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MINING: The federal Bureau of Land Management finds a proposed Nevada lithium mine’s protection plan is adequate to avoid driving an endangered wildflower to extinction. (Associated Press)
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STORAGE: A southern California tribal nation’s proposed microgrid project becomes the first long-duration energy storage system to receive a U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee. (Utility Dive)
ELECTRIFICATION: California advocates criticize the state’s new building efficiency standards for only encouraging heat pumps and other electric appliances in new homes and businesses, not existing ones. (Canary Media)
CLEAN ENERGY: A Nevada nonprofit launches a tool aimed at expanding residents’ access to federal home electrification, rooftop solar, electric vehicle and other clean energy incentives. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
OIL & GAS: The Navajo Nation passes legislation aimed at reducing methane emissions from oil and gas facilities on tribal land. (news release)
CLIMATE: California advocates and scientists urge voters to support a $10 billion climate bond ballot measure, saying investing in resilience will save money in the long-term. (Inside Climate News)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Data show California has acquired, ordered or funded more than 3,000 electric school buses, more than three times that of any other state. (Canary Media)
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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A $4 billion electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant set to open early next year in Kansas has potential to spur massive economic activity and transportation infrastructure upgrades, Gov. Laura Kelly says. (Flatland)
INDUSTRY: Finding customers willing to pay a premium for “green” steel made with clean energy remains a key hurdle as a major steelmaker considers new emission-reduction technology at its Ohio plant. (Canary Media)
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CLEAN ENERGY:
PIPELINES: Indigenous pipeline protestors say praises of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s clean energy record ignore his position that allowed for the Line 3 pipeline expansion. (Mother Jones)
COAL: Converting a Michigan coal plant site to include solar as well as public beaches is part of a Chicago-based environmental group’s broader strategy to repurpose retiring coal plants across the Great Lakes region. (Bridge)
NUCLEAR: Federal regulators say a shuttered Michigan nuclear plant will need more inspections, testing and repairs to its steam generator before the plant can reopen. (WOOD-TV8)
CLIMATE: Climate action plans in southeastern Michigan include work to make community parks more resilient to storms and educating parks officials on climate issues. (Model D)
GRID: Construction is completed on a Nebraska manufacturer’s behind-the-meter microgrid powered by solar and storage, the first of its kind in the state. (Solar Power World)
BIOGAS: A new plant in Nebraska will collect biogas from wastewater streams at a major food producer’s facilities to be converted into pipeline-quality renewable natural gas. (News Channel Nebraska)
COMMENTARY: Michigan officials can maximize the benefits of $156 million in federal Solar for All funding by considering energy justice, focusing on community solar and including weatherization support for rooftop projects, a clean energy advocate writes. (Union of Concerned Scientists)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Owners of General Motors electric vehicles can now install adapters that allow access to Tesla supercharger stations, a move by the automaker to expand charger access and remove range anxiety as a barrier to adoption. (Forbes)
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POLITICS: Minnesota utility executives have played an outsized role in campaign contributions to a Republican candidate looking to upset her Democratic opponent in a crucial Minnesota state Senate race. (Minnesota Reformer)
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EFFICIENCY: A nonprofit receives a $2.8 million federal grant to help Michigan tribal communities adopt energy-efficient building codes and climate adaptation strategies. (WisconsinInno, subscription; news release)
RENEWABLES: City officials in Kalamazoo, Michigan, approve a 20-year contract with Consumers Energy to buy enough wind and solar to power all municipal buildings by 2028. (MLive)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The first electric U.S. Post Office trucks are on the road in Georgia and already winning praise from drivers who prefer them to the previous hot, noisy and inefficient combustion vehicles. (Associated Press)
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UTILITIES:
CLEAN ENERGY: Texas’ plans to build solar, wind and battery projects over the next year and a half dwarf those of any other state, including second-place California. (Canary Media)
HYDROGEN: Utilities in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas are converting existing power plants and building new ones to blend hydrogen with natural gas in an attempt to decarbonize their emissions. (Power Engineering)
CLIMATE:
SOLAR: High interest rates, labor shortages, and foreign competition are jeopardizing the buildout of a domestic solar supply chain, industry leaders say. (Utility Dive)
