Tech giant Amazon wants to build an on-site power plant that would become the most polluting in the country.

• As part of its Pecos County, Texas data center campus, tech giant Amazon said it will power it with “new on-site generation.” It wants to install 35 gas-powered turbines to generate up to 7.65 GW of electricity on-site, and it would be permitted to release as much as 33 million tons of CO2 per year.

• Instantly, this facility would become the most polluting power plant in the United States. In 2025, according to EPA data, the most polluting power plant in the country was Alabama Power’s James H Miller Jr. Electric Generating Plant, a coal power plant that produced 21 million tons of CO2. The 33 million tons of CO2 is roughly equivalent to 9% of California’s total emissions, and more than the state’s agricultural emissions.

• While the company insists its commitment to emissions reduction “hasn’t changed,” it’s entirely unclear how Amazon can both construct this facility and meet its goal to eliminate its emissions by 2040. These forms of irresponsible power arrangements are also driving opposition to data centers.

2. Montana Utility Joins CAISO’s Energy Market

BHE Montana agreed to join the California grid’s new extended day-ahead market.

• On Monday, utility BHE Montana announced that it would join California Independent System Operator’s (CAISO) extended day-ahead market (EDAM). The EDAM allows power producers and buyers to buy and sell electricity the day before delivery, allowing grid operators to coordinate supply and demand ahead of time.

• BHE is now the eighth participant to join the market, linking CAISO’s market to Montana on top of utilities in California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Idaho, and Washington. Broader regional coordination and electricity markets can both significantly lower emissions and costs by improving efficiency across greater areas.

• By linking different states, power production in different regions, especially renewables like wind and solar, can supplement each other. CAISO’s modeling shows that the wider EDAM could reduce CO2 emissions by 1.5% across the utility service territory and save Western states $1.2 billion annually.

3. One of the Worst Fire Seasons in Years

The Western US becomes the latest fire record-breaker as high temperatures create conditions for fire.

• After wildfires threatened major European cities in France and Spain, the United States is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons in years. For months, fire and climate experts have warned of “elevated” wildfire risk through the year.

• The entire Northern Hemisphere this year has experienced a record-breaking wildfire season that has burned millions of acres and caused hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate, and burned thousands of structures.

• Following an exceptionally hot July, more than 600 fires started in Oregon and Washington, forcing thousands from their homes. In Spokane, Washington, around 10% of the city’s residents have been forced to evacuate their homes. Simply put, climate change and rising temperatures are elevating the risk and conditions for wildfires.

4. Data Centers Face Climate Shocks

Research finds that an overwhelming majority of global data center capacity face “elevated” climate risk.

• A study from climate data group First Street found that the tech industry’s “largest and fastest-growing hubs” for data center development are concentrated in climate-vulnerable areas, with worsening climate risks. 79% of global capacity faces “acute climate hazards” like flooding, hurricanes, and wildfires while 54% of capacity faces “chronic climate stress” like extreme heat or drought.

• These figures directly threaten data centers’ bottomline: major climate-driven disasters directly threaten their coveted “5 9s” of uptime, which requires data centers to be available for 99.999% of the year and unavailable for only 5 minutes and 15 seconds annually. Also importantly, chronic heat and drought, worsened by climate change, significantly increase data centers’ cooling needs, thereby massively increasing their power consumption and costs.

• The elevated operational risks to data centers is also becoming a challenge for insurers: provider Allianz Commercial warned this week that the complexity, value of input materials, and elevated climate risks faced by data centers make them complicated to insure. Allianz claimed that “climate-aware site selection” is critical to accessing insurance.

5. Fossil Fuel Advocates Want A ‘Constitutional Right’ To … Natural Gas

In Colorado, fossil fuel-backed advocates are pushing for a constitutional amendment to enshrine a right to natural gas.

• This week, Advance Colorado submitted petition signatures to the state Secretary of State’s office to get Initiative 177 on the November ballot. The ballot measure says that consumers “have the right to purchase natural gas,” and that utilities equally have “the right to sell natural gas.” Meanwhile, active fires have burned thousands of acres and hundreds of homes across the state.

• Advance Colorado doesn’t disclose its donors, but an investigation found that the group was funded in part by “pass-through” donations from Phil Anschutz, an oil magnate who served on the board of the American Petroleum Institute.

• The language of the initiative is overly broad, and it’s unclear if it would impact Colorado’s new 2025 statewide building code which encourages, but does not require, all-electric building. The language, too, wouldn’t necessarily compel individuals, homeowners, or builders to install gas hookups, either.

• As fewer people use fossil fuel infrastructure, like the natural gas distribution system, the economics of those systems become more challenging for producers and customers, who have to pay a significantly higher per-customer cost to maintain shrinking infrastructure. This initiative would just exacerbate this problem and take away the state’s ability to manage the transition.

Conservation Colorado CEO Kelly Nordini said, “Nothing like it exists anywhere in the country, and for good reason: our Constitution is meant to protect fundamental rights, not guarantee one industry’s profits.”

Governor Greg Abbott announced that no new data centers would move forward in the state until it completed an “audit” of all current proposed projects.

• On Monday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas Public Utilities Commission and ERCOT to study and audit all data centers proposed in Texas, focusing on their impacts on the grid, electricity rates, water usage, and local communities. While he refrains from using the word, Abbott’s “pause” looks a lot like a moratorium.

• Texas finds itself in unlikely company with New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul announced a moratorium on new data centers over 50 MW. Hochul declined to sign a more stringent bill that would have paused new data centers over 20 MW in size. Lawmakers in Texas are also likely to scrutinize data center policy even more closely.

• As we wrote in July, moratoriums and pauses like these can buy time for lawmakers, but are not a real substitute for policies to create responsible, sustainable data center development. Pauses need to be paired with serious work from policymakers, like Illinois’s POWER Act, which includes requirements for clean energy, ratepayer protection, and disclosure.

2. Edison Found Responsible For Eaton Fire As CEO Warns of Credit Crisis

Investigators say Edison infrastructure sparked 2025’s Eaton Fire, which killed 19 people, and Edison’s CEO warns that the company will face a credit downgrade without action.

• On Tuesday, officials from CalFire released their report on the cause of the 2025 Eaton Fire, saying that the Los Angeles fire was caused by sparks coming off an out-of-service transmission tower. The Eaton Fire killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 buildings, making it the second most destructive fire in California history. Alongside simultaneous fires in Pacific Palisades, the Eaton Fire caused as much as $164 billion in property damage.

• The report makes official what many already suspected: Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro told investors last week that there were “no other viable alternatives” to explain the fire ignition. Pizarro warned on the same investor call that Edison and other California utilities will face significant credit rating downgrades if the California Legislature doesn’t pass anything before the end of the session in August.

• Ratings agencies have long been concerned about utilities’ exposure to wildfire-related liabilities. The issue is more acute in California due to rising climate-related wildfire risk and California’s inverse condemnation rule, which places strict liability on utilities for wildfires caused by their infrastructure regardless of the company’s negligence or carelessness.

• As a result of these pressures, California policymakers created a $21 billion Wildfire Fund in 2019, which they supplemented with $18 billion in 2025 with SB 254. The new law also required the California Earthquake Authority to study the state’s growing insurance and grid problems, with a report released in April. Lawmakers are highly likely to take up some of the report’s final recommendations in the California legislature’s final month of 2026, though which options will be taken up remains a mystery.

3. Oregon Blocks Insurers From Withdrawing From Wildfire-Affected Areas

As wildfires threaten Oregon communities, Governor Tina Kotek is blocking insurers from issuing notices of non-renewal or cancellation to impacted areas.

• Last Thursday, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and Insurance Commissioner TK Keen barred insurers from non-renewing or cancelling policies in areas affected by ongoing wildfires. The order also bars insurers from cancelling or non-renewing a policy “solely” because of a wildfire-related claim and requires them to provide a grace period for premium payments.

• The order applies to all policyholders in active wildfire-impacted areas, including people in zip codes subject to wildfire evacuation orders. More Oregon communities are being evacuated as fires intensify.

• Kotek issued a state of emergency declaration on June 16 as wildfires posed an “imminent threat” to large areas of the state. An ongoing drought has fueled a record-breaking wildfire season. As of Tuesday, 88% of Oregon was on the state’s emergency drought list and more than 2 million acres had burned, setting a new state record.

4. Data Center Load Falls 40% As Utility Insists On Certainty

Utility Exelon cuts its data center load projections by 40% as it requires new data centers to sign “transmission security agreements.”

• Exelon last week announced that its “high probability” data center load fell to 11 GW from 18 GW last year, a drop of 40%. The drop comes from its portfolio utilities’ new policy to enter into “transmission security agreements” with prospective large load customers.

• The TSAs are designed to protect existing ratepayers from data center-related costs and provide more certainty to the company. Unstable and uncertain estimates have been a feature of data center-driven load growth, as data center developers look for power everywhere. The rush to connect to the grid has led to utilities and grid regions double counting data centers, and planning for facilities that never arrive.

• Pleiades has argued, and Exelon has now discovered, that utilities have significant power and leverage in working with data center customers, including in requiring up-front deposits and disclosure to make planning smoother.

5. New Jersey Releases VPP Proposal

The Board of Public Utilities released a proposal for a virtual power plant program.

• Last week, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities released a straw proposal for a virtual power plant program, with a two-year transitional phase until the program’s full implementation in 2029. The proposal entered its early stages when Governor Mikie Sherrill signed an executive order in January requesting the development of a VPP program.

• The two-year transitional program will be run by the state’s four distribution utilities, which already deploy advanced metering, demand response, and energy-efficiency technologies at scale. PSE&G announced at a meeting last week that the utility would offer customers $5,000 for an 8-kW home battery, and allow customers to pay off the remainder with on-bill payments. Beginning in 2029, the program will become open-access and market-based.

• VPPs are rising in popularity across the country, as policymakers increasingly see the value of customer-sited, deployed energy assets. In the last three months, ten states have pursued some kind of VPP deployment, including Illinois, which approved utility-operated VPP plans, and Virginia, which passed multiple bills advancing VPPs.

