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April 5, 2026

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Massachusetts Struggles with Plan for Leaking Gas Pipes

Massachusetts agencies are already working to determine the future of natural gas in the state, but a bill under consideration in the legislature is tackling how to deal with leaking gas pipes.

Legislators from the Merrimack Valley, where a series of gas explosions and fires killed an 18-year-old and forced the evacuation of 50,000 residents in 2018, called for repairing pipelines instead of replacing them until Massachusetts settles on the future of heat to avoid future incidents.

“Many of our homes and neighborhoods are still not put back together,” Rep. Christina Minicucci said at a legislative hearing on the proposed Future of Heat Act (H.3298) on Tuesday. “The explosions happened during pipeline replacement.”

The state program to replace leaking gas pipes is likely to cost more than $20 billion, according to a report by the research and advocacy organization Gas Leaks Allies.

Other experts suggested looking at the state of pipelines on a case-by-case basis or even by municipality.

Legislators should “make it a local decision based on the pipes in the ground there,” said Harvey Michaels, professor of energy and climate solutions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Alternatives to natural gas, such as air source heat pumps, are not yet widely integrated in Massachusetts homes, Michaels said.

“No one has come up with a good idea in cold climates to decarbonize heat, so we need to try a few things,” he added.

A new study published in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that methane emissions from pipelines at a group of sites in Boston are six times higher than state estimates. The study also found a correlation between methane emissions and consumption, even though pipelines are kept at an almost consistent pressure throughout the year despite the amount in use.

The results show that gas leaks within homes and buildings are higher than previously thought, Maryann Sargent, a research scientist at Harvard University and a co-author of the study, testified Tuesday.

Instead of spending billions on replacing pipelines, Massachusetts should repair pipelines and redirect funding to geothermal heat networks as outlined in the Future of Heat bill, according to the testimonies of researchers, scientists and advocacy organizations.

“If the state repaired all of the pipes instead of replacing them, it would be 1/200th of the cost,” said Audrey Schulman, co-executive director of the Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET).

The upfront costs of installing the thermal heat pump networks will be higher than natural gas pipes, but “the energy is free,” Zeyneb Magavi, co-executive director of HEET, said. Gas utilities would then transition to thermal clean heat utilities and make money maintaining the thermal network, she added.

However, the language in the bill does not favor any one type of clean energy alternative.

“I think this is a bright spot in dark times,” Magavi said.

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Castor: House Democrats ‘100% United’ on Clean Energy Transition

Democratic losses in the Virginia, the defeat of a transmission project in Maine and the still uncertain fate of the bipartisan infrastructure package and $1.75-trillion budget reconciliation bill in Congress were top of mind in the opening sessions of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) Grid Forum on Wednesday.

Speaking with ACORE CEO Greg Wetstone, Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, called the election results a “wake-up call” as potent as the UN’s recent “code red” climate assessment report. Released in August, the report warned the world is running out of time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. (See Too Late to Stop Climate Change, UN Report Says.)

Castor acknowledged the clock may also be ticking on congressional Democrats. “I think there’s a great frustration all across the country with the fact that this negotiation has gone on too long. They don’t really understand the vagaries of a 50-50 Senate,” she said, referring to ongoing tensions between progressive and moderate Democrats in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

At the same time, she remained optimistic that both bills will be passed, saying the House Democratic Caucus is “100% united on the need to move to clean energy and do it swiftly.”

Castor also stressed the importance of bill provisions that will support better grid planning, encouraging “power markets to do better on cooperating on resilience” and “the DOE and FERC to be much more forward-leaning to avoid congestion and political roadblocks.”

While the central role transmission must play in grid decarbonization and economy-wide emissions reduction is the key theme at the two-day event, politics were a constant, tangential concern. Industry hopes for passage of the bills were reflected in a pragmatic panel discussion on infrastructure priorities, which focused on the incremental process of implementation that will lie ahead — and the problems neither bill may be able to solve, as the U.S. seeks to decarbonize its grid by President Joe Biden’s target of 2035.

“What’s at the forefront of my mind right now is how are all pieces fitting together, and what are the policies beyond just at a congressional level, when we get to [the] regulatory or even state level,” said Kevin Gresham, senior vice president of government relations for developer RWE Renewables America. “Where do we need to focus our intentions and work over the next really short period of time to get this underway.”

For Alex Daberko, managing director at infrastructure investor Starwood Energy, obstacles to what he called project “feasibility” are now the biggest challenge.

“Developing utility-scale, renewables has gotten more challenging, not less,” Daberko said, pointing to the three-year timeline for project development that “is sort of a rule of thumb” for wind and solar projects.

