows back to the grid, offsetting electricity consumed at other times. All Central Appalachian states, with the exception of Tennessee, have enacted legislation that enables net metering.
• Property-assessed clean energy financing.
• Property-assessed clean energy financing allows commercial property owners to borrow money for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and repay the amount borrowed through an assessment added to their tax bill. Kentucky and Virginia have passed PACE-enabling legislation. West Virginia and Tennessee should follow suit.

Worldwide, private sector champions of the 21st century economy are making vigorous commitments to sustainability and renewable energy. Google, for example, powers 100 percent of its operations, including many data centers, with renewable energy through power-purchase agreements.

Amazon, another quintessential 21st century business, is committed to achieving 100 percent renewable energy across its global infrastructure and is currently constructing wind and solar farms in Ohio, Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina. When completed, these installations will deliver more than 1.6 million megawatt-hours of renewable energy into the electric grids that power Amazon Web Services’ cloud data centers.

Attracting investments, jobs and tax revenues from these types of companies will require new policies like the three presented above, and legislatures, state agencies and local governments should act now. New energy jobs are being created across the country — why not here?

NOTE — Joey James and Evan Hansen assist communities across Appalachia on issues related to sustainable economic development. They work for Downstream Strategies and are based out of Morgantown.

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Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations for achievement by 2030 (next 12 years). … The SDGs cover a broad range of social and economic development issues. These include poverty, hunger, health, education, climate change, gender equality, water, sanitation, energy, environment and social justice.

Major Job Losses in Renewable Energy if Current Tax Plan Passes

Source: Renewable Energy

From an Article by Steve Clemmer, Union of Concerned Scientists, December 14, 2017

In March 2017, I testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on how federal tax credits for renewable energy have been a key driver for the recent growth in the U.S. wind and solar industries, creating new jobs, income and tax revenues for local communities. They have also helped drive down the cost of wind and solar power by more than two-thirds since 2009, making renewable energy more affordable for consumers.

Originally enacted as part of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, Congress has extended the Production Tax Credit (PTC) seven times and has allowed it to expire on six occasions. This “on-again/off-again” status resulted in a boom-bust cycle of development in the wind industry. In the years following expiration, installations dropped between 76 and 93 percent, with corresponding job losses. Congress has also extended the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for solar several times.

Finally, after many years of this policy uncertainty, Congress passed a five-year extension and phase-down of the PTC and the ITC for wind and solar in December 2015. The legislation also removed the longstanding U.S. oil export ban, as part of a compromise deal with the oil industry.

Unfortunately, the Senate and House tax bills would renege on this deal and change the rules midstream, resulting in major job losses across the U.S. renewable energy industry. They would also jeopardize tens of billions in investments in renewable energy projects and manufacturing facilities in rural communities across America—many of which are in districts and states held by Republicans and that voted for President Trump.

Senate Tax Bill Undermines Renewable Energy Financing

The renewable energy industry initially praised an earlier version of the Senate tax bill, which honored the 2015 deal and did not make any direct changes to the PTC and ITC. However, the Senate made two last-minute changes to the bill to fill revenue gaps and build support from key Republicans that were concerned about the deficit that would have a significant impact on renewable energy projects.

Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT): One of these last-minute changes was to restore the AMT to fill a $40 billion revenue gap. The proposal in both the Senate and House tax bills to reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent would likely move most U.S. corporations from the regular corporate income tax rate to the AMT (which is also set at 20 percent on a broader tax base), according to tax experts.

However, not all tax credits count toward the AMT and depreciation must be calculated at a slower rate. While the ITC for solar projects can count toward the AMT, the PTC for wind projects (and geothermal, biomass, landfill gas and incremental hydro projects) can only count for the first 4 years out of the 10-year window that projects are eligible to receive the tax credits. Not only would this jeopardize investment in new projects, it would have a retroactive impact on existing projects placed in service after 2007 that are still receiving tax credits under the PTC.

Base-Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT): The Senate also made a last-minute change to the BEAT provision that could greatly reduce tax equity financing for renewable energy projects. BEAT would impose a tax on large corporations that make cross-border payments by requiring them to add those payments to their taxable income. This amount is then multiplied by 10 percent to determine what they owe to the government (except for banks and security dealers, which the Senate raised to 11 percent). These corporations must also calculate their regular tax liability minus any tax credits they receive, including the PTC and the ITC. If their adjusted tax liability is less than the fraction of their taxable income with the cross-border payments, the company would have to pay the difference to the IRS as a tax.

The more tax credits a company has, the more a company is likely to pay, making banks and other large tax equity investors reluctant to finance renewable energy projects. And like the AMT, the BEAT provision would not only impact financing for new projects but could have a retroactive effect on most existing projects that received tax equity financing.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) claims that the Senate bill could threaten $12 billion in annual tax equity financing in 2017, up from $7.3 billion in 2013 (see Figure). They estimate that tax equity financing accounted for 21 percent of the $58.5 billion in total U.S. renewable energy investment in 2016.