Xcel Energy is bringing Phase 3 of Sherco Solar online as it prepares to retire the facility’s coal generators.

• This week, Xcel Energy finished the third phase of Sherburne County (Sherco) Solar, which is transforming the retiring coal plant into a significant solar generating station. Xcel Energy has planned to retire the whole facility for years: in 2023, it retired Unit 2 and plans to retire the last two units in 2026 and 2030.

• With Phase 3 up and running, the solar facility now has 710 MW of capacity and is a key part of Xcel’s plans to meet Minnesota’s renewable portfolio standard requiring carbon-free electricity by 2040. Xcel is also expected to build a fourth phase with 200 MW of solar, along with two battery storage systems.

• The new additions will use the coal power plant’s existing interconnection to connect the battery storage to the grid more quickly, and is an example of how new clean energy resources can sidestep extensive interconnection delays by using the existing interconnection for aging, dirty infrastructure.

Sherco Solar Senior Operations manager Luke Molus: “We’re farming the sun.”

2. Wildfires in the Northern Hemisphere Displace Hundreds of Thousands

Wildfires in the Pacific Northwest and Western Europe force evacuations, as families fear for their safety and health.

• In Oregon, thousands of people are under evacuation orders this week as dozens of large fires cover more than 1 million acres. In Canada, Ontario faces its worst fire season in history, with an estimated 900 fires currently burning. Meanwhile, in France and Spain, the worst wildfire season in modern history has sent hundreds of thousands of people evacuating as fires threaten areas around Bordeaux and Madrid, respectively.

• Rising temperatures and oncoming lightning storms in both North America and Western Europe threaten to aggravate the situation, where firefighters and emergency responders are already stretched thin.

• Summers in the Pacific Northwest and Western Europe are now becoming hotter, drier, and more susceptible to catastrophic wildfires, as extreme heat and droughts become a new version of normal. For people, new extremes also mean unpredictable weather and disasters — which will continue to send people fleeing at a moment’s notice.

3. EPA To Exempt Data Centers From Pollution Regs

Trump’s EPA announced it would allow data centers’ power plants to ignore clean air rules.

• On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that power plants that do not connect to the grid would not have to comply with the Clean Air Act’s Acid Rain Program, which regulates power plants’ sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions. An EPA Assistant Administrator said that the move was made to ensure “artificial intelligence dominance.”

• The Acid Rain Program is, by all accounts, one of the most successful environmental protection programs in history; it has reduced SO2 emissions by 95% since 1990 and NOx emissions by 89%. These reductions in emissions have contributed to significantly cleaner air and lower mortality.

• The exemption is worrying, and likely to be contested in court, and will only sharpen public opposition to data centers and dirty generation. Still, the administration and certain hyperscalers have shown complete disregard for areas impacted by data center development and shown a willingness, potentially even desire, to increase pollution associated with data centers.

4. Oregon Utility Wants To Raise Rates To Cover Insurance

Warren Buffett’s PacifiCorp is requesting permission to charge higher rates to cover rising insurance costs.

• Pacific Power, owned by PacifiCorp, which is in turn owned by Berkshire Hathaway, requested permission from the Oregon Public Utility Commission to raise customer rates by 8.6%. The company said that its rate hike request was a result of “increased costs for insurance coverage.”

• Insurance costs are rising for most utilities throughout the West, as utility-sparked wildfires become more common and fires threaten utility infrastructure. For Pacific Power, these costs are rising fast due to its involvement in litigation and its role in causing the 2020 Labor Day Camp Fires in Oregon. Legislators are taking note, too: Oregon passed HB 4077 into law, a low-profile bill supported by Portland General Electric that will allow utilities to self-insure and pass those costs off to customers.

• Insurance isn’t just getting more expensive for people, but for utilities too. It is important for utilities to have the insurance they need, but regulators should scrutinize any requested rate increases to ensure they serve the public interest and are paired with efforts to lower risks. The Oregon proposal reinforces again the importance of the questions: how is risk distributed, and who pays?

5. Oil & Gas Industry In ‘Panic Mode’

As accountability efforts move forward, the oil and gas industry is trying to get special legal privileges.

• New reporting from Grist this week finds that the oil and gas industry is in “panic mode” over dozens of lawsuits pending against the industry for its role in causing climate change and deceiving the public.

• In response to a rise in litigation seeking accountability and damages over the industry’s role in the crisis, oil and gas companies and an extended universe of aligned political groups have pushed to grant sweeping immunity from lawsuits to the oil industry. Two bills were introduced in Congress, and states including Utah, Iowa, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Louisiana have signed laws protecting fossil fuel companies from lawsuits related to greenhouse gas emissions.

• The industry is funding these legislative pushes, as well as efforts to discredit attribution science, a growing body of science enabling experts, researchers, and litigators to more precisely quantify the role of climate change in extreme weather. The moves indicate an industry in fear of reckoning with the true costs of their products.

Elections SPOTLIGHT: Arizona Corporation Commissioner Loses Primary To Further-Right Challenger

Last week, Arizona Corporation Commissioner Nick Myers placed third in a three-way Republican primary to nominate candidates for the two open Corporation Commission seats this year. Myers placed third in the primary behind incumbent Chair Kevin Thompson and challenger Ralph Heap, a state legislator who jumped into the race to boost coal. In November, voters will choose between Republicans Kevin Thompson and Ralph Heap and Democrats Jonathon Hill and Clara Pratte, who ran in their primary unopposed.

While serving on the ACC, Myers moved to eliminate critical energy-saving and clean energy policies, including Arizona’s Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff (REST) Rules and the Energy Efficiency Standards (EE)/ Demand-Side Management (DSM). The rules incentivized utilities to build more clean energy and deploy energy efficiency at scale. At the time, Arizona Public Service met 14% of its demand from the DSM program, equal to the utility’s share of coal in its portfolio.

Challenger Ralph Heap jumped into the race with criticism of Myers, who he claimed didn’t go far enough in defending coal. Myers defended a decision by Arizona Public Service to retire a coal plant, which Trump and far-right organizations the Freedom Caucus and Turning Point USA criticized. Upon Heap’s victory, far-right groups claimed victory for themselves.

Local officials are calling for new regulations after a massive data center switched onto diesel generators during an air quality emergency.

• As smoke from Canadian wildfires created a Code Red air quality alert around Washington, D.C. last week, a Northern Virginia data center switched onto its dirty backup diesel generators.

• The data center in question is the Vantage VA2 Campus, an “unusual” data center campus normally powered entirely by a set of off-grid gas generators, with diesel backup. Research showed that this data center alone could result in up to $495 million in health-related damages over a five-year period.

• Data centers’ backup generators are already significant contributors to local air pollution, even outside of air quality emergencies. Records of air permits in Virginia show that diesel backup generators are permitted to emit tens of thousands of tons of localized air pollution, on top of their carbon emissions.

• The use of backup generators is especially important in the design of policies incentivizing data center demand flexibility, as absent clean energy requirements, flexibility can mean a switch to diesel generators, threatening local health.

Northern Virginia resident Greg Pirio, on backup generators running to power data centers: “When they’re going off, I know when they’re going off, not only because it’s even louder, it’s because my lungs start hurting me. That’s what we’re living with here.”

2. Elon Musk Quietly Buys Gas Generator Maker To Power Data Centers

In quiet regulatory filings, Elon Musk revealed he spent $1 billion on a fossil fuel generator company to power xAI.

• According to case documents with the FTC, Elon Musk quietly bought APR Energy, a mobile fossil fuel generator company, for $1 billion. The company makes mobile gas and diesel generators, including some used to power data centers.

• Musk’s xAI has flagrantly broken critical emissions and energy regulations by running unpermitted gas turbines at its Colossus 1 and 2 data centers in Tennessee and Mississippi, respectively. It has only been able to continue doing so with the support of the federal government. xAI and Musk’s use of fossil generation is a stark reversal from his previous public profile as a clean tech booster.

• xAI’s use of fossil fuels to power its data centers and its contribution to localized harmful pollution is at the center of anti-data center backlash. Though not all companies are flagrantly violating clean air regulations, most are creating substantial increases in their emissions — and seeing significant public backlash as they rush to connect dirty generation to power their facilities.

3. Alaska Utility Warns It Will Run Out of Gas for Winter

Alaska utility Enstar warns it doesn’t have enough reserves to serve customers through the winter as Cook Inlet gas dwindles.

• Alaska’s Enstar warned regulators that its gas reserves are “not looking good” ahead of the winter, as its main source of natural gas, the Cook Inlet, is dwindling in production. State regulators also rejected a $240 million proposal from Enstar to expand a natural gas storage facility, adding $10-12 per month to customers’ bills.

• Southern Alaska has been searching for solutions to its looming gas crisis as reliance on fossil gas becomes dangerous as Cook Inlet runs out of extractable gas. Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy alongside the Trump Administration also pushed for a massive $55 billion pipeline to connect the region to North Slope gas reserves via an 800-mile pipeline, largely for export.

• While some, including lawmakers and Enstar, have floated the Glenfarne pipeline as a solution to the gas shortfalls, the developers have not made an official investment decision yet, and have asked for multi-billion dollar tax giveaways to make the project happen. Meanwhile, local clean energy projects that would have contributed crucial capacity have been slow-rolled or canceled.

4. Greg Abbott Floats Roof Fortification

The Texas Governor wants to create a new fortification and resilience program as climate disasters drive insurance costs up.

• As part of a broader affordability plan, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is proposing a $400 million program to install storm-resilient roofs across the state. According to Abbott, a notorious climate denier and booster of fossil fuel resources, “extreme weather events” are driving costs for Texans.

• Texans are facing some of the highest climate-driven cost increases in the country: insurance premiums have risen 55.9% in Texas since 2020, and Lone Star homeowners pay, on average, $6,000 in premiums annually.

• Abbott’s proposal is modeled off of multiple other state-based programs to fund property-level mitigation and fortification, though the $400 million in funding would be one of the highest funding levels among similar programs. While Abbott’s announcement included few details, a leading program will need to both secure stable, long-term funding sources from the insurance industry, which benefits from these risk-reduction programs, and should require insurers to incorporate resilience upgrades with premium discounts.