“When you can’t count on the timeline or the results from the interconnection study process, then that makes it that much harder,” he said. “And then when you’re juggling tax policies that changed four times during that three-year window and also face inflation and other things, it’s really hard to keep all the balls in the air, which is the key to successful development.”

Procuring clean energy for Walmart’s 5,300 U.S. stores is all about the three Rs, said Steve Chriss, the discount retailer’s director of energy services. “How does it benefit renewables? How does it benefit reliability? How does it benefit resilience?”

He sees expansion of transmission and distribution systems as essential for Walmart to hit its own target of running its stores on 100% renewable energy by 2035.

“We’re going to require more electricity,” Chriss said. “That electricity needs to be carbon free, and really the power quality needs to be extremely high. So that means that we need reliability when things are going well. We need resilience when things aren’t going well. And the infrastructure buildout is really critical to meet all of these needs.”

And, he added, “It’s not only about interconnection, it’s about driving deliverability to load.”

The ITC Compromise

With the Clean Electricity Performance Program — that would have paid utilities for cutting their emissions — forced out of the reconciliation bill, industry attention has turned to exactly what kind of tax credits will be in the final package and what they can accomplish.

Daberko said a stable 10-year extension of the solar ITC could unleash pent-up demand and market growth for projects that may have stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There are a lot of people that have had to go back to offtakers with PPAs [power purchase agreements] that were negotiated a year or two ago, and the world looked a lot different,” he said. “This 10-year extension could be the bridge that makes those projects whole again. So, I think from our side and from the OEMs perspective, they expect 2022-2023 to be pretty monumental years for deployment if this passes.”

But Christina Hayes, vice president at Berkshire Hathaway Energy, said the transmission investment tax credits in the reconciliation package may have limited impact. They are “really targeted to projects that need a little bit more to kind of get over the hump,” she said, referring to an ACORE report identifying 22 shovel-ready projects that would benefit from a transmission ITC. (See Transmission ITC Could Add 20 GW of New Capacity to Grid.)

She was more positive about a prospective compromise between the House and Senate, which would set up a two-phase approach to tax credits. If enacted, clean energy ITCs would remain technology-specific — separate ITCs for solar, standalone storage and transmission, among others — for five years, the House approach. Credits would then become technology-neutral, based on emission reductions, an approach supported by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

“They got the order correct,” Hayes said. “Get everything started in kind of a full-throated way with the House approach, and then transition to Sen. Wyden’s approach to make sure that the incentives go on until the goal is met … to make sure that we are truly keeping an eye toward what the goal is. We’re not deploying resources so we can trade RECs [renewable energy credits]. We’re deploying resources so that we can serve customers with clean energy and retire the less-clean energy.”

Filling the Gaps

But beyond the transmission ITC and other transmission supports in the reconciliation and infrastructure bills, crucial gaps remain in the development of transmission planning and buildout, according to Castor and others at the forum.

Castor pointed to the Efficient Grid Interconnection Act that she introduced in June, which would have required FERC to allocate costs for transmission upgrades more broadly.

“Many of the network upgrades required to connect new renewable energy and storage projects benefit all customers,” Castor said. “So cost allocation should reflect that consideration of environmental benefits, including reduced carbon pollution. Conventional air pollution should be considered, and we want to encourage the use of grid-enhancing technologies to reduce the cost of network upgrades.”

While the bill did not make it into either the infrastructure or reconciliation bill, Castor sees FERC’s current proceeding on grid planning and cost allocation, the Advanced Notice on Proposed Rule Making, as another avenue to address these issues. (See Transmission Industry Hoping for Landmark Order(s) out of FERC ANOPR.)

“Our view has to be broader and more forward-looking in order to really put [transmission planning] together in a way that makes sense so we can more efficiently expand the grid … which benefits customers because it is the efficient way to do it,” said Bill Parsons of ACORE, who moderated the panel.

Gresham and Daberko cautioned that stakeholder buy-in at multiple levels will be needed to develop and execute any new processes.

At the state level, getting projects approved remains a major challenge, Gresham said. “How do you get it through local commissions and by landowners? Because ultimately, regardless of the policy and player who has authority, you still have to do a really good job of stakeholder engagement,” he said. “You still have to get local buy-in and figure out ways to really build that community support for a project.”

Daberko cautioned that big rule changes or new compliance requirements tend “to hit the brakes on deployment, because you know, every bank, every potential investor has to get comfortable with those rules and making sure that they don’t have a discontinuity in returns if they miss on some new requirement that’s not fully understood.”

For Walmart’s Chriss, another gap that needs to be addressed is the role of co-ops and municipal utilities in grid planning. Walmart gets its power from just under 1,000 utilities, with a majority of it coming from big investor-owned utilities. But, he said, “There are a lot of munis and co-ops [that] don’t actually own or are indirectly responsible for the procurement of generation.”

