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A trailblazing regional greenhouse gas partnership on the East Coast is considering possible changes or expansion that would allow it to keep building on its success — and the stakes grew higher last month with the reelection of Donald Trump.
The 11-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, established in 2005, is the country’s first regional cap-and-invest system for reducing carbon emissions from power generation. Since 2021, administrators have been conducting a program review, analyzing its performance since the last review in 2017 and weighing potential adjustments to make sure it continues to deliver benefits to member states.
The role of such programs is more crucial as Trump’s pledges to roll back federal climate action leaves it up to cities, states, and the private sector to maintain the country’s momentum on clean energy over the next four years. In RGGI, as the regional initiative is known, states have a potential model for scaling their impact through collaboration.
“RGGI has not only been an effective climate policy, it’s been an extraordinary example of how states can work together on common goals,” said Daniel Sosland, president of climate and energy nonprofit Acadia Center. “It is a major vehicle for climate policy now in the states, more than it might have seemed before the election.”
RGGI sets a cap for total power plant carbon emissions among member states. Individual generators must then buy allowances from the state, up to the total cap, for each ton of carbon dioxide they produce in a year. The cap lowers over time, forcing power plants to either reduce emissions or pay more to buy allowances from a shrinking pool.
States then reinvest the proceeds from these auctions into programs that further reduce emissions and help energy customers, including energy efficiency initiatives, direct bill assistance, and renewable energy projects. Since 2008, RGGI has generated $8.3 billion for participating states, and carbon dioxide emissions from power generation in the nine states that have consistently participated fell by about half between 2008 and 2021, a considerably faster rate than the rest of the country.
“It has really thrived and been really effective across multiple administrations,” said Jackson Morris, state power sector director with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “RGGI is a winning model. It’s not theoretical — we’ve got numbers.”
Currently, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont are part of the program. Virginia joined RGGI in 2021, but in 2023 Gov. Glenn Youngkin repealed the state’s participation, a move immediately challenged in court; a judge ruled last month that the governor lacked the authority to withdraw the state from initiative, though a spokesman for the governor has declared the state’s intention to appeal.
There is widespread agreement that RGGI will endure despite likely federal hostility to climate measures. There was no attempt to take direct action against it during Trump’s first term, nor has there been any concerted industry opposition, said Conservation Law Foundation president Bradley Campbell, who was involved in the founding of RGGI when he was commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Supporters also note that the program has historically had broad bipartisan support: Participating states have been led through the years by both Republican and Democratic governors and legislatures.
Politics has had some influence over the years, though only at the margins. New Jersey, a founding member of RGGI, left in 2011 when Chris Christie was governor, but returned in 2020 following an executive order from his successor. Pennsylvania joined in 2022 through an executive order from the governor, but its participation is now being challenged in court.
Still, RGGI’s foundations are solid and will remain so, experts said.
“The basic infrastructure has weathered the political winds over the decades,” Campbell said.
Nonetheless, RGGI will need to make some carefully thought-out program design decisions during its current review to make an impact in the face of falling federal support for decarbonization.
One question under consideration is whether to maintain the existing trajectory for the overall emissions cap for the program — a reduction of 30% between 2020 and 2030, then holding steady thereafter — or to continue lowering the limit after 2030.
The RGGI states are also contemplating a possible change to the compliance schedule that would require power generators to acquire allowances worth 100% of their carbon emissions each year, and certify compliance annually. The current system calls for certification every three years, and only mandates allowances equivalent to half of carbon emissions for the first two years of each period.
The program is looking for ways to appeal to potential new participant states that have less aggressive decarbonization goals than current member states without watering down the program’s overall impact on decarbonization, said Acadia Center policy analyst Paola Tamayo. Acadia suggested possible program mechanisms such as giving proportionately more allowances to states with more stringent emissions targets to incentivize tighter limits.
“At this point it is critical for states to maintain a high level of ambition when it comes to programs like RGGI,” Tamayo said. “There are different mechanisms that they can implement to accommodate other states.”
The program review is expected to yield a model rule some time over the winter, though updates may be made into the spring as the RGGI states receive and consider feedback on how to accommodate potential new participants.