5. Oil Prices Back Up

Global energy shortages caused by the Trump-Iran War highlight the need for clean energy sovereignty.

• More than a month after originally announcing a ceasefire and with significant flip-flopping, an intensification in the Trump-Iran War over the last few weeks have sent oil prices significantly higher. New blockade threats around the Red Sea from the Iran-backed Houthi Rebels are fueling more concerns that yet another critical chokepoint for global commodities and energy will be blocked, as oil tankers make sudden u-turns.

• Shocks to global oil markets have partially been dulled by China reducing crude oil imports enabled by rapid electrification and the United States ramping up exports. But this, in part, comes at the expense of Americans, who are now paying higher prices thanks to higher US exports. Disruptions in the gas markets will significantly raise prices as winter comes and more gas is prepared for export.

• These shocks, however, aren’t inevitable, and can be offset by shifting more and more of our energy production towards clean and renewable technologies, which don’t rely on the export or import of volatile fuels. California, for example, recently announced an EV rebate program, to support wider adoption. Such policies help individuals, and the whole country, reduce their dependence and sensitivity to these types of geopolitical risks.

Rocky Mountain Institute Founder Amory Lovins in Brittle Power (1982): “A key feature which helps to make these energy sources resilient is that they are renewable: they harness the energy of sun, wind, water, or farm and forestry wastes, rather than that of depletable fuels.”

HIGHLIGHT: No Secrecy for Insurers

After initially exempting insurers from complying with February 2026 draft regulations implementing California’s climate and emissions disclosure law (SB 253), the California Air Resources Board said in a presentation on Tuesday that it will draft regulations requiring insurers to comply with the law.

CARB had initially declined to include insurers in draft regulations of the state’s new emissions disclosure scheme, arguing that insurers already had to comply with a different set of requirements created by the California Department of Insurance. Now, CARB says it will work with CDI to make sure insurers are complying with the minimum standards set forth in SB 253.

The update is a sign of progress and a reminder that despite the Trump Administration’s best efforts, disclosure continues to move forward, daylighting critical information for markets and investors.

Colorado reached a major milestone in the first quarter of 2026, meeting 53% of its electricity demand with renewable resources, up from 43% in 2025. Colorado is likely to exceed the 50% threshold for the rest of the year. Colorado utilities are required to meet 100% of energy needs by 2050 with clean energy.

Colorado’s grid is getting cleaner, despite efforts from the Trump Administration to keep coal plants like Craig Power Station open, despite plans to close it at the end of 2025. Tri-State and Platte River, the operators of Craig Station, have argued that the unit is no longer needed and that it is creating significant costs for their customers.

1. New York Announces First Statewide Data Center Moratorium

Governor Kathy Hochul is the first to pause new data center development as electricity costs take the spotlight.

• New York is now the first and only state in the country with a one-year moratorium on new data centers larger than 50 MW. Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order prohibiting new permits for large hyperscale data centers for the next 12 months as state agencies develop new frameworks for managing the costs associated with new data centers. Hochul has so far refused to sign more stringent legislation that would implement a 1-year ban on data centers larger than 20 MW in peak demand.

• Data centers are proving to be a challenging political football: other governors have been walking a political tightrope and have opposed moratoriums, while supporting reforms. Governor Janet Mills vetoed a moratorium in Maine (the project she was protecting was later canceled). Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed some guidelines for data centers after cheerleading major developments across the state, mirroring Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro’s similar turn on data centers.

• A moratorium can buy time to solve complex challenges, but durable reforms are needed to guide sustainable data center development. Examples like the Power Act, being considered in Illinois, provide a roadmap: requirements for new clean energy, protections for ratepayers, guarantees on new grid infrastructure costs, and a focus on cost-saving clean energy technologies.

Hochul, on New York’s next steps: “New York will lead the way in creating the strongest standards in the nation for data center development, ensuring that when companies succeed because of New York, New Yorkers succeed too.”

2. Grids Brave Heat Waves With Help From Clean Resources

Clean additions to the country’s electricity system protected regional grids from excessive strain as extreme heat threatened a majority of the country.

• As much of the United States suffered temperatures over 100 degrees in early July, the country’s regional grids anticipated, but didn’t experience, significant grid disruptions, largely thanks to the massive new renewable additions to the grid.

• In Texas, solar met more than 30% of ERCOT’s demand during the region’s all-time July peak demand record, averting emergency outages and sky-high prices. In New England, offshore wind resources helped avert significant crises, and precluded the need for expensive backup oil-fired power plants. Distributed resources, too, helped avert larger crises.

• Still, extreme weather including heat will get worse, threatening a grid already strained under the pressure of massive new demand growth driven by data centers. Infrastructure will need to meet growing demand, and the growing threats from climate change.

Former FERC Chair Richard Glick: “We need to figure out how to meet the demands of [load] growth, but also extreme weather.”

3. San Francisco Inches Closer To PG&E Takeover

San Francisco checked a box in the long march towards municipal ownership of the city’s energy grid.

• On Thursday, San Francisco’s planning commission approved an Environmental Impact Report required before the city can purchase PG&E’s assets in a bid to create a municipal utility. The road towards a publicly-owned distribution grid in San Francisco isn’t clear of obstacles, however.

• San Francisco offered to buy PG&E’s assets to create a municipal utility in 2019 as wildfire-related liability and criminal conduct drove PG&E towards bankruptcy. PG&E, then and now, firmly rejected any offers to buy its San Francisco-based assets.

• Proponents of the public power push say that the move will save residents millions of dollars. However, it’ll also concentrate enormous catastrophe risk in the form of fire risk in PG&E’s remaining customer base, further isolating vulnerable and risky areas.

4. Boulder Launches Clean Resilience Program

The city of Boulder, Colorado launched a $50,000 grant program for clean backup power systems.

• Boulder, Colorado last week announced a new pilot program to provide nonprofits with grants up to $50,000 to fund battery and solar-plus-storage backup power systems. The backup power systems seek to maximize resilience under emergency conditions, and require eligible products to support a number of priorities like providing shelter, supporting medical equipment, and maintaining communication access.

• Boulder’s program is one of many seeking to prove the resilience value of clean distributed energy resources. In Louisiana, a “Community Lighthouse” program has supported the development of distributed clean energy, specifically targeting houses of worship, to support local resilience, especially during hurricanes.

• The risks facing Boulder are very different, but the distributed energy resources provide a similar safety net. The DERs also give places like Boulder greater flexibility in reducing risk via emergency public safety power shutoffs, which Boulder experienced in December 2025 as Xcel Energy cut off power lines to reduce ignition risk.

5. Hawaii County Looks To Improve Building Codes After Devastating Fires

Kaua’i County, Hawaii moved to strengthen its building codes and Zone Zero regulations as wildfires threaten the island.

• In 2024, a major fire burned around 1,000 acres of Hawaii’s Kaua’i island, one year after the 2023 Lahaina wildfires that killed 102 people. Now, the county council is moving a proposal from planners to upgrade the island’s building codes and create new landscaping requirements to make homes more fire-resistant.

• Both building codes and landscaping requirements are critical to reducing, but not entirely eliminating, wildfire risk. Importantly, insulating against wildfire risk requires significantly more communal and community-wide resilience work, increasing the need for universal, high standards for new construction.

• Landscaping standards, however, haven’t been universally liked. In Berkeley, California, residents pushed back against rules mandating the removal of vegetation within 5 feet of homes. The city weakened the rules due to heavy pushback from residents, who launched a recall election against city leaders.

SPOTLIGHT: Resilience Program Design Matters

In late June, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee signed two bills that create the “Strengthen Rhody Homes” program, which creates a new program under the State Division of Insurance to provide grants to homeowners to fund resilience projects for single family homes. Across the country, states are designing and implementing similar property-level mitigation grant programs, many modeled on the Strengthen Homes Program in Alabama.

Still, the program isn’t perfect: Rhode Island’s new law comes with no dedicated funding, instead requiring the program to seek federal and private funding for its grant program, despite the administration’s attacks on funding for emergency preparedness and resilience. Other programs, however, more closely follow best practices in designing resilience grant programs. In Colorado, lawmakers this year passed SB 155, a pared down version of 2025’s HB1302, which creates the Strengthen Colorado Homes Program, funded by a 0.5% premium fee on insurers.

Governor Sherrill signs a three-bill energy package project to save ratepayers $1 billion a year.

• New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill signed three bills on Tuesday that together represent a comprehensive state-level response to date to the data center electricity cost problem. The package, projected by Synapse Energy Economics to save ratepayers more than $1 billion annually, tackles three distinct cost centers that have long served as hidden profit mechanisms for the utilities and large industrial users.

• The three bills work as a system. The Data Center Fair Share Act creates a separate rate-setting process for data centers consuming at least 50 megawatts, requiring them to shoulder their own grid costs rather than shifting them to households. It also mandates that data centers stand up new renewable generation, accept curtailment when the grid is strained, and cover costs for transmission infrastructure if they close. A second bill eliminates a 0.5% return-on-equity bonus that utilities received merely for joining PJM. The third, the Advanced Grid Technologies Act, closes a regulatory gap that had allowed utilities to build transmission infrastructure without state oversight and fast-tracks projects that use grid-enhancing technologies.

• One caveat: because electricity prices are set across PJM’s 13-state footprint, New Jersey’s data center tariff has limited power on its own. Data centers in Virginia or Pennsylvania drive up costs in New Jersey and vice versa. Sherrill acknowledged this directly, and says states across the region are already calling to follow suit.

NJ Assemblyman Avi Schnall: “By updating existing infrastructure, we increase reliability. But when we strategically deploy advanced technologies, we can reduce costs for ratepayers at the same time.”

2. Massachusetts Holds the Line on Climate Programs

The Massachusetts Senate rejected a House proposal to cut $1 billion from Mass Save. Instead, it’s betting on utility reform to deliver $14 billion in savings over a decade.

• The Massachusetts Senate rejected a House-backed proposal to slash $1 billion from Mass Save, the state’s flagship energy efficiency program, as part of an energy affordability bill. Earlier versions of the legislation had also contemplated eliminating the state’s emissions targets. Instead, the Senate’s version keeps Massachusetts’ clean energy and efficiency programs largely intact and bets that reforming utility practices can deliver roughly $14 billion in savings over ten years.

