Boiling Point: It’s not easy being green
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Solutions to the climate crisis tend to be relatively simple — and at the same time, endlessly complicated.
Stop burning coal, oil and gas, and replace them with climate-friendly energy sources such as solar and wind. Build more efficient homes and denser cities with robust public transit. Electrify everything possible, and substitute clean fuels for the rest.
But who benefits most from those solutions, and who might be harmed? Are some strategies better than others?
One example: The Orange County Register’s Brooke Staggs reported this week on new data showing that Californians who drive the most — and can least afford the high costs of gasoline — are transitioning to electric cars at the lowest rate. A bill proposed in the state Legislature would increase incentives for just those folks. But the high costs of buying or leasing a clean vehicle continue to pose a barrier for lower-income families — at least for now.
Another example: the Balboa Island Ferry, which carries more than 1.5 million passengers to Southern California’s Balboa Island each year. State officials are requiring the family-run, century-old ferry to switch to zero-emission engines by 2025 — an overhaul likely to to cost the operators millions of dollars, L.A. Times columnist Gustavo Arellano reports.
“Meanwhile, far-worse polluters such as vehicle exhaust and heavy industry get a longer time to adjust,” Arellano writes.
Those disparities don’t mean we should slam the brakes on the clean energy transition, but rather that it’s crucial to line up the costs and benefits as fairly as possible. And the benefits are enormous, even without accounting for the fires, storms and floods fueled by carbon emissions. As my colleague Ryan Fonseca notes, new California rules designed to spur electric trucks and trains are expected to save thousands of lives and tens of billions of dollars in healthcare costs.
Rooftop solar is another fascinating case study in clean energy equity, with environmentalists recently suing the California Public Utilities Commission to undo cuts to solar incentives that the agency sees as unfairly benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the poor. In a win for rooftop solar advocates, on Friday the court rejected the commission’s bid to delay the case.
Even if environmentalists claim victory in that lawsuit, rooftop solar could face tough times ahead in California. Canary Media’s Jeff St. John wrote about the raging debate over adding fixed monthly charges on electricity bills — a change that could result in lower bills for low-income families, while also undercutting the financial case for rooftop solar and energy efficiency.
The main alternative to rooftop solar is large solar farms, connected to urban areas by long-distance power lines — and again, there are trade-offs involved. For instance, the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Joshua Emerson Smith has a story on plans for another lengthy electric line to bring solar energy from the Imperial Valley farming region to the coast — a project expected to cost more than $2 billion. Based on my previous reporting, I’m guessing many farmers won’t love the next solar rush.
It’s possible to find solutions that serve several purposes. Just see this story by The Times’ Libor Jany, about a new report from Los Angeles officials concluding that adding bike lanes and taking other steps to slow drivers and protect cyclists and pedestrians can limit traffic deaths and reduce over-policing of communities of color — on top of the climate and air-quality benefits.
Or check out this piece by Grist’s Gabriela Aoun Angueira, about a bill in the California Legislature that would require new electric vehicles to have bidirectional charging by 2027 — meaning the battery could keep your home powered during a blackout.
But the auto industry is opposed, saying the bill would make EVs even pricier. And so we return to the complications.
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On that note, here’s what else is happening around the West:
POLITICAL CLIMATE
California Gov. Gavin Newsom still plans to cut $6 billion from the five-year climate plan approved by lawmakers in 2022 — and possibly more if voters don’t pass a bond measure. Details here from the Orange County Register’s Brooke Staggs, who writes that the $54-billion climate plan that Newsom championed last year is now down to $48 billion. The governor did add $290 million for flood response and preparation, The Times’ Hayley Smith notes, after a winter of torrential downpours — but only by reallocating funds that otherwise would have helped us prepare for the droughts we know are coming. Newsom’s latest budget proposal also includes $67 million in new funding to clean up lead-contaminated parkways in front of homes, schools and parks near the former Exide battery plant, following an L.A. Times investigation, my colleague Tony Briscoe reports.
