Happy New Year!

Nice recap of a year of climate and energy policy developments in MA. Lots of ups and downs. Ultimately, credit goes to activists and advocates for defeating (or at least postponing) an attempt in the House of Representatives to weaken the state's 2030 climate targets:

If you are a Barnes & Noble Premium or Rewards member, you can pre-order my forthcoming book (or any other book) b/t now and Thursday and receive 25% off, with the code "PREORDER25". #BNPreorder www.barnesandnoble.com/w/owning-the...

#ClimateInTheCourts www.eenews.net/articles/cou...

"The coalition of wind and solar developers charge the administration with violating the Administrative Procedure Act by rewriting longstanding agency processes and legal interpretations to obstruct permitting and construction of renewable energy facilities on public and private lands."

States are pursuing varied strategies when it comes to climate & clean energy policy during Trump 2.0. Sometimes there are major tensions within states, as evidenced by the MA House's inclination to erode past progress & Senate's success in defending it: www.eenews.net/articles/sta...

"Neil Chatterjee, a Republican who served as the chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during Trump’s first term, wrote ... 'I find this to be incredibly reckless ... Now more than ever we need it all.'" www.eenews.net/articles/tru...

"The lawsuit, filed in state court in October, says the data is necessary to determine if State Farm is raising homeowners’ premiums in Illinois to make up for losses in climate-exposed states such as California and Florida." www.eenews.net/articles/sta...

Will 2026 be the year everyone knows what a state-level public utility commission is? I'm biased, but I think that would be pretty cool: www.eenews.net/articles/ele...

The damage that the "hoax," as the president and his enablers call it, of climate change has wrought on just one U.S. state-- and not even the most vulnerable one: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/11/s...

I talked to @michellegoldberg.bsky.social about how this was the year when elites folded to fascism and regular people said "fuck no" www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/o...

New extraordinary reporting affirms our studies—from the man at the center of our network map. “The Brown study actually was fairly accurate about writing down all the people involved. … I was probably the common denominator for those groups,” said Stevenson. www.canarymedia.com/articles/off...

Wow this story. Want to understand the opposition to wind energy? See what @timmonsroberts.bsky.social has been telling us ...

It has been a bracing moment for American federalism, with both unprecedented efforts to extend executive control over state and local govts, novel forms of subnational resistance. Where is federalism going? Paul Nolette and I have edited a new issue of Publius on that question. Short thread:

This story exemplifies how clean energy policies can be effectively framed as being about "energy freedom" in red states (a strategy whose potenital I elaborate on in my MIT Technology Review Op-Ed): insideclimatenews.org/news/1412202...

The rush to build and connect data centers risks the most basic, job #1 of grid operators: ensure reliability. www.utilitydive.com/news/ferc-pj...

We're seeing this across the country, from Michigan to Louisiana: monopoly utilities and big tech companies pressuring regulators to rush approval of massive bilateral deals, without regard for uncertainty about impacts on ordinary ratepayers: www.eenews.net/articles/mic...

#ClimateInTheCourts www.utilitydive.com/news/appeals...

This article does a good job of explaining the politics of FERC's PJM co-location order: heatmap.news/energy/ferc-...

PacifiCorp filed a partial motion to dismiss a complaint Amazon Data Services submitted to Oregon regulators alleging the utility had breached agreements to provide electric service to four data centers. #energysky 🔌💡 See Full Story: ow.ly/ZWVX50XNUk3#energyskyWriter: Robert Mullin

Those in search of optimism on the climate and clean energy front can still look to the states. This year has posed unprecedented challenges, for sure, and the federal administration seems to have no respect for states' rights when they disagree with states' policies but ... (1/2)

For a counterpoint to the current federal administration's misguided energy policies, look not to a blue state, but the state of Texas: no renewable energy mandates there, they just let the market pick the winners and it's solar plus storage: insideclimatenews.org/news/1012202...

To the degree IOUs win on ROE proceedings in California -- a politically progressive state with an intervenor compensation program and whose largest IOU has gone through bankruptcy twice in as many decades -- they can be expected to win anywhere: www.eenews.net/articles/cal...