Small public and cooperative utilities are more sensitive to the price impacts of transitioning to clean energy because they have fewer customers, Chriss said. “There needs to be concerted efforts to find paths forward to help transition these organizations.

“It’s really about transitioning the entire grid to be decarbonized, and transmission is just a piece of that,” he said. “At the end of the day, we all want to be served by clean energy around the clock, all the time and that’s everybody; so, it just becomes the new normal. The goal of corporate procurement should be to get everyone to a point where we no longer need to do corporate procurement because the steady state of the system is clean.”

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US, Canada, EU Pledge to Slash Methane Emissions

The oil and gas industries in the U.S., Canada and the European Union can expect a plethora of proposals for new rules designed to sharply cut methane emissions from wellheads, pipelines and storage depots by 2030.

During the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow on Tuesday, President Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged they would lead a global methane reduction effort that began in September and is now endorsed by 105 nations.

Leaders from many of those nations spoke in support of the initiative, including those from Argentina, South Korea, Vietnam, Colombia, Libya, Ecuador and the Republic of the Congo.

Biden, Trudeau and von der Leyen made it clear that the effort would immediately require new regulations — which Republican lawmakers in the U.S. blasted within hours.

Noting that methane is 80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, von der Leyen explained the rush: “We need big structural changes to reach 2050 climate neutrality, but we cannot wait for 2050. We have to cut emissions fast. And methane is one of the gases we can cut fast. Doing that will immediately slow down climate change,” she said, adding that the EU would propose new rules next month.

Biden added that without methane leak reductions, keeping the lid on the average global temperature increase by 2050 may not even be possible.

“What we’re going to do between now and 2030 is going to impact significantly on whether we’ll be able to meet our longer-term commitment,” he said. “And one of the most important things we can do in this decisive decade … is reduce our methane emissions as quickly as possible.”

Trudeau pledged his government would create regulations to slash methane leaks by 75% from the oil and gas industry alone.

“There’s no achievable pathway to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius without deep cuts to methane over the next decade,” he said. “As Ursula and Joe and others have pointed out, methane has six times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.”

Fatih Birol, a Turkish economist and executive director of the International Energy Agency, put immediate methane reduction in a dramatic context: “If we fulfill this pledge over the next 10 years, the impact is [the same as] switching off all the cars of the world, all the trucks of the world, all the planes of the world, all the ships of the world. This is historic.”

Biden said an all-out effort to combat methane leakage would be a job creator.

“It’s going to boost our economies, saving companies money by reducing methane leaks, capturing methane, turning it into new revenue streams, as well as creating good-paying union jobs for our workers,” he said. “And we’re talking about jobs to manufacturing new technologies for methane detection. Jobs for union pipe fitters and welders to go out and cap abandoned oil wells and plug leaking pipelines. …

“We’re proposing two new rules: one through our Environmental Protection Agency that’s going to reduce methane losses from new and existing oil and gas pipelines, and one through the Department of Transportation to reduce wasteful and potentially dangerous leaks from natural gas pipelines,” the president said.

EPA had already released a statement announcing proposed new rules under the Clean Air Act, requesting comments on further strengthening emission controls on oil and gas operations and noting that in the U.S., the “the oil and natural gas industry is the largest industrial source of methane emissions, emitting more methane than the total emissions of all greenhouse gases from 164 countries combined.”

Before noon, Republican congressional leaders blasted the proposal with a statement about winter heating bills. It did not mention climate change.

“We are concerned this new regulatory proposal, in addition to the natural gas tax proposed in the Democrats’ tax-and-spending spree, is another attack on American energy. America is leading the world in emissions reductions, and we have shown that innovation — not regulation — is the key to making energy cleaner and more affordable,” it said.

Later in the day during a press conference with American reporters, Biden took questions about the political challenge the administration will face to win congressional approval of some of his pledged commitments.

“How do you convince Republicans and even some Democrats to get behind more spending, if they look at this conference and say, ‘China isn’t meeting these global goals. Russia doesn’t intend to meet these global goals. India doesn’t plan to. Why shouldn’t we wait?’” asked one reporter.

“Because we want to be able to breathe, and we want to lead the world,” Biden replied. “The single most important thing that’s gotten the attention of the world is climate. Everywhere. From Iceland to Australia. It just is a gigantic issue.” China and Russia have “walked away. How do you do that and claim to be able to have any leadership now?”

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FERC Approves ERO 2022 Budgets

FERC on Tuesday accepted the 2022 business plans and budgets of NERC, the regional entities and the Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Board (WIRAB) (RR21-9).