The Senate tax bill would have a big impact on companies like JPMorgan, Bank of America, GE, US Bank and Citigroup that led tax equity financing in 2016 for both wind and solar projects, as shown in this BNEF chart.

The BEAT provision would also hurt other energy sources that currently receive tax credits such as refined coal facilities placed in service by December 2011. The coal industry is also speaking out against the AMT, which Bob Murray claims will cost his company $50-60 million in increased taxes and eliminate 65,000 jobs.

House Bill Puts 60,000 Wind Industry Jobs and $50 Billion in New Investment at Risk

While the House bill does not include the AMT or BEAT provisions, it makes several direct changes to the PTC and ITC that would undermine investments in new wind and solar projects and have a retroactive impact on existing projects. These changes include:

• Eliminating the inflation adjustment for the PTC, reducing its value by 38 percent from 2.4 c/kWh under current law to 1.5 c/kWh.

• Changing the commence construction provision, dropping safe harbor provision, and requiring projects to have “continuous construction” to be eligible, which would greatly accelerate the PTC phase-down schedule. When combined with the change to the inflation adjustment, the American Wind Energy Association estimates these two provisions could reduce the value of the PTC by more than half.

• Allowing the permanent 10 percent solar ITC to sunset in 2027.

• Extending the tax credits to “orphan” technologies like geothermal, biopower, landfill gas, and incremental hydro that were largely left out of the 2015 deal to extend the tax credits for wind and solar for 5 years. This is the only positive change in the House bill.

The House bill would cut new wind development by more than half by 2020, according to both Bloomberg and Goldman Sachs. The American Wind Energy Association estimates that the House bill would put 30,000 MW of new wind projects that are under development in the U.S. worth $50 billion of new private investment at risk, along with 60,000 jobs, as shown in this map.

American Wind Energy Association, Protecting American wind workers during tax reform

Making Renewable Energy a Priority in Conference Committee

The provisions in the House bill that renege on Congress’ 2015 compromise deal with the oil industry and drastically cut the value of the PTC are completely unacceptable and should be dropped. The AMT and BEAT provisions in the Senate bill should either be dropped (they are not included in the House bill) or renewable energy tax credits should be excluded—similar to how R&D; tax credits are currently excluded from the BEAT provision.

House and Senate conferees were named last week. They will meet over the next two weeks to resolve key differences, with the goal of delivering a final bill to President Trump by the end of the year.

It is an ominous sign that Sen. Grassley (R-IA), a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, was left off the conference committee. As the father of the PTC, who represents a state that ranks second in installed wind capacity, he has been outspoken about honoring the 2015 deal and working to fix the problems in the Senate and House tax bills. “The wind energy production tax credit is already being phased out under a compromise brokered in 2015. It shouldn’t be re-opened,” Grassley said.

Pro-renewables Senators like Grassley and Susan Collins (R-ME) will have a tough vote to make on the Senate floor if these damaging provisions are not addressed in conference. Maine, for example, has more than 900 MW of existing wind capacity and nearly 300 MW of new solar and wind under development that is potentially at risk.

But there are conferees who represent states with large renewable energy industries, and they are in unique position to make the changes necessary to keep that clean energy momentum going.

• Conferees like Sen. Thune and Rep. Noem from South Dakota, where a wind turbine blade manufacturer from Aberdeen just announced they will be closing and laying off more than 400 people, citing the federal tax bills as one of reasons for this decision. “It’s apparent that the new tax bill will cause some economic disruption and this is one of them,” according to Aberdeen Mayor Mike Levsen. “It’s what happens when government policies turn against industries. It discourages investment.” South Dakota also has 960 MW of wind projects currently under development, representing $1.6 billion in new investment, that is at risk.

• Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) has also said that fixing the BEAT and AMT provisions in the Senate bill will be “clear priorities” for lawmakers in conference

• Sen. Portman (R-OH) is from a state with a strong renewable energy supply chain, including 5,831 solar jobs at 189 companies and more than 2,000 jobs and 61 manufacturing facilities in the wind industry. Ohio also has 560 MW of new wind projects under development and $900 million in new investment that is at risk.

• Other conferees from leading renewable energy states such as Texas, California, Illinois, Washington and Oregon would also experience significant job losses.

The U.S. renewable energy industry has a proven track record of creating new jobs and making new investments in states and rural areas across America. Federal tax reform should encourage rather than discourage U.S. investment in this rapidly growing global industry.

Make sure your members of congress know clean energy is important to you. Tell them to fix the AMT and BEAT provisions, and to leave the renewable energy tax credits alone.

Steve Clemmer is the director of energy research and an expert on the economic and environmental benefits of implementing renewable energy technologies and policies.