The U.S. Treasury Department intends to release guidance on how to access tax credits for hydrogen production under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act later this week, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The long-awaited guidance will provide a pathway for hydrogen produced using nuclear power to access the credits, the sources told Reuters,...
Biden signs bill into law allowing Arizona utility SRP to progress 2GW pumped hydro project
US outgoing President Joe Biden has signed a bi-partisan bill into law allowing Arizona utility Salt River Project (SRP) to construct a pumped hydro energy storage project. SRP has been considering expanding its pumped storage projects on Arizona’s Salt River reservoir system. It has evaluated two potential sites for such facilities above Apache Lake. The...
Green-Energy Firms’ Pitch to Trump: You’re Going to Need a Lot of Power
Green-energy companies are freaking out, trying to figure out how to navigate the Republican sweep of the White House and Congress. After being a favorite punching bag of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign, they are contacting incoming cabinet appointees, hunting for friendly members of the transition team and calling on Republican members of Congress, according to executives....
The Federal Government Is Spending Over $15 Billion To Push Electric Vehicles
Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) has released his annual Festivus Report, highlighting over $1 trillion in wasteful federal government spending. This year’s report includes a $12 million pickleball court in Las Vegas, $10 billion in maintenance and rent for mostly empty federal buildings, and hundreds of thousands of dollars for censoring nonliberal media (including Reason). Unsurprisingly, the federal...
New York to charge fossil fuel companies over climate damage under new law
New York is poised to charge large fossil fuel companies a massive $75 billion over the next 25 years in an effort to curb the effects of climate change under a new law. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) signed the controversial climate law Thursday, several months after the state legislature passed the bill in the spring. The law looks to establish...
The Biden LNG Export Gambit Fails
The November election changed America’s direction in many ways, but none more than energy policy. For an example, consider the Biden Administration’s political two-step designed to give a President Kamala Harris the ability to block liquefied natural gas export projects. Recall that in January President Biden, prodded by White House climate adviser John Podesta, announced the Administration was...
Keep Permitting a Priority in 2025
Permitting talks in Congress stalled last weekend as lead negotiators could not agree on a final compromise. Republican control of the presidency and Congress, albeit with slim majorities, provides an opportunity for a fresh look at permitting reform next year. It’ll be a fresh start with a shifted Overton window, but the 119th Congress should continue to prioritize permitting reform with the following principles in mind.
Congress to Extend 2018 Farm Bill and Allocate $10 Billion in Aid
With lawmakers unable to pass a new farm bill this Congress, $10 billion in economic assistance was included for farmers facing hardships from low crop yields, declining commodity prices, and natural disasters, which resulted in $21.94 billion of crop losses in 2023 alone.
What’s in, what’s out of the year-end funding deal
Congressional leaders finalized a deal Tuesday to extend government funding, approve more than $100 billion in disaster aid and advance a slew of bipartisan priorities that had been awaiting action for months. The stopgap funding measure, if approved this week as expected, will kick Friday night’s funding deadline to March 14, buying congressional appropriators nearly...
We Don’t Need This Much Permitting
America’s process for permitting infrastructure is a convoluted mess of federal, state, and local procedures, regulations, bureaucracies, lawsuits, judges, activists, and landowners. “Getting approval from all of them, getting every single box checked, is the biggest hang-up to getting projects up and running,” says Cary Davis of the American Association of Port Authorities in a video making...