NERC submitted the budgets to the commission in August as required by FERC regulations. The documents are based on the revised ERO Enterprise Long-Term Strategy, approved by NERC’s Board of Trustees in 2019. (See NERC Plans Review of Supply Chain Standards.)

For 2022, NERC is proposing a total budget of $88 million, about $5.1 million higher than last year’s. Assessments are planned to increase by 8.9% to $78.3 million, with additional funding of $9.9 million to come from other sources to the tune of:

      • $7.9 million in third-party funding for the Cybersecurity Risk Information Sharing Program (CRISP);
      • $1.8 million for testing, renewal and continuing education fees from participants in NERC’s System Operator Certification Program;
      • $76,500 for interest and investment income;
      • $60,000 for services and software; and
      • a miscellaneous $60,000.

Specific increases in the 2022 budget over last year include rises of 7.8% in personnel, 18.5% in meetings and travel, and 5.3% in operating expenses. The personnel increase comes from an addition of 10.34 full-time-equivalent employees (FTE) from the 2021 budget, while the growth in operating expenses primarily comes from about $1.6 million to be spent on office costs, consultants and contracts; these are offset by a $360,165 decrease in office rent. Budgeted fixed asset additions, including leases on information technology equipment leases, are up $1.4 million to $4.1 million.

Spending on meetings and travel is expected to rise because of “a partial return to in-person meetings” in 2021 after almost two years of entirely virtual gatherings amid the COVID-19 pandemic. NERC plans to resume limited face-to-face meetings for the Member Representatives Committee, Board of Trustees and select additional committees or groups, though for others it will continue “to leverage the efficiencies of virtual meetings.”

RE Budgets, Assessments to Rise

The 2022 budgets for the REs, and their differences from the prior year, are as follows:

      • Midwest Reliability Organization: $20 million (up $1.6 million from 2021)
      • Northeast Power Coordinating Council: $17.5 million (up $1 million)
      • ReliabilityFirst: $26.2 million (up $1.4 million)
      • SERC Reliability: $26.7 million (up $879,181)
      • Texas Reliability Entity: $17.2 million (up $2.9 million)
      • WECC: $29.7 million (up $1.1 million)
      • WIRAB: $918,900 (down $286,600)

NERC plans to allocate the greatest portion of its assessment to SERC, RF and WECC, assessing the REs $23.1 million, $15.3 million and $15 million respectively. The remainder will come from NPCC, with $9.4 million; MRO, with $8.6 million; and Texas RE, with $6.8 million. Each RE’s allocation is primarily based on net energy load, adjusted based on local circumstances: for example, compliance monitoring and enforcement program and situational awareness costs in Canadian provinces. Assessments will be billed directly to load-serving entities within each RE’s footprint.

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Despite Ida, Entergy Reports Strong Quarter

entergy

Entergy (NYSE: ETR) said Wednesday that it delivered “another strong quarter” over the summer, despite the electricity grid damage wrought by Hurricane Ida when it made landfall along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast in August.

The company reported third-quarter earnings of $531 million ($2.63/share), compared with $521 million ($2.59/share) a year earlier. That beat an Investing.com’s poll of analysts who had expected earnings of $2.40/share.

Ida was the second most destructive storm to hit Louisiana, after only Katrina in 2005, and inflicted an estimated $2.1 billion to $2.5 billion in damages to Entergy facilities. The company said that resulted in a $75 million to $80 million loss in non-fuel revenue.

Leo-Denault-(Entergy)-FI.jpgEntergy CEO Leo Denault | Entergy

CEO Leo Denault said during a conference call with financial analysts that Entergy had invested about $10 billion over the last five years to strengthen its system. He said the newer infrastructure performed well “under the most challenging situations.”

“The wind damage was almost exclusively to aging structures built prior to the new standards,” Denault said. “The increasing severity of storms is compelling us to take a fresh look at how we can make our system more resilient.”

Entergy’s restoration force of employees, contractors and mutual assistance crews from 41 states numbered about 27,000, its largest ever, Denault said. Customer outages reached 1 million at their peak, he said, but were less than half that in little more than a week.

“We’re committed to minimizing the effect of Ida on customer bills,” he said.

The New Orleans-based company plans to securitize its Ida costs, even as costs from 2008 hurricanes Ike and Gustav are about to roll off.

Entergy narrowed its 2021 adjusted EPS guidance range to $5.90 to $6.10 and said it is on track for EPS growth of 5 to 7% through 2024.

The company’s shares were trading at $103.36 following the market’s close, a 44-cent drop from the previous close.

