1/The permitting bill is out and it’s awesome. HUGE congrats to and . This took years (now we can all see why!) against the backdrop of an administration actively hostile to a lot of clean energy the whole time. 🧵
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2/First, the permit certainty stuff is a big deal. You can't legislate good behavior, but you can lock the gun in the safe. If this or any future admin sits on clean energy permits, developers can get to a resolution fast.
3/And if permits get pulled on a pretext, developers get reimbursed for project expenses. That really matters for lining up capital (& for durable decarbonization), bc you can put money to work under the next admin without worrying about the one after.
4/The other piece of permit certainty isn't even in the text. Negotiators reportedly got Trump himself to sign off on several dozen wind projects his admin has been holding up. Dems should trust but verify before the lame duck votes, but this matters!
5/Next, transmission. Without a bigger grid we're building bad inefficient jet engines to power new large loads for the foreseeable future. *Whether* data centers get built is a state and local question, but how the ones that do get built get powered is better bc of this bill.
6/A real path to get connected to the grid means way cleaner and more reliable power. More renewables and nuclear in the mix, and the gas that gets built isn't wacky turbines pulled off the aerospace supply chain.
7/Transmission people tell me this is some of the best language we've ever seen, better than they expected. Interregional AND regional planning, and a backstop process that actually works, with clear, uniform rules on cost allocation.
8/but there’s more! 3 serious interconnection reforms, advanced conductors, VPPs, local transmission oversight, judicial review parity with pipelines, and ratepayer protections with teeth. It’s nuts.
10/New modeling from and Greenline Insights has queue reform plus interregional lines cutting CO2 by 71 million tons in 2035 alone (9%). Lower emissions in every region they looked at, and lower residential bills too!
11/Oh, and data centers finally have to report their power use to EIA. So that's nice.
12/and there’s the environmental reforms: NEPA, NHPA, CWA, ESA. Despite what you might hear, most of these changes are likely to be seriously helpful for clean energy.
13/Especially NEPA (and NHPA). We have decent evidence NEPA already hits renewables and transmission hardest. From 2010-2018 more EISs were done for solar and transmission than anything else, and solar EISs got litigated and projects cancelled more than any other type.
14/And solar was tiny that whole time, 0.03% of US electricity in 2010 and 1.5% in 2018. It's 20x as land intensive as gas including drilling (wind is 200x). The best resource is on federal land in the desert southwest. And the market wants to build it!
usenergydata.org/explorers/ener
15/You really have to contort yourself to believe tech-neutral reforms that make it easier to build big stuff, especially on federal land, won't help clean energy more than anything else. But I'm sensing this is the debate some groups want to have.
16/Permitting involves tradeoffs and hard calls, no question. But this bill is clearly a net positive for climate and for the country. Heartfelt thanks to the senators who got it done. Let’s make it law./end
I am fine with this take. Does it change FERC backstop siting authority? That is the piece I want to see for transmission.