• This is an important win in recognition of the new reality that climate programs are cost cutters, not cost adders. Mass Save delivers weatherization, heat pump incentives, and efficiency upgrades that reduce energy consumption and lower bills for households over time. Cutting it to deliver short-term affordability relief trades a lasting structural solution for a one-time optic. The House and Senate will still need to reconcile their versions, but the Senate’s framing puts down a marker: affordability and decarbonization aren’t in tension if you’re cutting costs in the right places.

3. North Carolina’s Budget Passes with $700 Million for Helene Relief

After a year-long delay, North Carolina’s $34 billion budget clears. The Helene funding shows the substantial cost of climate-driven extreme weather.

• North Carolina’s legislature passed a $34 billion budget after a year-long standoff, with Governor Josh Stein set to sign it. The budget appropriates more than $700 million for Hurricane Helene relief, covering FEMA matching funds, grants to local governments, road and bridge repairs, wildfire preparedness, dam repairs, and tourism recovery for the affected region.

• The breadth of uses — from fire stations to cash-flow loans for local governments — reflects how comprehensively Helene disrupted public infrastructure. It’s also a concrete example that climate-driven extreme weather generates cascading costs that ultimately land on public budgets. North Carolina is now paying for a hard recovery. The question is whether this spending will get paired with forward-looking investment to reduce exposure to the next big storm.

4. Home Insurance Costs in California Are Up 84% in Five Years

A new Stanford study puts a number on what California homeowners already know. The cost crunch is real and it’s accelerating.

• California home insurance premiums have risen 84% over the past 5 years, according to new Stanford research, driven by escalating wildfire risk. Combined with the FAIR Plan’s total exposure reaching $724 billion by December 2025 (a 230% increase in three years) it describes an insurance market in a structural crisis.

• The finding lands alongside new Climate Power and the Insurance Fairness Project polling surveying homeowners and renters across Arizona, North Carolina, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas which puts the human cost in sharp relief. Three in four respondents are concerned about premiums rising further in the next three years; majorities in every state worry insurance costs will affect their ability to keep, sell, or upgrade their home. And 83-86% say elected officials should be doing more, a finding that held across party lines in every geography.

SPOTLIGHT: Paying for Preparedness — The Case for Dedicated Resilience Revenue

There is a widening gap between the climate risks governments face and the investments they are making to protect their communities. Despite a 6:1 return on investment, resilience programs are too often treated by policymakers as discretionary, rather than as the backbone of economic resilience.

Addressing this structural funding question, California Forward and Insurance for Good have released an excellent new framework for thinking about how to sustainably fund climate resilience.

The report shines a light on the many ways that climate risks cascade into higher costs and lower revenues, an unvirtuous cycle that drives what they frame as “climate-driven revenue erosion.” When a disaster hits, revenues and spending move in opposite directions simultaneously: property tax revenues fall, sales tax revenues fall, emergency costs and rebuilding demands spike. During and after recovery, revenue often never fully recovers, as a new sense of precarity remains — and disaster aid is increasingly politicized, leaving states more and more on the hook for recovery.

As the authors write:

The central argument is straightforward: resilience investment is not a discretionary expenditure. It is a fiscal backstop for California’s revenue base, a stabilizer for its insurance and housing markets, and a prerequisite for the long-term economic competitiveness of the state’s communities.

BREAKING

Virginia is officially back in RGGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. With this move, Virginia polluters are once again having to account for and reduce their pollution. The program will also deliver funding for flood protection, energy efficiency, and power bill rebates.

1. The Supreme Court Rules Independent Agencies Now Serve at the Pleasure of the President

In a 6-3 ruling Monday, the Supreme Court struck down 91 years of precedent protecting independent agency boards from political removal. Among those on the line: FERC and the SEC.

• In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned the 1935 precedent that prevented presidents from removing the leadership of independent agencies (except the Fed) without cause. The ruling confirmed that Trump’s firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter was lawful, and in doing so, effectively made every independent agency board member fireable by the president at will.

• The implications for FERC — specifically structured during the 1970s energy crisis to be insulated from political pressures felt by the president — are direct and severe. As Joel Eisen, a law professor at the University of Richmond, put it, there is “no longer any legal doctrine stopping a president from removing any member of FERC if it were to do anything with which that president disagreed.”

• Independence matters for climate financial regulation too. The SEC’s board — already hamstrung with only 3 of 5 commissioners seated as Trump has refused to appoint the required minority party representatives — is also subject to Slaughter, further putting at risk independent expert assessments of the urgency of climate risk, emissions, and other material disclosures.

2. CARB Delays Emissions Reporting Deadline

Companies have a three-month reprieve as California’s landmark corporate disclosure law gets delayed.

• The California Air Resources Board pushed back the first reporting deadline under SB 253, the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, from August 10 to November 10. The delay is procedural: CARB withdrew its initial regulation from the state’s Office of Administrative Law to make targeted clarifying changes, and the three-month extension gives covered companies a clearer view of the final requirements before their inaugural reports are due.

• The substance of the law is unchanged. SB 253 requires U.S.-based companies with over $1 billion in annual revenue doing business in California to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions. The companion law, SB 261, which requires climate-related financial risk disclosures, remains under a Ninth Circuit injunction, though more than 170 companies have voluntarily submitted reports anyway.

• California is the world’s fifth-largest economy and understands that emissions represent a material risk for companies as the ongoing and inevitable energy transition moves forward. The California framework is filling a vacuum that the federal government created and is actively widening in order to provide transparent, decision-useful information to investors, regulators and the public.

3. Duke Energy Cuts Its Rate Request, But Negotiations Take a Familiar Turn

After public pressure, Duke reduced its proposed residential rate increase from 18% to 11.6%, replicating a familiar pattern in the high-stakes game of rate negotiations.

• Duke Energy announced it is reducing its proposed residential rate increase in North Carolina from 18% to 11.6% after pushback from state officials. The 11.6% figure is worth sitting with. With inflation running high — approximately 9% since Duke’s last rate increase in 2023 — any rate increase above inflation is asking ratepayers to absorb costs that exceed general price increase.

• The research on utility rate cases is instructive here: studies have found that the “meet in the middle” strategy consistently favors utilities over ratepayers, because it incentivizes utilities to ask for more than they need. That dynamic helps explain why independent, knowledgeable regulators matter: it changes the negotiating geometry, rather than just trying to settle in the middle of a gamified range.

• Also on regulators’ desks: the cost and type of energy generation utilities are procuring. According to a Southern Alliance for Clean Energy report this week, Duke recently projected less near-term solar procurement than previously planned, withdrew two customer solar programs in the Carolinas, and had its 2026 solar RFP paused by the North Carolina Utilities Commission chairman. Duke is raising rates while saying no to the most economical and quickest-to-deploy sources of power, opening their hand for more when they aren’t delivering the best value for consumers.

State Senator Michael Garrett of Guilford County framed the issue starkly:

“Is the profit Duke Energy earns actually fair to the people of North Carolina?” [...] Because our system should answer to the family at the kitchen table, not the shareholder watching the dividend. Duke’s investors are not the ones choosing between prescriptions and groceries.”

4. Rhode Island’s Legislative Session Ends With One Resilience Win and Several Near-Misses

Strengthen Rhody Homes passes. A suite of bolder climate and insurance bills did not.

• Rhode Island’s 2026 legislative session closed with a notable step forward for climate resilience: H7865, creating the “Strengthen Rhody Homes” program, was signed into law. The program, currently unfunded, creates the structures needed to help homeowners harden their properties against climate hazards like hurricanes and high winds, joining a small but growing list of successful state-level fortification programs. The state can now pursue Federal grants to support the program. Given Rhode Island’s 400 miles of coastline and documented exposure to storm surge, coastal flooding, and extreme precipitation, the program is timely.

• The session ended without passing a trio of more ambitious proposals. H7752 would have allowed people, companies, municipalities, and insurers to pursue damages from fossil fuel companies who engaged in deception for climate-related damages.The Rhode Island Insurance Market Protection Act (H8219/S2646), would have required insurers in the state to phase out their underwriting and investing in fossil fuels, and created a mechanism to manage the exit of insurers that withdraw from the market. And a third proposal (H7340) contained a resolution to encourage insurers to pursue subrogation against companies who lied about climate impacts and their contributions. It was put aside for further study. None of the three passed.

• That insurance, resilience, and fossil fuels were a focus of Rhode Island’s legislative agenda should be no surprise. Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has been leading nationally on making the connection between climate change and insurance costs. This month, he proposed a Senate resolution making that link explicit.

Whitehouse’s floor testimony summed up why we can’t stop talking about insurance: “The bottom line is climate risk has moved from the science department to the economics department and it has landed hard in home insurance.”

5. California Transit Fighting for Funding

Newsom’s latest budget excluded $690 million in emergency funding for public transit agencies — money promised in a 2023 deal. Simultaneously, CARB rule changes mark a $600 million giveaway to the oil industry.

• California climate and transit advocates are pressing state lawmakers to protect roughly $600 million in transit dollars generated by the state’s cap-and-invest program while Newsom’s budget shortchanges public transit agencies an additional promised $690 million.

• There is irony in the cap-and-invest risk: The threat comes from CARB’s own recent rule changes, which created a new Manufacturing Decarbonization Incentive (MDI) program that would give free allowances to polluting industries in exchange for untested decarbonization investments. Analysts estimate this move could reduce Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) revenues by $2.3 billion over the next several years. CARB’s MDI effectively props up oil refineries with free allowances — cutting funding for solutions, like transit, while investing in the problem.

• California’s public transit agencies are already navigating fiscal cliffs created by post-pandemic ridership changes and the expiration of federal relief funding, and the potential loss of GGRF support compounds an already precarious situation. In the Bay Area, initiatives on the ballot this fall hope to save SF Muni, BART, and the regional transit network from collapse.

• The broader irony is that public transit does enormous emissions-reduction work on a shoestring budget (LA Metro reached its highest ridership since COVID last month!) and these are exactly the programs that should be getting more resources as California tries to decarbonize transportation, not fewer.