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Petition Would Bar ‘Factory Farm Gas’ from CARB LCFS Credits

A petition filed with the California Air Resources Board last week challenges the agency’s inclusion of dairy-manure biomethane as a fuel potentially eligible for credits under the agency’s low-carbon fuel standard.

The petition alleges that the standard’s credit system doesn’t account for emissions throughout the full life cycle of the biomethane, which is generated from the anaerobic digestion of dairy cow and swine manure.

As a result, the credit system overstates the emission reduction benefits of the biomethane, according to the petition, which refers to the biomethane as “factory farm gas.”

In addition, the petition says that the credit system encourages increased manure production and processing. This allegedly has disproportionate environmental and health impacts on low-income communities and communities of color, particularly in the San Joaquin Valley.

The petition was filed on Oct. 27 and signed by representatives of six groups: Public Justice, Food & Water Watch, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Association of Irritated Residents, Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability, and the Vermont Law School Environmental Justice Clinic.

The petition asks CARB for rulemaking to amend its low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) to exclude all fuels derived from factory farm gas; or to modify LCFS to account for emissions over the entire lifecycle of the dairy-manure biomethane.

Board Meeting Debate

The petition was filed the day before the CARB board met to review the agency’s Mobile Source Strategy, which is intended to take an integrated approach to reducing emissions from mobile sources ranging from forklifts to cars, trucks and locomotives.

And the petition was the focus of several public comments during the board meeting.

Shayda Azamian, a policy coordinator with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, said the group has been urging agencies across California to stop permitting dairy digesters, the equipment used to anaerobically digest manure to produce biomethane.

“Dairy digesters do not lead to real emissions reductions in greenhouse gases, short-lived climate pollutants or toxic pollution,” Azamian said. “Dairy digesters are in fact increasing local pollution by incentivizing increased herd sizes by the thousands.”

But others described dairy digesters as a cost-effective strategy for helping the state meet its climate goals.

Michael Boccadoro, executive director of Dairy Cares, a dairy industry coalition, said the California Department of Food and Agriculture dairy digester program has received 2.1% of funds from the state’s climate investment portfolio. But the program accounts for 29% of emission reductions achieved by all investments, he said.

“Dairy digesters are the most cost-effective and successful climate investment being made by the state of California,” Boccadoro said.

The petition is asking CARB “to abandon market-based approaches that are clearly working,” he said. Without those strategies, Boccadoro said, dairy production will shift to other places in the U.S. and the world, and global livestock methane emissions will increase.

Julia Levin, executive director of the Bioenergy Association of California, said the petition’s request to exclude dairy methane from the LCFS would “fly in the face of the science,” which points to the urgency of curbing methane emissions to address climate change.

In addition, Levin said, Senate Bill 1383 includes incentives for reducing dairy biomethane, including incentives under LCFS specifically. The 2016 bill addresses emissions of methane and other short-lived climate pollutants.

“Granting petitioners’ application would contradict the plain language of SB 1383 as well as the science, and the petition should be rejected,” Levin said.

Selling Fuel Credits

The LCFS is a regulation aimed at reducing the carbon intensity of transportation fuel used in California, while providing a greater variety of low-carbon and renewable alternatives. The carbon intensity of a fuel is compared to a benchmark set for each year.

Fuels whose carbon intensity falls under the benchmark generate credits. For those that exceed the carbon-intensity benchmark, credits must be purchased to comply with the regulation. The benchmark will decrease each year through 2030.

At issue in the petition is how the carbon intensity of dairy-manure biomethane is calculated. For example, according to the petition, LCFS does not require an analysis of factory farm gas emissions to include emissions from digestate, the material that’s left over after the anaerobic digestion of manure.

Composting the digestate or spreading it over the land produces nitrous oxide, the petition claims, and storing it in open-air lagoons may release methane.

In addition, the petition said that factory farms have been allowed to “double dip” by using public funds to help pay for manure digesters and then also receiving money from selling LCFS credits.

Groups filing the petition said that CARB’s Mobile Source Strategy “counts on increased production of factory farm gas without consideration of its air, water, and climate impacts, especially in lower income communities and communities of color.”

Following the CARB board’s review of the Mobile Source Strategy last week, the strategy will be submitted to the legislature as required by state law.

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GOP Wins in Va. Raise Questions About State’s Climate Policy

Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race Tuesday and GOP gains in the legislature showed that predictions that the commonwealth had become a reliably blue state were incorrect and raise questions about its commitment to reaching 100% carbon-free electricity by 2050.

Energy policy was not a central issue in Youngkin’s campaign against Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who served as governor from 2014 to 2018. Youngkin instead campaigned on divisive education issues and courted Donald Trump supporters while keeping the former president himself at arm’s length.