States will also need to maintain and strengthen their own climate policies to magnify the impact of RGGI, Campbell said. He pointed to Massachusetts, where Gov. Maura Healey needs to show “bolder leadership,” he said, and Maine and Vermont, where the Conservation Law Foundation has filed lawsuits in an attempt to compel the states to meet their own carbon reduction deadlines.
“It’s especially important that the states that have strong emissions reduction mandates speed up the implementation of their climate laws,” he said. “State leadership on these issues is going to be more important than ever.”
EMISSIONS: Maine has become the latest state to sue major oil and gas companies, alleging they withheld information about the environmental impact of fossil fuels in order to pursue profit. (New York Times)
OFFSHORE WIND: A French energy company has paused its plans to build an offshore wind farm off New York and New Jersey for at least four years, citing President-elect Donald Trump’s opposition to wind as a major factor. (New York Post)
NUCLEAR:
FOSSIL FUELS
CLIMATE
TRANSMISSION:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A Vermont aviation company successfully completes a flight of its first electric plane, while the airport in nearby Plattsburgh, New York has been selected as the site for a test flight of the largest fully electric aircraft ever to take to the skies. (VTDigger, NBC5)
GRID: Advocates ask federal regulators to require a private equity firm planning to buy four power plants in PJM territory to disclose whether it plans to sell the energy to data centers, amid concerns the purchase could lead to “unreasonable rates” for customers. (Utility Dive)
COAL: Research out of Johns Hopkins confirms the presence of coal dust in a Baltimore neighborhood near a coal terminal, backing up residents claims that the particles coat their homes and cause health problems. (Baltimore Sun, subscription)
CLIMATE: As President-elect Trump seeks to dismantle U.S. climate policy, advocates note the 2009 EPA finding declaring greenhouse gases a threat to public health has already survived numerous legal challenges as the science underpinning it has become more robust. (E&E News)
ALSO: Maine has become the latest state to sue major oil and gas companies, alleging they withheld information about the environmental impact of fossil fuels in order to pursue profit. (New York Times)
CLEAN ENERGY:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Rivian appears likely to restart construction of its Georgia factory after receiving a nearly $6 billion federal loan, resparking tension for Republican leaders between applauding the company’s investment and criticizing federal support for clean energy. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
OIL & GAS: Analysts say Trump’s proposed tariffs on Canada will increase gasoline prices as much as 75 cents per gallon as many U.S. refineries are engineered to specifically handle Canadian crude; meanwhile, industry groups are pushing for exemptions. (E&E News)
EQUITY: Environmental justice groups worry that millions in federal grants aimed at increasing climate resilience in disinvested communities will not be disbursed before the Trump administration can end the program. (Inside Climate News)
OFFSHORE WIND: A French energy company has paused its plans to build an offshore wind farm off New York and New Jersey for at least four years, citing Trump’s opposition to wind as a major factor. (New York Post)
SOLAR:
COAL: The Biden administration finalizes rules blocking new federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, but Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon says he will work with the incoming Trump administration to overturn the ban. (The Hill, news release)
COMMENTARY: A California columnist says popular bakeries’ opposition helped sink Berkeley’s natural gas-tax ballot measure, and urges the restaurant industry to work together to electrify. (Los Angeles Times)
COAL: The Biden administration finalizes rules blocking new federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, but Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon says he will work with the incoming Trump administration to overturn the ban. (The Hill, news release)
OIL & GAS:
SOLAR:
CLEAN ENERGY: A Colorado city considers offering a renewable energy company more than $4 million in tax rebates if it establishes a manufacturing facility locally. (Gazette)
UTILITIES:
CLIMATE: Data show Boulder, Colorado has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 24% over the past six years, with the biggest reductions coming from buildings and transportation. (Boulder Daily Camera)
BIOFUEL: California advocates push back on a plan to produce fuel pellets from wildfire mitigation work for export to Europe and Asia, saying it would pollute port communities. (Los Angeles Times)
GEOTHERMAL: A Colorado startup proposes a 20 to 80 MW geothermal plant on a private ranch in the western part of the state. (Ouray County Plaindealer)
PUBLIC LANDS: Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning is named president of an environmental group after tightening rules on public land oil and gas drilling and coal leasing during the Biden administration. (Associated Press)
COMMENTARY: A California columnist says popular bakeries’ opposition helped sink Berkeley’s natural gas-tax ballot measure, and urges the restaurant industry to work together to electrify. (Los Angeles Times)
A top executive with Minnesota’s largest utility says data center growth will not prevent it from meeting the state’s 100% clean electricity law, but it may extend the life of natural gas power plants into the next decade.
