Clean Energy Progress Is Trumping Trump’s Fossil Fuels Promo Agenda

As the Trump administration persists in its agenda of shrinking federal clean energy commitments and boosting fossil fuels, the leading U.S. electricity industry trade group and a national environmental organization have some not-fake news for the president: “A clean energy transition is underway and accelerating.”

That conclusion stands despite Trump’s many actions aimed at tilting the United States toward more coal and other fossil fuel use and less renewable energy. Under the president’s proposed 2019 budget proposal, the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would be cut by $1.3 billion to $696 million. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy would be zeroed out. At the same time, fossil energy research and development would receive $502 million, an $81 million increase over 2017. Astonishingly, DOE even delayed four energy-efficiency standards, leading a federal court to rule the delay was illegal.

What these and similar actions demonstrate is that the Trump administration doesn’t understand that “a clean energy transition is irrevocably underway and making extraordinary progress,” says Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s energy program. It is gratifying to see the electricity sector’s leadership “taking ownership of that transition” and “doubling down” on clean energy, he adds.

Recently, the doubling down took the form of an NRDC and Edison Electric Institute joint statement released at the meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. The statement sets forth 21 policy recommendations that will “continue to accelerate the clean energy transition” and that EEI and NRDC will work together on implementing.

Philip D. Moeller, an EEI executive vice president, also underscores that “the trend lines are pretty clear” as to the direction of the U.S. electricity system, which by 2050 will be far different from today, as coal plants expire after normal years of service and clean energy builds out. Moeller says clean energy progress will continue without disruption despite the budget cuts.

For EEI, the priority issues are electricity infrastructure siting and permitting, not funding. If the right policy signals were adopted to eliminate some of the uncertainties, “the capital is out there” for transmission lines and clean energy, Moeller adds. For example, if a potential project crosses federal lands, it is unclear who is in charge as different resources agencies weigh in, sometimes without distinct timelines and a resulting lack of accountability for making decisions. States use the Clean Water Act to deny permits, mainly for pipelines but also for transmission lines.

The joint statement notes that opportunities exist to reduce the cost and contentiousness of permitting and NRDC agrees with that, says Cavanagh. “We’re not agreeing on some kind of wholesale evasion or removal of federal environmental standards,” he says. But environmentalists are realizing that “we can do a better job in permitting essential infrastructure,” and NRDC is prepared to work with EEI to do that, he adds.

As an example, Cavanagh cites the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. The DRECP is a 22.5 million acre zone of public and private lands in California, including 10.8 million federal acres, on which streamlined renewable energy permitting can occur while conserving desert ecosystems. In February, the Department of the Interior announced that it was exploring significant changes to DRECP federal acreage, which Cavanagh says is worrisome. But, he adds, neither DOI nor any other federal agency can stop the momentum described in the joint statement, the fourth NRDC and EEI have issued starting in 2003 but “by far the most comprehensive and ambitious.”

Accelerating progress notwithstanding, barriers remain that EEI and NRDC address with recommendations on how states can improve utilities’ clean energy incentives. Moeller notes that there is uncertainty about ensuring adequate returns for long-term transmission investments, an issue the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by court order must act on and whose resolution will impact clean energy.

For Cavanagh, a critical issue is that too many states continue regulating electricity companies as a commodity business where kilowatt-hour sales dominate all other considerations. As the joint statement makes clear, electricity should be seen as a service industry whose companies need earning opportunities associated with energy efficiency, renewable energy integration, and maintaining a reliable grid.

Don’t look to the Trump infrastructure plan for any help. The words renewable, solar, and wind are not in the plan, unlike oil and gas. But, as Cavanagh sees it, while the federal government can do damage, or be a partner, the most important partner is the electricity sector’s leadership itself and NARUC, trumping even Trump.