But the two candidates also differed sharply on the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act, with McAuliffe calling for eliminating fossil fuel power by 2035, while Youngkin said even the law’s 2050 target is unrealistic.

The VCEA, signed into law by Gov. Ralph Northam (D) in April 2020, requires Dominion Energy Virginia to be 100% carbon-free by 2045 and Appalachian Power by 2050. It also calls for closing most of the state’s remaining coal-fired generation by 2024. (See Va. 1st Southern State with 100% Clean Energy Target.)

Although Youngkin’s campaign website contained no detailed energy policy proposals, the former private equity executive was critical of the state’s policy in interviews and debate appearances, saying he wouldn’t have signed the VCEA.

“The Virginia Clean Economy Act has taken us in the wrong direction,” Youngkin said during a radio interview, saying it “doesn’t allow Virginia to actually meet the power demands [of] the rip-roaring economy that I’m going to build.

“Yes, we can have more wind and solar. Yes, we need more natural gas. Yes, we need to innovate and find ways to actually use coal resources cleanly,” he added.

“I’ve spoken to the heads of the utilities,” he said during a debate in September. “They don’t even know how to [reach the VCEA’s goals.] We’re going to turn Virginia into California. … Get ready: Brownouts and blackouts are coming.”

Youngkin, who is from Hampton Roads, acknowledged the state is facing rising sea levels from climate change. (Voters in Virginia Beach voted overwhelmingly Tuesday in favor of a referendum authorizing the city to issue up to $567.5 million in debt for flood mitigation projects.)

Although he said he “wholly support[s]” Dominion’s offshore wind project, Youngkin also criticized state officials for their negotiations. “All of the supply chain is not in America and not in Virginia. We should have negotiated American content, Virginian content, in that,” he said.

McAuliffe, who predicted the Portsmouth Marine Terminal will become a “green energy manufacturing hub” for offshore wind, said Youngkin’s criticism was “a crazy talking point” because the U.S. is just beginning to develop an OSW supply chain. (See Virginia Builds out OSW Supply Chain with Turbine Blade Plant.)

Chances for Change

The VCEA was a stunning turnaround for Virginia’s energy policy, spurred by Democrats’ takeover of the House of Delegates and Senate in November 2019. Among other things, it committed Virginia to joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and made the state’s voluntary renewable portfolio standard program mandatory. It also established 5,200 MW of offshore wind as “in the public interest,” up from 16 MW.

It’s unclear whether Youngkin, who will begin his four-year term in January, will be able to win changes to the bill any time soon.

The bill passed on a near-party line vote in the House, where Democrats held a 55-45 majority going into the 2021 elections. Tuesday’s results left Republicans with at least a 50-50 tie in the House — and a 51-49 edge, if one close race is resolved in their favor.

But Democrats retain a 21-19 majority in the Senate, where members will not face re-election until 2023.

Republicans could attempt to put their stamp on the State Corporation Commission (SCC) in January, when the seat held by Angela Navarro will expire. Navarro, who served in both the Northam and McAuliffe administrations, replaced former Chair Mark Christie when he joined FERC.

The SCC is charged with implementing parts of the VCEA, including Dominion and Appalachian’s integrated resource plans and RPS programs, according to spokesman Ken Schrad. He also noted that the “bulk of” Dominion’s OSW project has not yet been filed with the commission.

Schrad declined to speculate on how the election might affect the commission’s work. The commission “will apply the law as it is now,” he said.

Dominion Campaign Money Questioned

Although energy policy was not a major issue during the campaign, Dominion’s ties to McAuliffe did come under scrutiny.

Youngkin ran commercials in the closing days of the race criticizing McAuliffe for signing legislation that restricted the SCC’s ability to review the company’s electricity rates. The law is one of several that SCC staff concluded allowed the company to earn about $1.1 billion in excess profits from 2017 to 2020. “Dominion bought Terry McAuliffe for $280,000,” one ad said.

The commercial aired after Axios reported last month that although McAuliffe said he would not accept any contributions from the utility in this year’s race, the company nonetheless gave $200,000 to a political action committee tied to top Democrats that attacked Youngkin from the right in social media ads questioning why he had not been endorsed by the National Rifle Association. Dominion CEO Robert Blue said the company hadn’t properly vetted the PAC and had asked for its money back.

Dominion had donated $75,000 to McAuliffe’s campaign in 2013 and gave another $50,000 to his inaugural committee, Axios reported.

Dems Anxious

Republicans’ strong showing in Virginia and New Jersey left Democrats anxious about their prospects in the congressional midterm elections next year. Though New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy became the first Democrat to win re-election since 1977, the race was not called until Wednesday evening, with Murphy leading by about 19,000 votes as of press time.