“As we take all of that coal off the system — even if you didn’t add data centers into the mix — I think we may have been looking to extend some gas (contracts) on our system to get us through a portion of the 2030s,” said Ryan Long, president of Xcel Energy’s division serving Minnesota and the Dakotas. “Adding data centers could increase the likelihood of that, to be perfectly honest.”
Long made the comments at a Minnesota Public Utilities Commission conference this fall exploring the potential impact of data centers on the state’s 2040 clean electricity mandate.
The expansion of power-hungry data centers, driven by artificial intelligence, has caused anxiety across the country among utility planners and regulators. The trend is moving the goalposts for states’ clean electricity targets and raising questions about whether clean energy capacity can keep up with demand as society also tries to electrify transportation and building heat.
Minnesota PUC commissioner Joe Sullivan organized last month’s conference in response to multiple new data centers projects, including a $700 million facility by Facebook’s parent company Meta that’s under construction in suburban Rosemount. Microsoft and Amazon have each acquired property near a retiring Xcel coal plant in central Minnesota.
“We need to ensure that our system is able to serve these companies if they come,” Sullivan said, “and that it can serve them with clean resources consistent with state law.”
Alongside concerns about whether clean energy can keep up with new electricity demand, there’s also an emerging view that data centers — if properly regulated — could become grid assets that help accelerate the transition to carbon-free power. Several stakeholders at the Oct. 31 event shared that view, including Xcel’s regional president.
A 100-megawatt data center could generate as much as $64 million in annual revenue for Xcel, enough to help temper rate increases or cover the cost of other projects on the system, Long said. He said the company wants to attract 1.3 gigawatts worth of data centers to its territory by 2032, and it thinks it can absorb all of that demand without harming progress toward its 2040 clean energy requirement.
Long said data center expansion will not change the company’s plans to close all of its remaining coal-fired power plants by 2040, but it may cause them to try to keep gas plans operating longer. Ultimately, meeting the needs of data centers will require more renewable generation, battery storage, and grid-enhancing technology, but rising costs and supply chain issues have slowed deployment of those solutions.
Other utilities echoed that optimism. Julie Pierce, Minnesota Power’s vice president for strategy and planning said the company has experience serving large customers such as mines in northeastern Minnesota and would be ready to serve data centers. Great River Energy’s resource planning director Zachary Ruzycki said the generation and transmission cooperative “has a lot of arrows in its quiver” to accommodate data centers.
Ruzycki noted, too, that much of the interest it has received from data center developers is because of the state’s commitment to clean energy. Many large data center operators have made corporate commitments to power them on 100% carbon-free electricity, whether from renewables or nuclear power.
Pete Wyckoff, deputy commissioner for energy at the Minnesota Department of Commerce, expressed doubts about the ability to meet unchecked demand from data centers. Even with the state’s recent permitting reforms, utilities are unlikely to be able to deliver “power of any sort — much less clean power — in the size and timeframes that data centers are likely to request.”
He sees hydrogen, long-duration batteries, carbon capture, and advanced nuclear among the solutions that will eventually be needed, but in the short-term the grid could serve more data centers with investments in transmission upgrades, virtual power plants, and other demand response programs.
“These solutions can be deployed faster and cheaper than building all new transmission and large clean energy facilities, though we’ll need those, too,” Wyckoff said.
Aaron Tinjum, director of energy policy and regulatory affairs for the Data Center Coalition, said data centers provide the computing power for things like smart meters, demand response, and other grid technologies. The national trade group represents the country’s largest technology and data center companies.
“We can’t simply view data centers as a significant consumer of energy if they’re all helping us become more efficient, and helping us save on our utility bills,” Tinjum said.
He also pointed to data centers’ role in driving clean energy development. A recent report from S&P Global Commodity Insights found that data centers account for half of all U.S. corporate clean energy procurement.
The true impact of data centers on emissions and the grid is complicated, though. Meta, which participated in the recent Minnesota conference, says it matches all of its annual electricity use with renewable energy, but environmental groups say there is evidence that its data centers are increasing fossil fuel use and emissions in the local markets where they are built.