Colorado is now legally committed to net-zero climate pollution by 2050, under new legislation that creates $200 million in tax incentives supporting electric vehicles, geothermal heating and more. The bills signed by Gov. Jared Polis also create a program to speed up permitting for rooftop solar systems, the Denver Post’s Nick Coltrain reports. And in an especially intriguing development — at least to me — one of the bills bans investor-owned utility companies from spending ratepayer dollars on trade association dues, Grist’s Akielly Hu reports. As I’ve written previously, many climate activists think utilities shouldn’t be allowed to funnel customer money to industry groups that frequently try to block policies promoting clean energy.
President Biden has a new plan to slash planet-warming pollution from power plants, after a previous attempt by the Obama administration was struck down by the Supreme Court. Biden’s proposal would require coal- and gas-fired power plants to use carbon capture or other means to reduce carbon emissions 90% by the late 2030s — or else shut down, Politico’s Alex Guillén reports. Republican lawmakers from Western states slammed the proposal, with Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke claiming there’s “nothing environmentally friendly about this rule” and Montana Sen. Steven Daines referring to Biden’s “relentless pursuit of this green hallucination,” per Tom Lutey at the Billings Gazette. Those same Republicans are working to roll back protections for at-risk wildlife, with the Senate voting this week to reinstate a Trump administration rule redefining “critical habitat” under the Endangered Species Act, the Associated Press’ John Flesher reports. President Biden has indicated he’ll veto the resolution.
THE ENERGY TRANSITION
The Port of Long Beach has proposed a $5-billion offshore wind turbine assembly facility, to support a nascent industry that advocates hope will play a key role in phasing out fossil fuels. “As society transitions to clean energy, our harbor is ideally located for such an enterprise — with calm seas behind a federal breakwater, one of the deepest and widest channels in the U.S., direct access to the open ocean and no air height restrictions,” the port’s executive director said, as reported by The Times’ Noah Goldberg. In a potentially complementary move, the Biden administration is looking to distribute $4 billion in federal funding to reduce pollution in communities near ports by electrifying trucks and other equipment, Reuters’ David Shepardson writes.
Federal officials have approved a company’s plan to store nuclear waste from across the country at a planned facility in New Mexico’s Permian Basin, even after the state passed a law attempting to block the project. Details here from Adrian Hedden at the Carlsbad Current-Argus, who writes that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted Holtec International its long-sought license. Figuring out where and how to safely store radioactive waste is one of the biggest obstacles to nuclear power playing a larger role in the energy transition, so this is a major development. Here’s guessing it ends up in court.
The huge amounts of snowfall blanketing California’s Sierra Nevada should lead to a bumper crop of hydropower this summer, reducing the need to burn natural gas as dams churn out electricity. That’s good news from a climate perspective, Paul Rogers writes for the Mercury News. It’s also good news for other Western states that saw higher energy prices last year as low hydropower production sent California utilities on a gas-buying spree, driving up costs for everyone, Mark Jaffe writes for the Colorado Sun. If you think hydropower has an important role to play in this energy transition — despite the harm to fish — you’ll probably be glad to hear about a new bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate, which would make it easier to renew licenses for existing hydropower dams and add electric turbines to dams that don’t have them. Details here from Bloomberg Law’s Daniel Moore.
WATER IN THE WEST
Aerial survey flights are reshaping California’s water management, helping agencies understand exactly how much water is embedded in mountain snowpack and when the stuff is likely to melt, inundating rivers and reservoirs. “It gives us for the first time, really ever, a true watershed-scale accounting. And it does it extremely accurately,” one official told The Times’ Ian James. In another important story, James wrote about a report calling into question Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan for a $16-billion tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, to help bring water to Southern California with less harm to Delta fish. In perhaps the story’s most telling detail, the new chair of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — an agency that has historically been one of the Delta tunnel’s biggest backers — didn’t sound especially enthused about the project.