ELECTRIFICATION: Colorado officials look to regulations, rebates and marketing to prod restaurants to convert from natural gas to electric stoves. (CPR)
GEOTHERMAL: Well tests determine an enhanced geothermal generating station in southwestern Utah is the most productive of its kind in history. (Utility Dive)
COMMENTARY: A professor says the bipartisan permitting bill in Congress is a “Faustian bargain” that expedites fossil fuel development but does little to help clean energy. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Unionized workers at an Ohio electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant lament the partisan divide over EVs, noting that the industry has helped preserve good-paying jobs. (Inside Climate News)
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UTILITIES: Four years since the first arrests were made in the Ohio power plant bailout scandal, the federal government has yet to charge any FirstEnergy executives for their role in the alleged bribery scheme. (Cleveland.com, subscription)
NUCLEAR: Total subsidies for supporting the restart of a Michigan nuclear plant reach $2.4 billion as pushback from anti-nuclear activists intensifies. (Bridge)
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CLEAN ENERGY: State and federal legislation and incentives have helped make Michigan a national leader in clean energy projects and job creation, according to a new report from clean energy analysts. (Metro Times)
SOLAR: Concerned rural landowners in southeastern Nebraska want local officials to adopt zoning regulations for commercial solar development as a company pursues a 100 MW project there. (News Channel Nebraska)
CLIMATE: The second annual Chicago Climate Tech Week returns next week with various events focused on clean energy innovations that are expected to draw about 3,000 people. (Chicago Sun-Times)
It’s been nearly 20 years since states and cities started adopting climate goals, setting themselves on a path toward reducing emissions and rolling out clean energy. Whether they’re actually on track to meet those goals is up for debate.
Advocates across the country have sued municipalities they say are failing on their climate commitments, like those in San Diego who alleged the city’s climate plan lacked funding and a clear timeline, and a group in Vermont that said the state wasn’t complying with its 2020 emissions law.
But in Maine, climate advocates are getting specific with their complaints, the Energy News Network reports. A pending youth-led lawsuit targets the state’s environmental protection agencies, and says they haven’t adopted strong enough regulations to propel the state’s electric vehicle rollout.
The suit centers on Maine’s 2019 climate law. In it, the state said it would focus on cutting emissions from its “most significant sources” — and transportation tops that list. But even though the state has incentivized electric vehicle adoption, it’s still far from meeting its EV goals. So advocates say the state should implement California’s strongest-in-the-nation EV standards, which go even further than federal rules.
Environmental law professor Jennifer Rushlow told ENN that narrow lawsuits like this one tend to be more successful than broad suits that “get kind of lost to politics.” — and can inspire change in public opinion, too.
Read more about Maine’s unique climate lawsuit at the Energy News Network.
💰 More federal spending is coming… Researchers estimate the clean energy transition by 2031 will demand $1 trillion in federal spending — about 15 times what has been distributed so far via the Inflation Reduction Act. (Grist)
🏭 But is it all smart? The U.S. has spent more public money on carbon capture and gas-produced hydrogen than any country, a new report finds, even though the technologies remain unproven as cost-effective climate solutions. (The Guardian)
♻️ A new spin for wind: National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers say they’ve developed a wind turbine blade made from plant materials that can be recycled into new shapes or blades. (New York Times)
👷 Clean jobs report: The Department of Energy says clean energy jobs last year grew at twice the rate of other sectors and saw unionization rates higher than in the broader energy industry. (Reuters)
Dig deeper: The Bureau of Labor Statistics says wind energy is the country’s fastest growing field and projects 60% job growth over the next 10 years. (Axios)
🚘 More power for charging: The Biden administration announces $521 million in grants for electric vehicle charging, and says the number of publicly available chargers has doubled since 2021. (Utility Dive)
☀️ Solar’s bright future: A columnist details how increasingly cheap and widely available solar power will make once-far-fetched applications and technologies possible. (New York Times)
🇺🇲 Plus, some politics
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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The Army Corps of Engineers will reassess the permit it awarded to Hyundai’s planned $7.6 billion electric vehicle and battery factory in Georgia because it says state and local agencies never mentioned the company’s plans to withdraw up to 6.6 million gallons per day from an underground aquifer used for drinking water. (Associated Press)
GRID:
SOLAR: Nonprofits plan to expand a solar cooperative in El Paso, Texas, even though higher inflation and interest rates dampened interest in the program this year. (El Paso Matters)
STORAGE:
OIL & GAS:
GEOTHERMAL: A Houston-based geothermal energy startup signs a deal to build a facility to eventually provide 150 MW to Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. (Houston Chronicle)
NUCLEAR: The director of a University of Kentucky energy center tells state lawmakers nuclear companies are increasingly considering building in the state, but construction of a new nuclear reactor won’t likely occur for at least a decade. (Kentucky Lantern)
CARBON CAPTURE: A Louisiana timber company sells carbon credits for unharvested trees on 100,000 acres, including more than $100 million worth of credits through the end of 2023. (WWNO)
CLIMATE:
COMMENTARY:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: More than a year after Tesla said it would open its Supercharger network to drivers of other electric vehicles, most chargers still remain inaccessible due to software delays and hardware shortages. (New York Times)
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OIL & GAS: Northeast states are leading the way in pursuing compensation from oil companies for economic damages from climate change. (Stateline)
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CLIMATE: A study finds an increase in heat-related deaths between 2018 and 2023, with the vast majority of fatalities occurring in California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas. (Los Angeles Times)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Boston will be able to install at least 300 electric vehicle chargers across the city, focusing on environmental justice communities, using a $15 million federal grant, while Massachusetts park officials will install as many as 40 chargers using a $1.2 million grant. (Boston.com, WHDH)
ALSO: New York City will use a $15 million federal grant to install 600 level-2 curbside chargers throughout the city, although some criticize the plan for permanently taking away street space for other non-private car uses. (amNY, Streetsblog)
POLITICS: Maryland’s election this fall for a U.S. Senate seat could make or break federal climate action. (Inside Climate News)
RENEWABLE POWER:
GEOTHERMAL: A geothermal pilot project in Massachusetts is a rare example of gas companies and environmental activists partnering together for climate action. (Christian Science Monitor)
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A pending youth climate lawsuit in Maine represents the latest iteration of legal strategies aimed at holding states accountable for emissions-cutting targets.
The case is one of a growing number responding to lagging progress on state climate laws that, in many cases, have now been on the books for years. What makes the Maine case unique is its targeted approach — focused on electric vehicle policy as a way to push the state forward on climate action.
The case, filed earlier this year by the nonprofits Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), Sierra Club and Maine Youth Action, argues that the Maine Department and Board of Environmental Protection have fallen short on their legal duty to pass rules that will help achieve Maine’s required emissions reductions.
“There are countless solutions for tackling these various sources of climate-warming pollution,” said CLF senior attorney Emily Green, who is based in Portland, Maine. “But you need something more to make sure that it’s all enough, that it all adds up, and that’s where enforceable standards come in.”
The Maine Attorney General’s office declined to comment, but has moved to dismiss the case. A ruling on next steps is now pending.
The case focuses on a 2019 state law that requires Maine to lower its greenhouse gas emissions 45% from 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050.
Statutes like this are “where the rubber meets the road,” said Columbia Law School professor Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “The regulations are the teeth, the specifics on who needs to do what.”
Such rules translate emissions goals into practical requirements for state executive agencies, processing legislative directive “into what polluters are required to do on a day-to-day basis,” said Jennifer Rushlow, an environmental law professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School.
Maine’s climate law said the state “shall adopt rules to ensure compliance” with the emissions targets, requiring those rules to prioritize reductions “by sectors that are the most significant sources.”
Transportation contributes more than half of Maine’s emissions, and Maine’s climate plan prioritized electric vehicle adoption as a result. But the state is a long way off from its EV targets. It has about 12,300 EVs on the road now, with climate plan goals of 41,000 by next year and 219,000 by 2030.
The CLF suit takes regulators to task for repeatedly failing to adopt California’s latest electric car and truck standards, which some states use as a more stringent alternative to federal rules.
Maine has used California’s Advanced Clean Cars I rule for years, but voted earlier this year against adopting Advanced Clean Cars II, which would have required increasing EV sales in the state over the next several years. It’s also chosen twice not to consider adopting the Advanced Clean Trucks rule.