Translation: monopoly utilities and big tech companies can now work out mutually beneficial deals in private and then rush them through without any say from the captive ratepaying public. www.eenews.net/articles/lou...

Dominion's offshore wind project, which the Trump administration has frozen, would deliver two and a half gigawatts of capacity to a regional grid (PJM) in which prices are currently out of control. This administration is making your electricity more expensive. Period, full stop.

“National security issues”: www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

“I’ve found that the best antidote to political trauma is political activism.”

Good! And thank you to the lawmakers pushing this: www.eenews.net/articles/wat...

"Left-wing climate lunacy" is not what's making property insurance unavailable or unaffordable. A warming planet is causing that. Regardless of your politics, you should want to live in a country whose government isn't blind to future risks and realities. www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

I suspect we will see property insurance companies increasingly targeted by politicians on both sides of the aisle. Climate change & the increasing extreme weather events it causes is inextricably linked to growing cost & scarcity of property insurance: www.eenews.net/articles/okl...

This bill would trample states' sovereignty over their energy policy, and punish ratepayers, rather than acknowledging premature interconnection of data centers as the real reliability problem: www.eenews.net/articles/hou...

Sociology established 50+yrs ago that generalists outperform specialists in fast-changing economies. That goes for ppl as well as firms. Rapid change means you have no way to know which skills will be most useful a few years hence: best to acquire a generalist skillset, as the liberal arts offers.

The Abundance movement often points to environmental groups as the obstacles to building. But who actually files the lawsuits blocking projects? It’s not environmental groups. It’s been lawyered-up HOAs protecting property values all along. Regulation by litigation is the problem.

The Environmental Protection Agency continues its march toward becoming, in effect, the "[Pro-] Environmental Pollution Agency." www.eenews.net/articles/epa...

" ... Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration indicates that states that have moved to quickly adopt renewable energy — red and blue states together — have seen below-average electricity costs." subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...

New Jersey too: www.eenews.net/articles/cli...

Cross-national electricity transmission between Canada and the U.S. is under-appreciated, and key to the clean power aspirations of the New England states, especially with the current U.S. federal government: www.eenews.net/articles/new...

Utility commission appointments are one of the tools (in an insufficient toolbox) that governors currently have to control electricity rates: www.eenews.net/articles/ind...

No surprise here. They choose donors over voters every time. www.eenews.net/articles/tru...

"EPA received more than a half-million comments on the draft but has uploaded fewer than 31,000 to the rule’s public docket."

The effort to save the Endangerment Finding -- on the part of the scientific community and litigious (in the best sense of the word) NGOs -- has been nothing short of heroic. Not to sugarcoat the dire situation our country is in, but EPA is being stymied: www.eenews.net/articles/why...

As an increasing number of U.S. states are off track to meeting their statutory GHG targets, other climate policy instruments must be considered. "Climate superfund" idea, which seems to be gaining traction in a number of states, is well-suited for the populist moment in which we find ourselves:

“Prices of electricity and everything else will be falling rapidly.” -DJT, 12/17/25 Let’s see about that …

Huge good news: as documented by Ben Storrow of @eenews.bsky.social, the NECEC transmission line was activated around 1 PM today & is feeding power from Quebec to the #NewEngland grid! This means lower emissions and lower prices, and we can already see the latter./1 www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Local control can be an obstacle to siting wind and solar. But it can also be an obstacle to siting data centers. Both of these things have implications for electric power sector emissions reductions: www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

Important new white paper from the brilliant @shelley-w.bsky.social. U.S. electricity system planning can learn some important lessons from the UK: kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/wp-content/u...

More evidence that climate change is remaking the property insurance landscape, and not just in California or the Gulf South ... commonwealthbeacon.org/environment/...

Nobody who read Project 2025 should be surprised by this. Doesn’t make it any less misguided …

Excellent new tool from Duke University. Will be valuable for researchers. My forthcoming book shows how electric sector competitiveness matters for state-level renewable electricity policymaking:

Out today: a new book from my Tulane colleague @keenanclimate.com on climate adaptation in the U.S. Let's face it: regardless of future mitigation policy (which remains essential), it's too late to prevent climate impacts. (1/)