Startling new research suggests Australia’s massive wildfires in 2019 and 2020 may have helped trigger California’s driest three-year period on record. Here’s the story from Kurtis Alexander at the San Francisco Chronicle, who writes that the fires “unleashed so much smoke that they triggered a chain of events in the atmosphere, ultimately cooling the tropical Pacific Ocean and hastening formation of a La Niña climate pattern.” In other wildfire news, my colleague Alex Wigglesworth writes that while California might not have the worst fire season in the mountains this year (hopefully), things could get hairier in the grassy hills down below as all the new rain-fueled greenery dries out. Over at High Country News, meanwhile, Kylie Mohr tries to answer the question of whether aerial retardant drops actually help to slow fires. The U.S. Forest Service is currently being sued over its use of retardant, with critics saying the substance kills fish when it makes its way into rivers.
“This season’s flowers might leave behind more than the seeds of future blooms. Long after they’re gone, they may inspire a renewed desire to protect the land’s ability to surprise and delight us the way it has this year.” So writes The Times’ Corinne Purtill, in a gorgeous story about the rain-fueled superbloom and the ways in which climate change is reshaping the wildflowers of our urban landscapes. If you’re looking for additional inspiration, try this piece by Salvador Hernandez about efforts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rescue endangered bunnies from floodwaters in California’s Central Valley.
AROUND THE WEST
Environmentalists are suing California over the state’s approval of new oil and gas wells in Long Beach and San Luis Obispo County, saying officials failed to fully account for local pollution and climate harm. Here’s the story from Natalie Hanson at Courthouse News Service. In a similar lawsuit, New Mexico is being accused of violating residents’ constitutional right to a “healthful and beautiful environment” by allowing too much oil and gas pollution, Danielle Prokop reports for Source NM. Also in New Mexico, Reuters’ Nichola Groom writes that the Navajo Nation has withdrawn its support for a Biden administration plan to halt new oil and natural gas leasing within 10 miles of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a center of ancestral Pueblo culture. The Navajo Nation now says its members should have the right to profit off of those fossil fuels.
A nonprofit has agreed to pay $6.25 million to protect Yellowstone National Park by buying out the last proposed gold mine on the park’s border. But the Greater Yellowstone Coalition still needs to finish raising the money by October, or else the gold mine may move forward, Dino Grandoni reports for the Washington Post. In another resource-extraction controversy, E&E News’ Hannah Northey writes that the Biden administration is working to fast-track approval of a plan to mine manganese and zinc — minerals crucial to the clean energy transition — in Arizona. As usual, local conservationists looking to protect wildlife and plants say the company has picked a poor spot, threatening jaguars, ocelots and Pima pineapple cacti.
It would take enormous amounts of Colorado River water to extract oil from shale rock in Utah’s Uinta Basin — but state lawmakers are doing everything they can to make it happen, in what critics describe as a “suicide pact” that would fuel climate disruption while further diminishing the Colorado. Stephanie Mencimer shined a powerful light on this story in a deep dive for Mother Jones. Elsewhere in the Upper Colorado River Basin, not many farmers have signed up for a program to conserve water in exchange for cash. Poor program design may be partly to blame, per the Denver Post’s Conrad Swanson.
ONE MORE THING
In last Tuesday’s Boiling Point newsletter, I wrote about the conservation legacy of President Theodore Roosevelt, and why it’s relevant to the climate challenges we face today. In response, I got a thoughtful email from Dickinson State University historian Michael Cullinane, who told me I had taken Roosevelt’s “man in the arena” speech out of context, as many others have.
In its entirety, Cullinane said, the speech is actually a call for collective action, rather than a celebration of the individual.
“Roosevelt did not advocate individualism,” Cullinane wrote last year in the Washington Post, exploring the meaning of the 26th president’s words. “Whether on the field of play or in the political arena, he acknowledged that a single person had tremendous power and potential but that any individual effort paled in comparison to the power of a group of like-minded people.”
If that’s not relevant to our tall order confronting the climate crisis, I’m not sure what is.
For the record: Last Thursday’s edition referred to renewable energy projects potentially requiring 1% of U.S. federal lands, based on one estimate. The correct figure is 0.1%.
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