Amelia Vohs, climate program director with the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, raised concerns at the conference about whether data center growth will make it harder to electrify transportation and heating. She pointed to neighboring Wisconsin, where utilities are proposing to build new gas plants to power data centers.
“This commission and the stakeholders here today have all done a ton of work and made great progress in decarbonizing the electric sector in our state,” Vohs said. “I worry about possibly rolling that back if we all of a sudden have a large load that needs to be served with fossil fuels, or [require] a fossil fuel backup.”
The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office argued that state regulators need to scrutinize data center deals to make sure developers are paying the total cost of their impact on the system, including additional regulatory, operational and maintenance work that might be required on the grid.
In an interview, Sullivan said he was impressed by tech companies’ interest in having data centers in Minnesota because of the 2040 net zero goal, not despite it. They want to buy electricity from Minnesota utilities rather than build their own power systems or locate in neighboring states, he added, and the October meeting left him confident that “we can deal with this.”
President-elect Trump spent his campaign promising to tear into electric vehicle incentives and emission regulations. A growing contingent is preparing to fight him on it.
For starters, Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, and other automakers plan to ask the incoming president to keep in place Biden administration tailpipe emissions standards that would push them toward phasing out combustion vehicles. While they don’t all love the regulations, they’ve already invested billions of dollars into EVs and just want the rules governing that transition to stay consistent, the New York Times reports. The same goes for the Inflation Reduction Act’s $7,500 EV incentives: automakers and dealers say repealing them would hurt sales and put their huge EV investments at risk.
If something does happen to those incentives, California is coming up with a backup plan. Gov. Gavin Newsom this week proposed relaunching the state’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program to once again incentivize EV purchases, promising that “we’re not turning back on a clean transportation future.” Officials in the governor’s office told the Associated Press that the state could exclude Tesla from those rebates to incentivize competition, something Trump’s pal Elon Musk called “insane.”
Meanwhile, the $7.5 billion for EV chargers allocated under 2021’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is in safer territory. The program so far hasn’t made much progress deploying chargers, but its funding will largely be allocated to projects and nearly impossible to roll back by the time Trump takes office, experts tell Politico.
🕰️ Every second counts: Biden administration officials say they’ll race to allocate the remaining $46 billion from four climate and infrastructure bills before the year ends, but $303 billion will remain that cannot be spent until after Trump takes office. (Washington Post)
👷 Offshore wind’s newest defenders: Industrial unions are emerging as a somewhat unlikely source of support for offshore wind and may be uniquely positioned to help defend the nascent industry’s momentum under a second Trump presidency. (Grist)
🏦 Good news for a green bank: A federal green bank program could survive the next four years, assuming the Trump administration follows the law, as its funding has already been formally committed and is supporting projects in red and blue states. (Canary Media)
🔌 Uncertainty on efficiency: Advocates anticipate a mixed bag for energy efficiency under Trump’s second term, expecting cuts in federal funding but noting that efficiency standards benefit U.S. manufacturers and have long had bipartisan support. (Utility Dive)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Duke Energy builds an electric vehicle charging station near Charlotte, North Carolina, that includes a solar farm and two battery storage systems, and could become a model as commercial trucking companies electrify their fleets. (WFAE)
ALSO:
PIPELINES: Natural gas producer EQT announces it’s selling a stake in its pipeline network to asset manager Blackstone for $3.5 billion, which includes the Mountain Valley Pipeline. (Reuters, news release)
HYDROGEN: Four partners have withdrawn from a regional network building an Appalachian hydrogen hub due to the inclusion of strict carbon emission limits in a tax credit to incentivize production. (Mountain State Spotlight)
CARBON CAPTURE:
CLEAN ENERGY: Federal officials award more than $3.6 million to 20 Tennessee farms and businesses to install solar power and energy efficiency upgrades. (Tennessee Lookout)
OIL & GAS: Sources close to Trump’s transition team says he plans to “go strong” on liquified natural gas exports. (Reuters)
GRID:
OVERSIGHT:
COMMENTARY: Dominion Energy’s filings reveal that data centers are single-handedly driving its escalating projections for new power demand, calling into question the utility’s proposal to build more gas-fired power plants and delay the transition to clean energy, writes a columnist. (Virginia Mercury)
GRID: The Biden administration announces a $4.9 billion loan guarantee to help finance the first phase of the 578-mile Grain Belt Express transmission line, which aims to move solar and wind energy from Kansas to Missouri and beyond. (E&E News)
ALSO: An Indiana utility, regulators, and other stakeholders reach a settlement that would require large new load customers like data centers to make long-term commitments to pay for the costs to serve them to avoid costs shifting to consumers, a “landmark” deal supported by ratepayer advocates. (Utility Dive; Indiana Capital Chronicle)
SOLAR:
STORAGE: A new 100 MW battery storage project brings Michigan utility Consumers Energy’s total storage portfolio to 400 MW, or about 5% of peak electricity demand. (Michigan Public)
NUCLEAR: The timeline for reopening a shuttered nuclear plant in Michigan next year could be delayed after inspectors found more defects than anticipated in the plant’s steam generator system. (Detroit News, subscription)
PIPELINES: While President-elect Trump reportedly wants to revive the Keystone XL pipeline, the former project developer no longer owns the pipeline system that it was intended to complement, and portions of the line previously installed have been dug up and would require new local permits. (Politico)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
FOSSIL FUELS: The Biden administration proposes tighter nitrogen oxide emission limits for new natural gas plants, though the regulation’s fate is unclear with the incoming Trump administration. (Utility Dive)
TRANSPORTATION: Climate group Sunrise Movement organizes members in Kansas City to make demands for more reliable and cleaner public transportation. (The Pitch)
LAW: A Missouri attorney pleads guilty to tax evasion after his involvement in local planning decisions to convert a former golf course to a solar project and to demolish a local power plant. (Missouri Independent)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes offering rebates on electric vehicle purchases if the incoming Trump administration eliminates a federal EV tax credit, while suggesting the incentive program could exclude Tesla cars. (Associated Press, Sacramento Bee)
ALSO: Colorado awards three municipalities $1.5 million to develop an electric bicycle sharing program. (BizWest, subscription)
NUCLEAR:
SOLAR:
UTILITIES: Public Service Company of New Mexico proposes adding 430 MW of new solar capacity and battery storage, including a planned array near the defunct San Juan coal plant. (Solar Industry)
GRID:
OIL & GAS:
COAL: Utah lawmakers propose legislation to close perceived gaps in a 2023 law aimed at blocking the Intermountain Power Association coal plant’s 2025 retirement. (Utah News Dispatch)
LITHIUM: A Utah lithium mining firm idles its Great Salt Lake operations and lays off 186 employees, citing low commodity prices. (KUER)
BUILDINGS: A Colorado town considers requiring homeowners to offset outdoor energy use for pools, spas and snowmelt systems by installing solar and batteries or paying a fee. (Vail Daily)
PUBLIC LANDS: Federal officials push back on Western states’ legal bid to seize “unappropriated” public lands, saying the case rests on “weak foundations.” (WyoFile)
CLIMATE: California’s public employee pension fund says it has invested $53 billion in climate solutions over the last year, though advocates are still urging it to divest from ExxonMobil. (ESG Dive)
SOLAR: Virginia solar advocates rail at Appalachian Power’s proposal to reduce net metering credits by more than 70%, arguing that doing so would hamper adoption of rooftop solar systems. (Cardinal News)
OIL & GAS:
CARBON CAPTURE:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
TRANSITION: West Virginia regulators grant an extension to Longview Power subsidiaries to build a 1,200 MW gas-fired power plant and solar array at the site of a former coal plant. (WV Metro News)
GRID:
NUCLEAR: A company begins manufacturing centrifuges at a Tennessee factory that separate out uranium fuel to power commercial nuclear reactors. (Knoxville News Sentinel)
UTILITIES: The Tennessee Valley Authority has received about 1,600 comments so far on its proposed long-term resource plan, which includes construction of several new gas-fired power plants. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
POLITICS: Critics worry a conservative think tank’s policy proposals that have been called a blueprint for the Trump administration could reduce access to flood insurance and hamper local governments that rely on National Weather Service data for disaster preparedness. (Houston Chronicle)
COMMENTARY: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s efforts to promote nuclear power in the state are intended to attract more data centers, not to benefit state residents, writes an opinion editor at a college newspaper. (Cavalier Daily)
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