Back
PIPELINES: New York environmental activists say they will continue working to end gas pipeline expansions in the state, saying “the fight has shifted” after the defeat of the Williams Pipeline project. (City Limits)
WIND:
SOLAR:
HYDROGEN: The energy firms looking to build a $1.5 billion hydrogen fuel facility at Pittsburgh’s airport say they can’t do so unless federal clean energy tax credits include coal mine methane projects. (Associated Press)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
BATTERIES: New York’s Staten Island currently has 13 lithium-ion battery energy storage sites under development, according to a state database of projects receiving incentives. (SI Live)
GRID:
WORKFORCE: Massachusetts and a social impact investment firm want to create a climate tech workforce training loan program to educate the 30,000 workers needed to achieve the state’s climate goals, planning to raise $10 million in funds to do so. (WHDH)
FOSSIL FUELS: Con Edison says a roughly 4,400-gallon oil spill into the Hudson River last month was due to a failed piping component and cracks in the floor of the power station. (W42St)
OIL & GAS: Advocates say a loophole in New Mexico’s methane emission rules allows oil and gas companies to vent record-high volumes of the potent greenhouse gas, endangering the state’s climate goals. (Capital & Main)
ALSO: Alaska lawmakers advance legislation that would reduce state oil and gas royalties in hopes of spurring production and avoiding a looming natural gas shortage. (Alaska Beacon)
CARBON CAPTURE: A California oil-reliant community looks to spur economic development by building a carbon capture and sequestration industry utilizing depleted oil fields. (High Country News)
UTILITIES:
CLIMATE:
MICROGRIDS: Pacific Gas & Electric plans to build six remote microgrids in wildfire prone parts of northern California. (Microgrid Knowledge)
SOLAR: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis slams the Biden administration’s plan to increase tariffs on China-made solar panels, lithium ion batteries and other goods, saying it will hurt consumers and clean energy development. (Colorado Newsline)
CLEAN ENERGY: New Mexico awards seven companies $3.4 million to fund clean energy research and development. (news release)
MINING: An Indigenous advocacy group petitions the U.S. Supreme Court to block a proposed copper mine in Arizona that would destroy a site considered sacred by tribal nations. (Arizona Republic)
TRANSMISSION: Developers propose a 137-mile high-voltage transmission line to carry solar, wind and geothermal power from Arizona to southern California. (Coast News)
COAL: Wyoming lawmakers consider slashing coal severance taxes to help the beleaguered industry even though studies have shown such incentives don’t affect employment or production. (WyoFile)
TRANSPORTATION:
COMMENTARY: A California columnist urges state lawmakers to reform a property tax law to make it easier to site utility-scale solar installations on non-productive farmland. (Los Angeles Times)
Ohio has seen a big jump in the number of agency orders forcing property owners to allow oil and gas development on their land, whether they want it or not.
The number of so-called “unitization” orders issued by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has surged in recent years, peaking at 112 in 2022 and continuing at nearly 100 last year, according to data obtained from the agency by the Energy News Network.
The practice is common, with rules varying by state. In Ohio, lawmakers began working to streamline the process for oil and gas companies in 2019, coinciding with a decline in the state’s gas production after a seven-year fracking boom.
Those changes run contrary to other efforts in Ohio to restrict energy development in the name of neighbors’ private property rights, including strict wind farm setbacks passed in 2014 and a 2021 law allowing counties to block new wind and solar projects.
Under Ohio law, companies must meet several conditions before initiating unitization, including a showing that at least 65% of property owners in a project area consent to drilling.
Critics say the process was already tilted in the companies’ favor, and that the recent changes will make it even harder to block drilling or negotiate concessions.
“All the cards are stacked against us,” said Patrick Hunkler. In 2018, ODNR issued an unitization order for property he and his wife, Jean Backs, own in Belmont County, which is one of the state’s top-producing counties for oil and gas. The developer later canceled the project, so the order was revoked. More recently, Ascent Resources had tried to lease their land before backing out.