The results also increased the pressure for congressional Democrats to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a Democrat-only reconciliation bill that includes $550 billion in climate spending.

“The No. 1 concern voters have raised with me over the last several weeks has been inability of Congress and government in general to get things done at a time of great need for the country,” Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) told The New York Times. “So the best thing we can do in Congress is to pass these damned bills, immediately,” referring to the budget reconciliation and infrastructure bills.

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Yellen: US Backs Green Bonds Effort for Developing Nations

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday said the U.S. is backing the Climate Investment Funds’ (CIF) initiative to issue investment-grade bonds and raise new finance for clean energy in developing countries.

“I am pleased to join the U.K. in announcing that the U.S. intends to fully support the CIF Capital Markets Mechanism,” Yellen said in a finance day keynote at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26). “Through an innovative leveraging structure, this initiative will help attract significant new private climate finance and provide $500 million per year for the CIF’s programming, including the … Accelerating Coal Transition investment program.”

The new mechanism, which is part of CIF’s Clean Technology Fund, could lead to $50 billion in investments over 10 years, CIF said. It represents what CIF says is the first time a multilateral climate fund will leverage its assets to issue bonds in the capital markets.

Multilateral development banks will disburse the bond proceeds as equity and debt, among other options, according to CIF.

Nine sovereign sponsors, including the U.S. and U.K., helped establish the $5.8 billion Clean Technology Fund in 2008.

“Consistent with CIF’s innovative mission, we’re trailblazing a capital mobilization model that is scalable, replicable and game-changing,” CEO Mafalda Duarte said in a statement.

Financing Net Zero

Speaking during a session later Wednesday on delivering finance for emerging markets, Yellen said she is the first U.S. treasury secretary to attend a Conference of the Parties.

“The reason I’m here is because climate change is not just an environmental issue,” she said. “It is not just an energy issue. It is an economic, development and market-destabilizing issue, and I would not be doing my job if I did not treat it with the seriousness warranted.”

Yellen’s presence at COP26 shows that the world is “in a point of inflection,” according to Uruguay Minister of Economy and Finance Azucena Arbeleche.

“I would say it’s a historical time for ministers of finance,” she said during a panel on supporting a financial system for a net-zero future. “Finance in general has a very important role to play if you really want to make progress.”

Arbeleche urged investors, financial institutions and sovereigns to align their incentives and objectives to help move from pledges to concrete actions.

Uruguay, she said, has set key performance indicators that are related to the climate pledges the country made in its Nationally Determined Contributions.

“We’re working specifically on the implementation of a financial instrument, a bond, where the cost of borrowing is related to this NDC goal,” she said.

Bonds or loans from the private sector must be linked to environmental indicators that are measurable, according to Arbeleche.

“If investors really are interested in the environment, then they should be willing to put their money into these kinds of financial instruments,” she said.

The clear and accelerated commitments from governments on net-zero targets is critical for investors, financial providers, shareholders, insurance companies and banks to make low-carbon investments with confidence, according to Alison Rose, CEO of British bank NatWest Group.

NatWest is a founding member of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, which said Wednesday that its financial sector participants’ commitments exceed $130 trillion.

“Very bluntly, the money is here, the money is committed, and the money is starting to mobilize,” Rose said during the panel discussion. “I think this is a very significant demonstration of the collaboration with so many different financial organizations, who so often are competing but are now working together and united behind a common goal.”

But despite an accelerated rally behind clean energy and net-zero goals, financing is not consistently flowing in that direction, according to Mathias Cormann, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

“Governments should be removing the distortions that divert investment away from the transition to net zero,” Cormann said. “Too many policies still encourage emissions-intensive investment, production and consumption.”

About 10% of COVID-19 recovery spending of OECD partner countries, for example, will have a “mixed or even negative impact on the environment,” he said.

To combat the problem, OECD recently announced that it will align development assistance with the Paris agreement.

For perspective, he said, development assistance from donor countries in 2020 reached US$161 billion.

“That is a sizeable amount of aid that, as of COP26, will now be fully aligned to the Paris objectives,” he said.

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Maine, NY Voters Prioritize Conservation on Election Day

Voters in Maine and New York showed up at the polls on election day to support ballot measures that would conserve vast woodlands, clean air and clean water.

In Maine, voters approved a measure to halt construction of the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) transmission line under development by Central Maine Power (CMP) by a 60% to 40% vote, as of Wednesday. The line would funnel 1,200 MW of hydropower from Canada through Maine to Massachusetts.

Construction of the line has already begun, but “the time has come for CMP to respect the will of Maine people by stopping this project immediately,” Pete Didisheim, advocacy director at Natural Resources Council of Maine, said in a statement.