Virginia’s budget standoff ends with an energy consumption fee on data centers. The politics of the data center boom are shifting fast, and Virginia’s resolution is an odd one.

• Virginia lawmakers reached a budget deal this week that appears to have pulled the state back from the brink of a government shutdown, with a key piece of the agreement being a new energy consumption fee on data centers. The deal, which still requires Governor Spanberger’s signature, is expected to generate $600 million per year in revenue.

• The mechanism matters. Rather than revoking existing sales tax exemptions — which data centers have long relied on and aggressively defended, and which Gov. Spanberger thought of as non-negotiable — the conference report landed on an energy consumption fee of $0.11 per kWh, up to a cap of $600 million.

• To put the political context in sharper relief: those data center tax exemptions were worth roughly $1.9 billion to the industry in 2025, approximately 2% of the entire state budget.

• Virginia’s data centers consumed 31 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2025. Despite this demand driving fossil fuel consumption, no new legislative agreements were made to ensure Virginia’s clean energy laws are followed.

• This story fits squarely into a pattern we’ve been tracking: the rapidly shifting politics of data centers. What’s distinctive about Virginia’s situation is that data center demand is so concentrated (the state hosts more data center capacity than anywhere else in the world) that it has become a genuine fiscal and grid emergency. The question of who pays for load growth, who is on the hook for failures, and how clean the energy supply will be, is one that every major data center state is going to have to answer.

2. Alaska LNG Hits a Wall… For Now

The Alaska House rejected the Senate’s LNG bill. A conference committee convenes July 1.

• Alaska’s legislature remains deadlocked on legislation to advance the massive Alaska LNG project, a proposed 807-mile pipeline connecting North Slope natural gas to proposed export terminals near Anchorage for sale to Asian markets. The Alaska House voted 12-28 to reject the Senate’s revised bill, which the Senate declined to abandon its own version by a 0-16 margin. The two chambers will now convene a conference committee to hash out an agreement beginning July 1.

• In a special session called by Governor Dunleavy expressly to advance the project, neither chamber managed to pass a bill the other would accept, and Dunleavy himself declared the Senate’s version “doesn’t work” within minutes of its passage.

• What’s quietly happening in the Senate is worth paying attention to: legislators there appear to be recognizing that a pure fossil fuel giveaway that showers the project with subsidies and tax breaks without ensuring sufficient benefit flows back to Alaskans isn’t politically sustainable.

• Zooming out: In a world where no new fossil fuel infrastructure should be built if we’re to stay within a workable carbon budget, this megaproject is designed for export through the 2060s and beyond. On this critical front: the details of the deal matter less than what building it at all would unleash.

3. A New Framework for Home Resilience

Public Citizen lays out best practices for state resilience grants programs, and uses Louisiana as a cautionary tale.

• A new report from Public Citizen offers both a blueprint and a warning for states thinking about home resilience grant programs.

• First, the good news: resiliency investments make homeowners and communities safer — and can make insurance more affordable.

• However, the report argues that the insurance industry’s dominant response to climate risk (raising rates, reducing coverage, or exiting markets entirely) constitutes a market failure, and that states should step in to structure grant programs, like Alabama’s, that fund physical hardening of homes against climate hazards.

• Design of these programs matters, and the cautionary tale here is Louisiana’s LA Fortify Homes program. The program excludes many of the most vulnerable homeowners: it isn’t targeted to those with the greatest financial need, requires homeowners to pay out of pocket for an eligibility inspection, and bars uninsured homeowners (roughly 20% of the state’s homes) from participating at all. At the current pace, advocates estimate the program would take until 2062 to retrofit just 25% of Louisiana homes. That is not a pace that matches the climate challenges the state is facing.

• The insurance angle is one we’ve been tracking closely. Insurers are posting record profits even as consumers face skyrocketing premiums and diminished coverage. That gap between insurer returns and policyholder experience is exactly where the case for resilience investment is strongest. The money to fund better programs exists; the question is whether states will demand it.

Alex Martin of Americans for Financial Reform writes of the report,

“[T]here is low hanging fruit to address the climate-driven insurance crisis--fortified roof programs that protect homes against wind and hail damage--but many states simply don’t have enough fiscal space to fund them right now beyond pilots. The pullback of federal resilience resources is making things even worse. Wherever could we find the cash to fund these programs? Let’s follow Alabama’s lead and make the insurance industry pay into these programs.”

4. FERC’s Plan for Data Centers: States Need to Make a Plan

FERC’s new data center framework wins bipartisan praise. It also largely punts the hard work to regional grid operators and state regulators.

• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a new framework this week to address the electricity demands of large loads (particularly data centers) by a 5-0 bipartisan vote. Reaction from groups including the Sierra Club and Advanced Energy United was broadly positive. The plan is essentially a menu of options, directing regional transmission organizations to develop their own rules for how to handle interconnection, cost recovery, and planning for large industrial loads.

• The diplomatic read of this outcome is that FERC is appropriately directing regions to develop tailored solutions. The more candid read is that the commission has given states and regional grid operators the responsibility of solving a set of problems that are deeply political and technically complex, without resolving the underlying conflicts itself. As Politico put it, the Fed’s fix is: make states figure it out.

• At the same time, a bipartisan House bill has been introduced to allow utilities to recover from large-load customers the costs of capacity expansions they trigger. That’s an important complement to the FERC framework, and an acknowledgement of what ratepayer advocates have long argued: if a hyperscaler’s new data center requires a $500 million substation upgrade, ordinary households shouldn’t foot the bill.

• The order spotlit many of the biggest topics facing grid planners and rate regulators. One we’ll be watching: transmission planning. Transmission is a make-or-break variable for how the U.S. navigates both rising load growth and clean energy buildout, yet many grid managers have woefully inadequate processes that make new transmission expensive to build or upgrade.

As Former FERC Commissioner Neil Chatterjee wrote, “A very FERC-y approach!”

5. California Sues Trump Over EPA Power Grab

California AG Rob Bonta argues the Trump administration’s use of the Congressional Review Act to undo emissions rules is illegal on its face.

• California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed suit this week against the Trump Administration over its use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to invalidate several Clean Air Act waivers, the state’s 72nd suit against the Administration.

• The EPA this month unilaterally reclassified the long-standing waivers, which allow California to set stricter emissions standards as rules. “Rules” can then be subject to the CRA, which allows Congress to vote to overturn them. A successful suit would reinstate these particular California regulations (which affect automakers and polluting lawn and garden tools) and put guardrails around the administration’s use of the CRA as a regulatory wrecking ball.

• This reclassification is a subtle but powerful attempt at a power grab by the EPA. The precedent is clear: over 75 waivers have been granted by both Democratic and Republican Federal administrations. These waivers have been crucial to protecting public health, driving forward clean transportation, and cleaning California’s air.

California Air Resources Board Chair Lauren Sanchez said,

“Using the Congressional Review Act this way is illegal. It puts the health of millions of Californians at risk by compromising our ability to meet national air quality standards and could cut off critical transportation funding that our communities and businesses rely on. California will not stand by idly — we will defend our authority, protect public health, and continue working toward a cleaner, healthier future.”

New state-specific polling from the Insurance Fairness Project and Climate Power shows the growing salience of climate-driven insurance costs for Americans. The poll found that more than three-quarters of voters are concerned about the costs of insurance — and a staggering 26-30% have put off a significant purchase as a result of rising insurance costs.

1. California Solar Outperforms Gas in 2026

In May, solar topped coal nationwide for the first time. In California, solar is fast displacing natural gas.

• In the first few months of 2026, solar surpassed California’s gas generation as percent of electricity production for the first time ever, increasing 21% over the same time period in 2024. Battery storage is helping solar beat out gas, as it allows excess solar energy from the day to be carried to times with little solar generation.

• Also from January to May 2026, gas generation in the state fell from its 2024 levels by 60% — thanks to extensive solar and battery additions on the grid, and more imports from out-of-state hydro and wind energy.

• Year-by-year, new clean additions to the grid continue to drive down the share of fossil fuels present on the grid while maintaining system reliability, in spite of the federal government’s best efforts to oppose new renewable energy.

2. Louisiana Protects Oil Industry from Lawsuits

As solar proves its inevitability in California, Louisiana moves to protect legacy fuels from liability from the damage their products have caused.

• In Louisiana courts, Americans, companies, and municipalities now won’t be allowed to sue the oil and gas industry for its role in climate change as a result of the Louisiana Energy Protection Act. This legislation, signed into law by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry this week, prohibits lawsuits against the industry for climate damages. Landry is a longtime climate denier and has worked to use the power of his office to support the fossil fuel and petrochemical industry.

• Congress is considering similar legislation that would give the fossil fuel industry essentially blanket immunity for their emissions and role in causing — and covering up — climate change. The bills are a direct response to both a growing number of lawsuits against the oil and gas industry for climate-driven damages, and the growing number of alternatives to fossil fuels fueling the economy.

• The liability shield has long been a target of the fossil fuel industry, which has aggressively lobbied and litigated for extensive liability protections that have been afforded to almost no other industry, except for the firearm industry.

3. Alaska Steps Closer To Public Subsidies For $54 Billion Project

As its price estimates continue to climb, the Glenfarne Pipeline might get a specially-made 90% property tax break thanks to Alaska’s Governor and State House.

• By a 34-5 margin, the Alaska House voted last week to pass a bill trying to change the financial realities facing the Alaska LNG project, which is estimated to cost between $44 and $54 billion. The proposed pipeline will connect North Slope natural gas to new LNG export terminals near Anchorage, Alaska for export to Asia.

• The 807-mile pipeline and Alaska LNG project has been in the works for a decade, but continues to delay its “final investment decision” pending more purchase agreements from foreign customers. This is despite existing multi-billion-dollar guarantees from Japan and federal support.

• Still, generous conditions haven’t been enough for the Alaska LNG project: Governor Mike Dunleavy called a special session of the legislature to seek a massive property tax cut to subsidize the project, equating to a 90% reduction in property taxes.