The legal process known as unitization has been available to Ohio oil and gas companies since 1965 but was rarely used until about a decade ago, after advances in drilling technology made it profitable to tap into harder-to-develop pockets of petroleum.
“The unitization process exists to protect the rights of those … who want to lease their minerals for development,” said Rob Brundrett, president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, “so that a small minority of owners … cannot stop everyone else from realizing the full potential of their property and minerals.”
For petroleum companies, the process has also promoted efficient oil and gas extraction. Otherwise, reduced pressure from too many wells could reduce the total recovery from an area.
Companies must show they have consent from owners of 65% of the area above a common oil and gas deposit before they can seek a unitization order. Companies also must show they tried to reach an agreement with holdouts, and that drilling under those properties is necessary to substantially increase the amount of oil and gas recovered. Any added value must also exceed the related costs.
“Our experience at the unitization hearing was that oil and gas runs the show,” Backs said.
Hearings don’t consider environmental impacts or other reasons landowners might not want drilling and fracking. “It’s just not part of the evaluation,” said Heidi Robertson, a Cleveland State University law professor who has written about unitization. Rather, she said, the basic question is: “Will adding this land to the unit make it easier for the developer to more efficiently and more profitably get the oil and gas out of the ground?”
The answer is almost always yes.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has denied only one unitization application since 2012, according to spokesperson Andy Chow. Meanwhile, it has approved more than 500 applications, with more than half the orders issued after 2020. The agency hired an additional employee in 2021 to deal with an increase in applications, Chow said.
Owners whose property is unitized won’t have pads or roads on their property, but they still get royalties and other payments. Ohio law requires “just and reasonable” compensation for landowners.
In most cases that compensation starts with a 12.5% royalty. Additional payments are adjusted for the developer’s expenses and other factors and the compensation is often smaller than that for voluntary participants. Orders typically have let companies recoup twice those amounts before unitized landowners can get payouts beyond royalties, said attorney Matthew Onest, whose firm has represented multiple landowners in oil and gas matters.
In some cases, property owners must wait even longer. At a March 27 hearing, for example, drilling company EAP Ohio asked for a “500% penalty” for owners who did not agree to a lease. Anna Biblowitz, a negotiator for Encino Energy, claimed the higher penalty was justified by the developer’s risk and “as a motivator for other working interest owners to participate.” A ruling in the case is due this month.
Some property owners, including Backs and Hunkler, worry about climate change and other environmental impacts. They said companies wouldn’t agree to requested lease terms for no flaring, methane monitoring and monitoring of the spring on their property.
“These oil and gas companies aren’t addressing the important issues of our environment,” Hunkler said.
Other landowners may hold out because they want more money, said Onest. “They kind of dig their heels in,” he said.
Industry experts said market forces could partially explain the rise in unitization cases. Property owners could hold out more often because they want higher payments like others got early on in the state’s fracking boom. Or, higher oil prices might be motivating companies to pursue projects that once seemed too complicated to be worthwhile.
State officials have made the process easier, too. In 2019, lawmakers added language about how to calculate the 65% threshold, tucking the terms into a 2,600-page state budget law. Matt Hammond, who was then president of the Ohio Oil & Gas Association, told lawmakers the added language was meant to “clarify” the law.
In practice, the change likely lowered a barrier for companies to use the tool, according to Clif Little, an Ohio State University Extension educator in Old Washington, Ohio. “If you’re seeing actually more [cases] for forced unitization, that would be a significant player in that,” Little said.
Another law passed in 2022 requires the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to hold hearings on unitization applications within 60 days. The agency must rule within 60 days of the hearing, and also let companies know in advance if an application is incomplete.
For industry, the primary benefit from the 2022 law change was to get certainty about timing. “This impacted how a producer was able to plan their drilling schedules,” said Mike Chadsey, director of external affairs for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources also changed its guidelines last year to standardize unitization applications. The agency’s website said the changes were “aimed at streamlining the review process” and that applications would include fewer documents.