CLF notes that the state’s climate law requires the adoption of rules that are “consistent with the climate action plan,” first released in 2020. A roadmap for meeting the plan’s transportation goals strongly recommended adopting Clean Cars II, calling it “the most important regulatory driver in the electrification of Maine’s light-duty vehicles in the next two decades.”
In its motion to dismiss the CLF case, the state argues that Maine’s climate law does not require regulators to adopt all climate plan recommendations, or particular ones, as rules.
The state has approved a handful of other rules under the climate law. Two focus on tracking emissions, and two others look at what Green called “narrow slices of the building sector,” the state’s second-largest emissions sector. These rules target hydrofluorocarbons and energy efficiency in appliances.
In their motion, attorneys for the state quote a Maine Supreme Court decision from a separate environmental case earlier this year to argue that it is “simply ‘too uncertain’ … whether future harms will occur that will ‘directly and continuously impact’ any of Plaintiffs’ members.”
CLF’s response lists a range of climate-linked harms that specific members of the plaintiff groups say they’ve already experienced, from increasing tick-borne illness and other health impacts to crop and flood damage.
“Climate change is here. Mainers are feeling the effects from a warming Gulf, from climate-driven storms,” Green said, adding that state lawmakers have repeatedly made similar statements in recent years. “Each day that passes with further inaction is a day wasted.”
The state also argues that the “shifting sands” of state and federal climate policies that could affect Maine’s targets create too much uncertainty around harms from a current lack of transportation rules.
In general, Gerrard said, such factors don’t negate the need for rulemaking. “We are way behind in reducing emissions, and so the fact that other things are happening isn’t going to solve the problem.”
Green said that while Maine has made strides on expanding EV charging infrastructure, for example, “the actual standards are necessary to give that transition the push it needs.”
“Binding rules can basically act as a backstop,” she said. “They can ensure the accountability that the investment and the rebates and the education and outreach, on their own, can’t do.”
The suit’s transportation focus is notable, experts said. “I would say the energy sector is targeted more frequently, and especially the fossil fuel sector,” Gerrard said. Other climate-adjacent transportation cases have focused on vehicle emissions standards, biofuel mandates or highway projects, he said.
Rushlow sees the Maine case as a blend of a 2016 suit, also from CLF, which found that Massachusetts wasn’t fulfilling its 2008 emissions-cutting law, and a suit against the Hawaii Department of Transportation, where a recent settlement will require the decarbonization of Hawaii’s transportation sector by 2045.
Rushlow worked with CLF on the Massachusetts case, but is not involved in the Maine suit and reviewed it after being asked to comment for this story. She said the Maine case lays out why having regulations on transportation emissions is “not just a wish” of the state climate council, but a legal requirement.
“The lawsuits that get really broad can get kind of lost to politics,” said Rushlow. “These lawsuits that are more narrow and focused on the language of particular state laws, I think, can stand a good chance.”
She said there are also more “hooks” to do this at the state level than federally. Gerrard agreed that it’s easier to bring cases under specific statutes than “a constitutional provision or a common law doctrine.”
Both the Hawaii case and the landmark Held v. Montana, which is now on appeal before that state’s Supreme Court, successfully took a state constitutional approach, using their legally given rights to a clean and healthful environment to push for climate progress.
Practical legal results aren’t the only positive impact these cases can have, Rushlow said: “There’s also outcomes in the zeitgeist and public opinion.” Though Juliana v. United States failed in court, she said, it “really drew a lot of attention to the future harm we’re causing our youth — and the current harm.”
But she sees increasing potential for success among a greater share of climate lawsuits just in the past few years, as plaintiffs learn more about how courts are likely to receive different approaches.
“It feels to me like progress is being made,” she said. “But the courts are never the first place you want to go when you’re looking for rapid, systemic change. They’re slow, they’re backward-looking, they’re conservative. And so it’s a challenging forum for the kind of change we need, and yet necessary.”
In Maine, climate groups initially tried a regulatory petition to push for the passage of Clean Cars II.
“When it became entirely evident that that was not going to happen, our hand was sort of forced,” Green said.
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