If the company refuses, the Department of Environmental Protection “should move quickly to suspend the permit and require that CMP begin restoring areas of Western Maine that have already been damaged,” Didisheim said.

“We also call on Massachusetts to honor this electoral outcome by selecting an alternative option for meeting its climate goals without imposing significant environmental harm on another New England state,” he said.

CMP parent company Avangrid (NYSE: AGR) filed a lawsuit Wednesday in the Maine Superior Court challenging the constitutionality of the referendum to limit the construction of high-voltage transmission lines in the forests of Western Maine.

“While the outcome of this election is disappointing, it is not the end of the road, and we will continue to advocate for this historic and important clean energy project,” the company said in a statement.

Avangrid asked the Superior Court for an immediate injunction preventing retroactive enforcement of the initiative against the project, “so that ongoing time-sensitive and essential construction is not disrupted while this lawsuit proceeds before the courts,” the company said.

Avangrid expects the court to rule on the injunction request promptly.

Right to Clean Air, Water

In New York, just over 60% of voters approved a measure to create a constitutional right to clean air and water in the state’s bill of rights.

“In these otherwise polarizing times, a healthy environment, breathing clear air and drinking clean water are values that bring people together,” Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates New York, said in a statement.

The measure will allow environmental justice communities experiencing pollution to fight for their rights in court, potentially accelerating the clean energy transition, according to the organization.

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MISO Stakeholders Skeptical of Revamped Meeting Schedule

[EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Travis Stewart is with the Coalition of MISO Transmission Customers; he is with the Coalition of Midwest Power Producers.]

MISO Stakeholders on the Resource Adequacy Subcommittee are chafing at the RTO’s new slimmed-down meeting schedule that calls for eight “super weeks” of in-person meetings.

Stakeholders pushed back on MISO’s plan to group all stakeholder meetings of its main parent entities into eight separate weeks during the year. That would mean five all-day meetings will be packed into a single week. (See MISO Wants Abridged Stakeholder Meeting Schedule.)

The grid operator has promised that while it is reducing the number of meetings, the amount of information it conveys will remain the same. The Market Subcommittee, Reliability Subcommittee, Resource Adequacy Subcommittee, Planning Advisory Committee, and Regional Expansion Criteria and Benefits Working Group are all affected.

RASC Chair Chris Plante said stakeholders have “relevant” concerns about how information that used to be delivered monthly will be communicated just eight times per year.

“I’m very interested in hearing from stakeholders how these gaps might occur,” Plante said.

Travis Stewart, representing the Coalition of Midwest Power Producers, said he and his customers found monthly RASC meetings helpful during the leadup to the April Planning Resource Auction. He asked staff to devise a way to update stakeholders on capacity auction deadlines and developments.

WPPI Energy’s Joe Greene asked that meeting dates, which have not yet been set, be finalized as quickly as possible.

“I personally don’t see this proposal as coming from the stakeholders,” Customized Energy Solutions’ Ted Kuhn said. He said he had not heard stakeholders asking for fewer or shorter meetings and said the new seasonal auction design is evidence that monthly meetups may still be required.

Plante said the RASC “has the prerogative to establish its own meeting schedule” per the Stakeholder Governance Guide and could add more meetings to the calendar. He said the subcommittee could “pencil in” monthly meetings, noting it’s easier to scratch plans than try to organize a last-minute meeting.

“We can always cancel the meeting if there’s nothing to talk about,” he told stakeholders. “In some respects, this is being driven by the Advisory Committee, so I would encourage all of you to approach your sector representatives.”

Consumers Energy’s Mary Long said the new schedule’s uncertainty is disrupting business travel plans and snarling stakeholders’ vacation plans.

“I think this is perhaps convenient for MISO employees, but it’s not convenient for stakeholders,” she said. “What I’ve heard is stakeholder committees have the power to determine the cadence and content of the meetings, rather than MISO forcing a cadence.”

Cleco Cajun’s Tia Elliott said MISO should have held a stakeholder discussion to gather feedback rather than announcing the schedule change through an email to committee chairs.

Bob Kuzman, the RTO’s customer affairs director, said the move doesn’t have to be permanent, but it does represent the grid operator’s return to in-person meetings as the COVID-19 pandemic eases up.

He said the new schedule will give MISO staff and stakeholders a breather between monthly meetings to prepare discussions.

“We get in the cycle of present, get ready for meetings, present, get ready for meetings,” Kuzman said. “What I ask for is patience at this time to look, evaluate … and see if this works. If it doesn’t, we’re happy to reassess.”

Customized Energy Solutions’ David Sapper said the new meeting schedule might again put the onus on stakeholders to prepare discussions and presentations. He said stakeholders have lately been relying on staff to come up with all discussion points.