Among other things, companies don’t need to file testimony from engineers, geologists and landmen in advance of hearings — something they had generally done in the past, said Robertson at Cleveland State. In her view, that further limits any dissenting landowners’ ability to prepare challenges to such testimony when the hearing does take place.
The Covid-19 pandemic also affected unitization hearings, which are now generally held via Zoom. “Allowing these meetings to be held via Zoom is a benefit to all parties involved,” Chadsey said, adding that it’s more convenient for landowners.
Folks in “suits and ties” had to come from out of state when ODNR held the unitization hearing for Hunkler and Backs’ property back in 2017. With a remote format, though, the hearing panel and company personnel “don’t have to look at you in person,” Hunkler said.
Oil and gas companies said they take every step to avoid forced leases, but that unitization is an important tool when that is not possible.
“When those means are exhausted, which often includes situations of poor record-keeping or the inability to locate an owner, unitization can be a tool to ensure property and mineral rights are realized by all stakeholders,” said Zack Arnold, president and CEO of Infinity Natural Resources.
Jackie Stewart, vice president of external affairs for Encino Energy voiced a similar position. “Encino makes every attempt to lease all landowners in each unit and only utilized unitization after all leasing efforts are exhausted, so the property rights of Ohio’s landowners can be realized,” she said.
“This isn’t something any lawyer can handle. You have to be an expert in this stuff,” Robertson said. “And all the experts are on the other side, because that’s where the money is.”
Robertson is unaware of any legislation to make matters fairer for landowners who don’t want to lease their land. And gerrymandering makes it unlikely such bills will be passed anytime soon. As she sees it, the process is “stacked against the dissenting landowner.”
CLEAN ENERGY: The location of a New Hampshire coal plant primes it well for a future of supporting offshore wind and energy storage projects, according to the facility’s owner. (Granite Geek)
EQUITY: Massachusetts’ residents with limited English proficiency face linguistic barriers to participating in or benefiting from the state’s energy assistance, assessment and weatherization programs. (WBUR/El Planeta)
CLIMATE: Even if Vermont’s governor, who hasn’t promised his signature, vetoes legislation making fossil fuel companies pay for climate damages, the legislature appears to have enough support to override him. (Heatmap)
WIND:
GRID:
SOLAR:
TRANSIT: The transit agency of Pennsylvania’s Cambria County purchases four new compressed natural gas buses to replace four diesel models. (Tribune-Democrat)
GRID: AEP Ohio asks state regulators for new rate structures that would require data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities to commit to long-term purchase agreements as the industry threatens to spike power demand. (Columbus Dispatch)
ALSO: Federal energy regulators approve sweeping transmission policy changes that aim to speed up interregional lines to move clean energy, improve long-term planning and fairly spread out costs. (Reuters)
MINING: Geologists say they have found a massive deposit of manganese in northern Minnesota and are determining whether it’s feasible to mine as a key mineral to reinforce steel and make lithium-ion batteries. (WCCO)
OIL & GAS: North Dakota enhanced oil recovery pilot projects could potentially unlock billions more barrels of oil over the coming decades, state officials say. (North Dakota Monitor)
CLEAN ENERGY:
HYDROGEN: High-profile hydrogen and advanced battery projects in Michigan face major uncertainty as demand for the products remains in question and investors rein in spending on unproven technologies. (Crain’s Detroit Business, subscription)
UTILITIES: The death of former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo, who was facing federal and state charges for his alleged role in a major utility corruption scheme, was officially ruled as a suicide. (Statehouse News Bureau)
CLIMATE: Homeowners across the Midwest are being dropped from their insurance policies as insurers increasingly lose money from more extreme weather events tied to climate change. (New York Times)
SOLAR:
STORAGE: Detroit-based utility DTE Energy seeks proposals from developers to build energy storage projects totaling about 120 MW. (Renewable Energy World)
COMMENTARY:
GRID: A new order from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will require grid operators to plan for a massive transmission buildout to support renewable energy, but critics say the rule infringes on state authority and could be subject to legal challenge. (Canary Media)
ALSO:
TRANSPORTATION: A coalition of 24 states yesterday petitioned a federal court to overturn EPA rules limiting emissions from trucks, while a separate lawsuit challenges California’s phase-out of diesel engines. (Associated Press)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: As anticipated, the Biden administration yesterday announced a new 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and 50% on solar components; China claims the move violates international trade rules. (CNN)
CLIMATE:
POLITICS: House Democrats are investigating whether Donald Trump’s solicitation of $1 billion in donations from oil companies violates federal campaign finance laws. (Washington Post)
NUCLEAR:
COAL: Federal and state records show a company that operates an Alabama coal mine where an explosion killed one nearby resident and critically injured another has been cited hundreds of times for safety violations and is delinquent on dozens of penalties. (Inside Climate News)
ELECTRIFICATION: California lawmakers advance legislation that would require labels on all new natural gas stoves warning customers of potential health hazards resulting from the appliances’ emissions. (Associated Press)
COMMENTARY:
In 2022, decades of advocacy by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network to address poor air quality near industrial facilities took a significant leap forward.
That’s when the Biden Administration awarded more than $50 million through the Inflation Reduction Act to increase air quality monitoring in some U.S. communities historically overburdened by pollution.
A year later, LEAN, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, got $500,000, which it used to deploy a fleet of mobile air monitoring vehicles. For three months earlier this year, the cars cruised up and down the Mississippi River, collecting continuous air quality data along a 300-mile route in southwest Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley.”
MaryLee Orr, LEAN’s executive director, has called the project a “dream” come true for her and the organization she founded in 1986.
“I get teary-eyed because for me, it’s been a lifetime of trying to find this kind of technology that communities could have,” Orr said during a virtual community meeting in January to roll out the project.
Now Louisiana will likely become one of the first states to push back on such community-led efforts. A Republican-backed bill headed to the governor’s desk will implement standards prohibiting data collected through some community air monitoring programs like LEAN’s from being used in enforcement or regulatory actions tied to the federal Clean Air Act.
“(Lawmakers) are making one hurdle after another to stop communities and discourage them from collecting any data by saying even if you collected it, we’re not going to count it; it’s not going to be important,” Orr said.
The industry-backed bill passed the House Wednesday on a 75-16 vote. The amended version returns to the Senate Monday, where an earlier version passed by an overwhelming majority.
What’s happening in Louisiana could be an indication of what’s to come elsewhere. A similar measure is up for consideration in the West Virginia Legislature.
Meanwhile, millions more in IRA grants are up for grabs for community-based groups, state, local and tribal agencies to do their own air monitoring in low-income and disadvantaged areas.
Localized air monitoring efforts allow marginalized communities overburdened by polluting industries to force transparency about the air they breathe and push state leaders to hold industry more accountable for harmful emissions.
Proponents of the new standards in Louisiana frame it as an attempt to bring more uniformity and standards to community air monitoring. But in a letter to one lawmaker, Region 6 Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Earthea Nance said the law would conflict with federal law, which states that “various kinds of information other than reference test data … may be used to demonstrate compliance or noncompliance with emission standards.”
Environmental advocates view the bill as a way to protect industry’s bad actors.
“The petrochemical industry is working with Louisiana legislators to inhibit community air monitoring because they know full well that they are polluting the air,” said Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade.
Since it was established in 2000, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has offered residents living near industrial facilities a low-cost, air monitoring tool approved by the U.S. EPA. The group’s name comes from the industrial-size buckets that contain monitoring equipment that members use to collect their own air samples around industrial facilities in their neighborhoods.
“It shows that they are scared of science and scared of the facts,” Rolfes said. “The power is on our side.”