Kay Brown, Arctic Policy Director at Pacific Environment, said,

Sponsors for the proposed 807-mile Alaska gas pipeline and liquefied natural gas processing and export facilities are seeking additional massive public subsidies to make the project viable. Even fallout from the largest “oil disruption in history” isn’t enough to overcome the need.

4. Trump’s Coal Plants To Be Built By MAGA Activists

The Trump Energy Department will give $18 million to a company led by a far-right activist with no energy sector expertise.

• As part of Trump’s new $850 million push to subsidize coal plants, his administration plans to give $18 million to TerraSpark, a company proposing to build a 1.6 GW coal power plant in West Virginia, which would be the first new coal plant since 2013.

• TerraSpark is led by Alex Phillips, who has no energy industry experience and instead has led a telecom company and an “America First” PAC. Phillips also hosted the far-right, Q-Anon-linked American Priority Conference (AMPfest).

• The administration will be supporting TerraSpark by giving it taxpayer money to fund a feasibility and design study, which it apparently did without giving a heads up to the Republican lawmaker whose district would host the potential plant.

Mike McKenna, a former Trump energy official and current energy lobbyist: “This is not normal.”

5. Suspending the Federal Gas Tax Won’t Solve War-Driven Inflation

New research finds that suspending the federal gas tax won’t offset commodity price increases driven by the Trump-Iran War.

• According to new research from the Yale Budget Lab, proposals to suspend the federal gas tax to fix war-driven inflation won’t make much of a dent in the overall fuel cost increases. The research finds that the average household will save $37 over three months against a $250 price increase.

• The research should put to bed renewed calls from certain Democratic candidates for suspending the gas tax. Senate candidate James Talarico in Texas called for a suspension, while Graham Platner in Maine called for an end to the gas tax entirely. Democratic Senators have similarly proposed gas tax holidays.

• At this point, however, suspending or ending the gas tax won’t fix much: a good deal of the savings will be retained by producers, while the government loses a critical revenue raiser that maintains the country’s extensive transportation infrastructure.

Spotlight: The World Cup Comes To The U.S.

This year’s 2026 World Cup is home in the United States, much to the delight of some of us here at Pleiades. This year’s World Cup is different, though: the tournament is being hosted across a massive geographic footprint spanning three nations, 22 million miles, and 2,800 miles between co-host cities Vancouver and Miami. The tournament is also in its first expanded format, increasing the number of teams from 32 to 48, and the number of games from 64 to 104, which also increases the total amount of travel for teams and fans attending the tournament.

The large geographic spread means that the tournament’s travel-induced carbon emissions will be higher than ever. And though existing infrastructure means lower construction-caused emissions, these gains aren’t enough to offset the gargantuan rise in transportation emissions, which represent a growing share of U.S. emissions. The tournament is set to double its emissions from its 2022 emissions, at 3.6 million metric tons of CO2, to 7.8 million metric tons this year.

The climate impacts aren’t off the field either: players, staff, and fans will be braving extreme heat at a number of games. The matches will be held with much of the North American continent facing above-normal temperatures.

More fun: we thought it was also a great opportunity to highlight the big gains solar is making across the world. See our analysis of solar production and FIFA ratings — and let us know who you’re rooting for!

According to a new report from Ember, solar topped coal as a percentage of US energy mix this May — marking the first time the technology has overtaken coal for a whole month and a sign of solar’s powerhouse role in the modern energy mix.

Source: Ember Energy via Bloomberg News

1. Data Centers Draw Criticism From Cheerleaders

As costs escalate and public opposition mounts, policymakers who boosted data centers are now turning on them — at least rhetorically.

• As data centers are becoming more and more unpopular nationally, state policymakers are seeing increasing pressure to oppose them, or at least impose certain guardrails on the data center construction boom. This past week saw a flurry of activity across the states.

• In Tennessee, lawmakers passed HB1847, a bill that requires data centers above 50MW in size to pay for the costs of grid upgrades. In Portland, in response to legislation passed last year, Portland General Electric announced that it would raise the rates data centers pay by 29%. Finally, in Ohio, lawmakers are reportedly planning a legislative package to “rein” in data centers following years of tax breaks to attract them.

• Governors, too, are feeling the pressure. Utah Governor Spencer Cox ordered a “higher bar” for data centers, despite massively boosting data centers just months prior. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, another former data center booster, established stricter standards for data centers being built in the state. The reaction from elected officials is an indication of the shifting politics: even data centers’ strongest cheerleaders are turning against them, as support increasingly looks like a political vulnerability.

2. Trump Administration Spends Even More To Subsidize Aging Coal

The administration wants to spend $850 million to subsidize aging coal power plants — and build two more.

• Last week, the Department of Energy announced that it would commit $850 million to modernize more than a dozen coal facilities, boost coal export capacity, and build the first two new coal power plants since 2013.

• The move isn’t out of step for the coal-obsessed Trump Administration: in addition to sabotaging renewable deployment, the administration has required multiple aging coal plants to stay open, at a very high cost to utility ratepayers. Now, the administration wants to deploy public dollars to do the same.

• Contrary to the arguments of coal’s biggest supporters, there’s little reason to keep coal on the grid. It’s neither truly dispatchable nor flexible as an energy source, and is struggling to keep up reliability, especially during peak demand and extreme weather events. Coal is becoming increasingly expensive, following an opposite cost curve to renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal, and battery storage, which are seeing significant price reductions every year. Of course, coal is also the dirtiest of fossil fuels, with significant impacts to local air pollution and emissions.

3. New York Wraps Up Legislative Session With Climate Rollback

New York’s legislative session closed last week with lower climate ambition, and no action on multiple bills targeting the insurance industry’s relationship with fossil fuels.

• On Thursday last week, New York’s 2026 legislative session wrapped up, with a lot left to be desired from climate hawks. Hochul signed significant revisions to the state’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which had set ambitious targets for rapid decarbonization.

• Hochul’s changes to the law include extending the deadline to design emissions reduction regulations until the end of 2028, eliminating a 2030 interim target of 40% GHG emissions reduction, and changing the state’s emissions accounting protocols. Hochul previously tried to justify the amendments by arguing that the law was too ambitious, despite failing to implement key regulations required under the law herself.

• The legislature also closed without passing the Climate Accountability and Loss Recovery Act, which would allow the Attorney General to sue fossil fuel companies for climate-related damages, and the Insure Our Communities Act, which would require insurance companies to align their long-term strategies with climate targets.

4. Colorado Implements Property Risk Mitigation Law

Colorado Governor Jared Polis signs a bill to fund property-level fortification, as insurance costs continue to rise in the state.

• Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed SB 155 into law on Monday. The bill creates a new state enterprise to fund property-level mitigation to reduce replacement costs driven by hail and other hazards and requires insurers to pay a 0.5% fee on premiums to fund the enterprise.

• The state enterprise, the Strengthen Colorado Homes Enterprise, is one of many being designed and implemented by state policymakers as climate-driven hazards continue to drive risk across the country. Louisiana recently allocated $50 million in additional funds for its Fortify Louisiana Homes Program.

• While these measures account for a small share of state budgets, they’re important for their role in reducing overall physical risk and driving a commensurate reduction in insured losses from climate-driven hazards.

Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway said, “SB26-155 builds on what we’ve done so far and will generate real savings for Coloradans through a hail mitigation grant program. Hail is the number one cost driver of homeowners insurance premiums in our state, and this legislation will ensure that more Coloradans can afford to upgrade their roofs, thereby reducing claims and risk across the state.”

SPOTLIGHT: Solving Challenges with Transmission

The California Independent System Operator (ISO) recently approved its new 2025-2026 transmission plan, with 38 recommended infrastructure projects to accommodate growing demand and more renewable energy resources on the grid. The plan calls for utilities to spend around $6.7 billion over the next 10 years.

The new transmission plan will allow the state to more easily develop energy resources, including 45 GW of solar generation in southern California and southern Nevada, 8 GW of in-state wind generation, and 2 GW of future geothermal generation in California and Nevada. The transmission upgrades will help California benefit from greater out-of-state resources across the West.

Transmission is hugely important to the energy transition: smart planning can reduce capacity needs by linking multiple markets together, and jumpstart energy development. In Texas, via Competitive Renewable Energy Zones, the state jumpstarted wind and solar development by building transmission before energy resources, thereby making energy development cheaper and faster. In that case, the benefits from the CREZ program far outpaced the costs.

The Trump-aligned SEC is formally withdrawing a rule that would’ve required companies to report on material climate-related risks and carbon pollution.

• Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a rescission of the agency’s own Biden-era Climate-Related Disclosure Rules, a first step in formally removing the rule. In February 2025, the Trump-aligned acting chair of the SEC directed the agency to stop defending the rules from challenges in court.

• The rules, which were adopted by Chair Gary Gensler in 2024, required companies to disclose climate-related risks to their business, how they plan to adapt to climate change, and Scope 1 and 2 emissions for certain filers.

• Despite the administration’s efforts, eliminating reporting of certain risks doesn’t change reality: climate change continues to unfold and pose significant risks to the financial system, whether the SEC is collecting data or not.

• Still, it’s yet another area in which the federal government is stepping back and ceding ground: climate disclosure will continue to move on, just under the purview of different jurisdictions, including in California and abroad.

Heather Palmer, a partner at law firm Sidley Austin: “Even with the S.E.C. rule being rescinded, there are other disclosure requirements that are likely going to apply to public companies.”

2. Primary Elections in Six States Clarify the November Map, with Key Results in California Awaiting Finalization

As of Thursday morning, the California Governor’s top-two primary race is led by Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton, but a narrow path remains for climate philanthropist Tom Steyer to make the ballot.

• On Tuesday, California was one of six states to hold primary elections ahead of the 2026 Midterms. California voters chose the candidates in hundreds of races including the gubernatorial race and insurance commissioner’s race, both critical elections for climate and clean energy policy.

• With many mail-in ballots still to arrive, former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and Trump-endorsed Steve Hilton lead in the Governor’s race, while Senator Ben Allen and former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim lead the top two spots for Insurance Commissioner. In both races, results are far from confirmed.

• A pathway remains for climate philanthropist Tom Steyer in the Governor’s race, though remaining ballots will need to be far more Democratic than early results. Climate and clean energy groups backed Steyer, who criticized Becerra’s ties to major oil companies and utilities.

• Elsewhere, former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland became the Democratic nominee for Governor in New Mexico, making the climate hawk the likely next Governor of New Mexico. In Iowa, it appears as though Democrats will give Republicans tougher races for Governor after a more extreme candidate in the Republican Governor’s primary beat out Trump and party-backed candidate Randy Feenstra.

3. CARB Doles Out Giveaways to Refineries in Cap-And-Invest Update

California’s primary air regulator gives a major financial and compliance gift to refineries in a walkback of the Golden State’s climate ambition.

• Last Friday in a divisive vote, the California Air Resources Board voted to finalize major changes to cap-and-invest, California’s carbon trading program, with a plan to allow oil refiners and other major polluters to receive allowances equivalent to 118 million tons of carbon pollution. CARB’s more robust original proposal in January – designed to help the state make up a gap in mandated emissions reductions by decreasing available allowances – received pushback from oil companies, which threatened to close their in-state refineries.

• The new “manufacturing decarbonization incentive” allowances could be worth up to an eye-popping $4 billion and represent a significant share of a critical revenue-raising and carbon-pricing tool in California’s arsenal. With lower expected revenues, this move reduces funding for critical climate programs, including wildfire mitigation, affordable housing, and high-speed rail.

• While framed otherwise, this is a significant weakening of climate ambition by California, which has been the face of climate ambition as the second Trump Administration targeted climate policies. CARB’s rule change will lead to lower carbon prices and more pollution.

4. Illinois’s Legislative Session Ends With Movement on Insurance

As the climate-driven insurance crisis creates affordability concerns, Illinois advanced modest proposals.

• As its legislature wrapped up last week, the Illinois General Assembly passed multiple bills intending to alleviate the burdens of the growing insurance crisis in the state. Lawmakers passed SB714 and HB4273, two bills to give the Department of Insurance more oversight over “unfair” rates. They also passed SB4006, which tries to increase participation in climate-related data collection by insurers.

• Still, the bills are just a starting point, falling short of the full ambition of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s aggressive push in 2025 to increase Department of Insurance oversight over rate requests, not just those deemed unfair or excessive.

Meanwhile, SB4006 was significantly amended before passage to remove critical risk reduction measures, including a program called the Strengthen Illinois Homes Program to fund property-level mitigation. The bill would have also required insurers to reflect mitigation measures with bill credits or rate reductions.

5. Arizona Adds Massive Batteries

Arizona now ranks second in the country for new battery additions so far in 2026, as it accelerates clean energy deployment.

• Arizona is now a national leader in utility-scale battery storage capacity. So far in 2026, Arizona has added 940 MWh of battery storage, putting it second in the country behind Texas (2,696 MWh) and slightly ahead of California (936 MWh) in new battery capacity additions.

• In 2025, Arizona became the third-largest state for deployed battery storage systems and its new 2026 additions now bring it to more than 20 GWh of battery storage, behind California (60.6 GWh) and Texas (29.2 GWh) in total installed battery capacity.

• Despite the administration’s unrelenting attacks on renewables, clean energy continues to be deployed at scale, especially alongside batteries. Batteries are also making other forms of clean energy, especially solar, more attractive to grid planners, utilities, and energy planners.

Pleiades’ Take: Batteries give us hope! Tell your friends.

SPOTLIGHT: Insurance Crisis Squeezes Homeowners

A new study from the Urban Institute finds that climate-driven insurance risks are increasingly burdening homeowners and putting homeownership further out of reach for Americans. The report found that insurance costs are accounting for a growing share of the costs of homeownership, rising from 1.87% as a share of income in 2018 to 2.27% in 2024. Importantly, the report also notes a growing share of high-burden premiums, finding that 16.2% of new mortgages in 2024 had premiums exceeding 3% of income, compared to just 10.5% in 2018.

Individuals in high-hazard areas face burdens significantly higher than those in low-risk areas, a gap that has accelerated since 2018. Importantly, though, these discrepancies aren’t limited to differences in risk across geographies: those with the highest existing financial burdens, like lower incomes, credit scores, and high-debt-to-income ratios, are more likely than others to be significantly burdened by insurance.

After a failed attempt to pass a massive tax break for pipelines, Gov. Dunleavy is trying again as pipeline backers admit the infrastructure requires massive public subsidies.

• Late last week, legislators in Alaska returned to work after the close of their regular session as Governor Mike Dunleavy called a special session focused on the planned trans-Alaska Glenfarne Pipeline, which would carry gasre 800 miles from Alaska’s North Slope gas reserves to Anchorage, where it would be exported primarily to Japan. The special session is focused on a proposal to eliminate 90% of the property taxes that would be levied on pipeline-related infrastructure in the state.

• The pipeline has faced significant opposition and is not a sure bet: despite efforts by Dunleavy and the Trump Administration to force through the pipeline, the project’s ever-increasing and unknown costs have put the project’s economics into question. Lawmakers have objected to the high costs, and did not pass the 90% tax break during Alaska’s regular session.

• Glenfarne is still resting the final investment decision on “more offtake agreements” by customers, and the potential tax breaks. In any case, it’s unclear how Alaskans, who are facing an energy crisis as the Cook Inlet reserves face depletion, would benefit from a significant expansion in the state’s LNG export capacity.

Homer Electric Association Board Member Erin McKittrick said, “We had Glenfarne here last year saying that they were going to get their (final investment decision) by the end of 2025 before the legislative session. And then now we have Glenfarne saying they are completely dependent on a tax break that the legislature passes for them.”

2. Shapiro Wants To Condition Support for Data Centers

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announces his plan to require data centers to meet standards before receiving state help.

• Governor Josh Shapiro released his new 2026-27 budget, which includes the Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) principles, which will require data centers to meet certain standards on energy, transparency, workforce, and environmental standards before being eligible for Pennsylvania’s fast-track permit program.

• It’s a big shift for Shapiro, who once boldly declared he was “all in on AI” when announcing a $20 billion Amazon data center in Pennsylvania. Shapiro also announced that Pennsylvania already has the “energy resources to support this technology.”

• It’s also a sign of the evolving politics of data centers, which are drawing significant public backlash and increasingly bringing scrutiny from lawmakers seeking to restrict or pare back tax breaks for data centers.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro: “If companies want the Commonwealth’s full support — they must meet strong standards on energy affordability, clean energy generation, transparency, workforce development, community impact, and environmental protection.”

3. Red-State AGs File Anti-ESG Lawsuits Against ISS

Four Republican AGs announced they would sue Institutional Shareholder Services over its consideration of climate-related factors and ESG.

• The Attorneys General of Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, and West Virginia announced lawsuits against major proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services, alleging its use of ESG criteria and consideration of climate-related factors violated state laws. The lawsuits were headlined by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a long-time anti-ESG stalwart candidate for Senate.

• Paxton previously tried to enforce an unconstitutional law that included significant restrictions on the advisors’ ability to provide advice to shareholders, and argued that ISS tried to “obstruct” ExxonMobil’s move to Texas from New York. Exxon has attacked proxy advisors, and backed SB 2337, the Texas law restricting proxy advisors that was declared unconstitutional.

• Despite the efforts to intimidate the proxy advisors, ISS has shown few signs of cowing under pressure: it has pledged to “vigorously defend” itself. The pressure from the anti-ESG state executives does not change the fact that climate-related financial factors are real, and are material to core business decisions.

4. NV Energy Announces Gigawatts of New Renewables, and Gas for Data Centers

In its new integrated resource plan, NV Energy files for approval of 4.3 GW of solar and 5.4 GW of storage, with 1.2 GW of gas.

• NV Energy, the largest utility in Nevada, has filed its 2026 integrated resource plan, in which it is seeking regulatory approval for 4.3 GW of new solar development, 5.4 GW of storage, and 180 MW of new geothermal energy. NV Energy also says it needs 1.2 GW of new gas to power its growing base of data center customers.

• The IRP represents a massive investment in new clean energy additions to the grid, in a state with significant renewable energy potential. Still, as advocates point out, the gas remains an ominous sign as it’s being built to serve data centers, which are projected to constitute a massively growing share of NV Energy’s customer base.

• The utility warned in January that it would basically need to double its renewable energy generation by 2030 to meet its RPS as a result of the explosion of data centers in the state.

5. Public Financing Would Unlock $9 Billion In Savings For New England Transmission

New research shows that publicly-financed transmission would unlock significant long-term savings.

• According to new research from the Acadia Center, shifting transmission financing and funding to government bonds and public-private partnerships could create more than $9 billion in long-term savings, as opposed to profit-driven financing.

• ISO New England, the region’s grid operator, has already identified $16 to $26 billion in long term regional transmission investment to continue to ensure reliability through rising energy demand and decarbonization.

• Public involvement also brings an element of long-term, coordinated planning, which can be used to unlock private industry competition and deliver cheap, renewable energy to the places it is needed.

Jamie Dickerson, senior director of climate and clean energy at the Acadia Center and one of the report authors, said, “It’s not every day that we unearth a solution that can deliver up to $10 billion in potential savings even though it is over a multi-decade period, so we’re really excited for policy makers and stakeholders to embrace this model.”

SPOTLIGHT: Insurers Are Reporting On Climate Risk, But Missing Key Substance

A new report this week by Ceres finds that insurers are continuing to participate en masse in the disclosure process across the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures pillars: Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, and Metrics & Targets. Ceres found that over 83% of insurance companies now disclose across all four pillars, up slightly from 2021.

Yet the quality of data doesn’t match the breadth of it: only 10.5% of individual disclosures meet the “fully met” standard, which is essentially flat since 2021. The data gaps are most stark in Metrics & Targets, where a majority of carriers are missing key data points, particularly in Scope 3 emissions. Still, industry leaders demonstrate that full compliance and fully meeting the TCFD standards isn’t due to a lack of capacity.

The Granite State became the seventh state to advance a bill to allow the easy installation of small-scale consumer solar systems.

• The New Hampshire legislature passed SB 540 last week, which allows utility customers to connect solar devices up to 1.2 kW without seeking approval or permission from utilities. The bill now awaits approval from New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte.