Sen. Eddie Lambert, R-Gonzalez, whose legislative district includes three of the most heavily industrialized parishes in southeast Louisiana, sponsored the bill. It mandates that any air monitoring data used for enforcement and regulation must come from the most up-to-date EPA-approved equipment.
Analysis of that data can now only be conducted by labs approved by the state, which currently lists 175 accredited labs.
According to Stacey Holley, chief of staff for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the accreditation process can take between nine months and a year. The time is shorter for labs and research facilities wanting to amend their existing accreditation, she said.
Lambert did not return multiple emails or calls seeking comment on his bill. During a previous committee hearing, Lambert said the measure would ensure the public had accurate air quality information in this “age of the internet and disinformation.”
The Louisiana Chemical Association said the new standards don’t stop anyone from doing community air monitoring.
“Senator Lambert’s bill encourages that any air monitoring being conducted by individuals or organizations adhere to basic standards that EPA and LDEQ follow when testing air quality in the community,” Greg Bowser, president and chief executive officer of the statewide lobbying group, said in a statement. “These are the same standards a facility must meet when it complies with air monitoring requirements under their approved permits.”
Opponents say they need to do their own monitoring because the LDEQ is apathetic to concerns around air quality and the agency is slow to respond to spikes in pollutants detected by community air sensors.
“Essentially, every time a community member reports an air quality problem, whether it’s a dust cloud or toxic odors, DEQ doesn’t respond immediately,” said Kim Terrell, a research scientist and director of community engagement at the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic in New Orleans. “Part of that is that the agency is underfunded and understaffed. And part of that is that responding to residents’ complaints aren’t as big of a priority as they should be.”
Holley did not respond to inquiries related to those allegations.
In earlier committee testimony, Terrell said community-based air monitoring provides the best indication of air quality within certain geographical areas. She told lawmakers that reliable data can come from sources besides what the bill deems as the “gold standard” of air quality monitoring.
“There are other types of monitoring technologies that can provide useful data beyond the very limited techniques that are required in that bill,” she said.
Rolfes views the new standards and the most recent actions of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who took office in January, as troubling signs that Louisiana leaders want to dial back accountability and enact a pro-oil and gas industry stance.
“The legislators involved in this are showing us that … the petrochemical industry is worth more than the health of people in this state,” she said.
LDEQ’s air monitoring system consists of 40 stationary air quality sensors across a sprawling state that has among the highest emissions of toxic and greenhouse gasses in the country.
Terrell said LDEQ’s monitors are often insufficient to capture “real time” air quality data because many are too far away from “fence line” communities, don’t measure certain harmful pollutants or are unable to detect spikes depending on their position and wind flow.
She added that the kind of 24-hour, seven days a week air monitoring LEAN’s program did is a way to bridge those gaps.
LEAN was among four entities awarded a total of $2.4 million for community air monitoring in Louisiana. The other recipients were LDEQ, the Louisiana State University Health Foundation and the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.
Adrienne Katner, associate professor at LSU’s School of Public Health, said the new standards won’t directly impact the nearly $500,000 the university received for a project collecting air quality data for a road construction project along Interstate 10 and the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans.
But, added Katner, “We are concerned it might affect how we release the data should one of the community groups we work with want to take that data and file a complaint about air quality in the area.”
LEAN spent about $250,000 in 2023 to hire Aclima, a San Francisco-based pollution mapping company, which used its fleet of mobile air monitoring vehicles — Orr calls them “Harry Potter cars” — to collect samples around the clock for three months. The route included more than 20 cities in south Louisiana along the Mississippi, many of them majority Black and overburdened by industrial pollution.
The Aclima monitors sucked in air every second and uploaded the data for its science team to analyze and map for the public. The mobile monitors measured carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, fine particulates, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, black carbon and at least five other toxic emissions.
Earlier this year, LEAN’s mobile monitoring detected a methane leak in St. Charles, Louisiana that Orr said would have likely gone unnoticed. LEAN alerted state officials about it.
Orr said a full report of Aclima’s findings would be released in the coming months.
“I think there are going to be some surprises for people,” she said. “I think there are some areas where maybe people wouldn’t have expected things to be high, and they are. And then I think there’s places where you thought there might be huge, bigger numbers, and there weren’t.”
Should the governor sign Lambert’s bill into law before then, the findings likely would be disregarded by LDEQ. That’s because Aclima — named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential Companies for its hyperlocal air pollution and greenhouse gas mapping — is not listed among the laboratories accredited through LDEQ.
Orr said LEAN has no plans to abandon its citizen monitoring effort. The group will use the rest of the IRA funds to install stationary air sensors.
“They’re saying they are not taking away air monitoring, but it seems like they want to take the teeth out of it,” Orr said. “They’re taking away the thing that seems to scare the people who are behind this bill, and that’s people having the right to know what they’re being exposed to.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
SOLAR: A northern Maine community of around 11,400 homes and businesses was able to run on only solar power last week for about 12 cumulative hours, a first-ever occurrence for utility Versant. (Maine Public Radio)
OFFSHORE WIND: New Hampshire lawmakers and business leaders want state energy officials to take a more active role in encouraging offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine compared to the “market-based approach” to electricity decarbonization being used. (NHPR)
GRID:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
TRANSPORTATION:
GAS: A Connecticut county’s farm bureau wants the state to support more anaerobic digesters on farms to turn wasted food into electricity, heat and fertilizer. (CT News Junkie)
CLIMATE:
UTILITIES: A consortium of four southeast Pennsylvania counties signs a five-year deal with a retail energy supplier to help them purchase more renewable power. (WHYY)
HYDROPOWER: Both federal- and state-level public comment periods are open this summer as the lengthy relicensing process draws closer to an end for three hydropower dams in Massachusetts’ Franklin County. (Mass Live)
TIDAL: Federal energy regulators grant an eight-year license to a nonprofit firm to test out tidal energy turbines in the Cape Cod Canal. (Cape Cod Times)
COMMENTARY: The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s former president encourages Marylanders to ditch gas-powered landscaping equipment to reduce emissions and noise pollution. (Baltimore Sun)
CLIMATE: Norfolk, Virginia, works through the design stage of a hotly debated $400 million project to reimagine a poor, majority Black community that includes a linear “Blue Greenway” to capture stormwater and reduce flooding that regularly saturates the neighborhood. (Energy News Network)
ALSO: Documents reveal Alabama officials have long been aware of Black residents’ flooding concerns, but have used restrictive land covenants to block their ability to file flooding-related claims. (Inside Climate News)
PIPELINES:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama begin voting whether to join the United Auto Workers, just weeks after a Tennessee Volkswagen plant opted to unionize. (AL.com)
STORAGE: Texas’ rapidly growing battery sector has already bailed out the state power grid once this year, injecting 2 GW of power on a warm April night as a large number of gas and coal plants were offline for maintenance. (Canary Media)
SOLAR:
WIND:
OIL & GAS: Workers building a $21 billion liquified natural gas plant in Louisiana are beset by dangerous, silica-laden dust blown around at the construction site. (Sierra)
GRID: A Georgia water group releases a report showing how state economic incentives have resulted in a rash of new data centers that strain the power grid and use large amounts of water for cooling. (Georgia Recorder)
EMISSIONS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The Biden administration is expected to announce new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles this week, extending Trump-era policies aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing. (New York Times)
ALSO:
POLITICS: A $6.6 million fuel industry ad campaign is targeting President Biden and Democratic Senate candidates over support for tougher emissions standards for cars. (NBC News)
GRID:
TRANSPORTATION: U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg calls for developers to emulate the public-private, transit-oriented real estate approach behind a high-speed rail line under construction between Las Vegas and southern California. (E&E News)
CLIMATE:
SOLAR: A northern Maine community of around 11,400 homes and businesses was able to run on only solar power last week for about 12 cumulative hours, a first-ever occurrence for utility Versant. (Maine Public Radio)
.svg)