• New Hampshire is joining a growing list of states seeking to expand access to solar by allowing residents access cheaper, easily-installed solar: seven states, including New Hampshire, have passed legislation. The trend began in “deep-red” Utah, which passed a bill authorizing plug-in solar in 2025.

• In total, more than 30 states have considered similar legislation. This includes California, which is the largest market for residential solar installations, where the State Senate passed the Plug and Play Solar Act by a 35-1 vote.

2. NextEra and Dominion Energy Seek To Create World’s Largest Utility

NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy, two of the country’s largest energy companies, are looking to merge with a $67 billion buyout offer from NextEra.

• NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy released a bombshell announcement on Monday, saying the two companies reached an agreement to merge into one mega-utility serving more than 10 million customers across the Southeast. The combined utility would be the largest renewable energy and natural gas operator, and the second-largest operator of nuclear power in the country.

• The merger will pair NextEra, the largest developer of renewable energy in the country, with Dominion Energy, which has faced criticism for its failure to bring batteries and renewables online fast enough. Still, NextEra and Dominion both retain a significant fleet of fossil-fired generators, and NextEra continues to build new gas plants to serve its growing base of data center customers.

• The merger isn’t without its issues for customers either: both NextEra and Dominion have a long history of spending significantly on political campaigns, lobbying, and overcharging customers. Regulators in other states have rejected previous NextEra mergers for the risks posed to ratepayers.

David Pomerantz, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, said: “A megamonopoly of this size, with the kind of money to buy political influence that NextEra will have, will be nearly impossible to regulate.”

3. Data Centers Shoot PJM Power Prices Up 76%

A report from PJM’s Independent Market Monitor found significant price spikes caused by data centers.

• In its Quarterly State of the Market report for PJM, the region’s Independent Market Monitor warned that data centers have caused “very large” and irreversible price impacts on customers throughout the thirteen-state region. The monitor warned of further, larger price impacts if the region fails to make significant changes before the June 2026 capacity auction.

• Significant price increases within PJM’s territory have caused the grid operator to receive major political blowback from politicians, many of whom have blamed PJM for the lack of capacity meeting data center-driven demand growth. The blowback has even led to a price cap in its capacity auctions, negotiated with PJM’s governors.

• The Monitor recommended that data centers and large load customers bring their own generation, or be required to curtail their load. As PJM experiences an energy supply crunch, it’s certainly worth revisiting its long-standing rules that disadvantage clean energy sources in its interconnection queue.

4. FEMA Looks Like Trump’s Next Target

As recommended in Project 2025, a Trump Administration review panel recommended gutting FEMA and federally-provided flood insurance.

• The Trump Administration’s FEMA Review Council has issued a set of recommendations to the President, signaling the likely next steps for the administration in its long-running efforts to reshape, and at times gut, the country’s disaster management system. Among the Review Council’s recommendations were to privatize the National Flood Insurance Program, as recommended under Project 2025, and raise the threshold for federal aid and involvement in disaster recovery.

• The effort to privatize flood insurance federally appears similar to Florida’s efforts to “depopulate” its own Citizens Property Insurance Corporation by forcing customers of the insurer of last resort onto private market plans with lower levels of coverage and higher premiums.

• The proposed plan would significantly reduce long-term federal support for municipalities after disasters, a key element of disaster recovery which research shows is critical for long-term economic stability and recovery.

5. Georgia PSC Race Shapes Up

Democrats finalize their candidates for two races to determine control of the Georgia PSC, while Republican candidates are still unclear.

• On Tuesday, voters in Georgia went to the polls to choose candidates in the primaries for the District 3 and District 5 Public Service Commission races. In District 3, Democrat Peter Hubbard won his primary unopposed, while Republican Fitz Johnson, who lost to Hubbard last year, is leading his opponent by 0.38%, though has not yet claimed victory. In District 5, Democrat Sheila Edwards won her primary with 55%, while two Republican candidates will head to a runoff election as neither reached 50%.

• Hubbard made headlines in 2025 alongside Alicia Johnson when they defeated two incumbent Republicans on the GaPSC, becoming the first Democrats to win constitutional statewide offices in Georgia in twenty years. Hubbard is required to run for reelection this year, since his race in 2025 was to fill the final year of a six-year term.

• With the two races this year, Democrats could secure an outright majority on the Georgia PSC, which Hubbard and Johnson have both said they’d work with to lower rates and get more clean energy on the grid.

Georgia Public Service Commissioner Peter Hubbard: “We’re going to be making the case this year that we need to finish the job, and despite the fact that we’ve got a beachhead with two Democrats on the Public Service Commission, we’re still not going in the right direction.”

SPOTLIGHT: Microsoft Rumored to Scale Back Commitments — Risking Clean Energy Innovation and Impact

Earlier this month, tech giant and data center behemoth Microsoft was rumored to be considering dropping its commitment to match 100% of its hourly electricity use with clean energy by 2030. Microsoft initially announced its 100% hourly match goal in 2021, and has set the so-called “gold standard” of corporate renewable energy procurement.

For the most part, corporate renewable customers seek to match energy on an annual basis, buying renewable energy credits to cover their aggregated annual energy consumption. New research, though, shows that the hour-matched strategy can cut 42 times more carbon emissions compared to the annual-matched basis.

Importantly, hourly-matching strongly incentivizes battery investment, since customers can’t aggregate annual solar production to cover energy consumed at night, which would otherwise be allowed in annual-matching scenarios. Corporate 24/7 commitments have been a crucial ingredient in driving clean electricity investment and innovation.

A week after Congressional Democrats opened an inquiry into the Trump Administration’s billion-dollar taxpayer deal to cancel wind projects, as Americans are increasingly feeling the price of electricity, New York State’s largest pension fund has asked, as an investor, if the company is jettisoning value and harming their business.

1. Utilities Spend Big Against Steyer

California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer has become a target of major utilities in the election, and other election updates.

• California utility PG&E, the largest in the state, is injecting $10 million into anti-Tom Steyer super PACs alongside the real estate and construction industries. Steyer is a leading candidate and has the backing of environmental and climate advocates.

• Steyer has a long record on climate change: he led the campaign for Prop. 39, which closed a tax loophole for oil companies to fund schools. He also founded Galvanize Climate Solutions, a climate-centered investment firm, and NextGen America, a progressive organization that began as climate-focused and been run one of the largest youth voter registration drives in history. He’s also made climate change and energy affordability central to his campaign, including pledging to significantly expand clean energy and lowering guaranteed rates of return for utilities.

• Meanwhile, on Tuesday, voters in Ohio went to the polls to vote for the nominees in their gubernatorial race. Vivek Ramaswamy, former presidential candidate and anti-ESG campaigner, won the Republican nomination. Finally, voters in a hyper-rural county in Ohio narrowly upheld a ban on local solar and wind projects by a 53-47% margin.

2. Insurance Commissioners Issue New Data Call

Insurance regulators in all states are looking to better understand how climate change is impacting the insurance market.

• State insurance regulators are issuing a new call for data from insurance companies, representing internal records showing losses caused by climate-driven perils in each ZIP code in which they sell policies. The call is being overseen by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which supports the country’s insurance regulators.

• This is the first data call since 2024, in which the Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office collaborated with the NAIC to “better understand” climate-related impacts on insurance markets. The new data call seeks to capture a larger share of the regulated market nationwide.

• Data quality remains a significant gap in efforts to assess and reform the country’s decentralized and distributed insurance industry as climate change continues to increase physical and financial risk across the country.

Jordan Haedtler, climate finance policy lead at Climate Cabinet, said,

“We literally don’t have a full and comprehensive system for monitoring insurance market data. There’s so much salience on this issue that [insurance] departments of various ideological leanings are at least finding data collection to be in their interests.”

3. West Coast Energy Market Goes Live

On May 1, a new Western energy market turned on, linking utilities across multiple states.

• On Friday, a group of California utilities joined with Oregon’s second-largest utility to officially launch CAISO’s extended day-ahead market (EDAM). CAISO is the grid operator for most of California and part of Nevada.

• Now, CAISO will be able to freely optimize generation and transmission between Oregon-based utility PacifiCorp and California-based utilities, essentially pooling all their assets together. The move is likely to save consumers significant dollars, as one CAISO study showed the West could save up to $1.2 billion annually.

• Larger markets and interregional planning make the grid better, more resilient, and more efficient. In EDAM, Oregon customers will now see the benefit of plentiful solar power and battery storage from Southern California, while Southern California customers will see the benefit of Northwestern hydropower. Organized markets let each utility tap into a much larger pool of generation capacity.

PacifiCorp’s Vice President of Energy Supply, Mike Wilding, said,

“These organized markets are the best tool that we have available to control our costs for our customers. The way they do that is they leverage larger footprints, a larger pool of generation and more transmission connectivity than PacifiCorp has on its own, which now means you can move electricity where it needs to go more effectively and more efficiently.”

4. Virginia Transmission Sets Back Renewables

Failures in Virginia’s transmission planning process have blocked multiple gigawatts-worth of renewables from adding to the grid.

• Data from PJM shows that more than 100 new energy-generating facilities since 2018 have been “withdrawn or significantly delayed” by failures to upgrade existing transmission or build new transmission capacity in Virginia. Most of those have been clean energy projects.

• The review of delayed and blocked projects found dozens of projects by Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest investor-owned utility. The cancelled projects would have added 5 GW to Virginia’s grid.

• Transmission remains a significant bottleneck to the energy transition, particularly as the country’s aging grid meets new large loads in data centers and struggles to handle new generation capacity in the clean energy boom. Interconnections and transmission pitfalls have long been a barrier to bringing new, much-needed clean energy online.

5. Salt River Project To Develop 3GW of Arizona Solar

The state’s largest public utility will build 3GW of new solar as a new clean energy majority takes their positions on the Board.

• The Salt River Project, a public utility serving 2 million Arizonans, announced that it will partner with developer NextEra Energy Resources to develop 3 GW of new solar capacity in Arizona by 2034. The plan will add 500 MW of new solar per year from 2029 to 2034.

• SRP is seeking to “double” its generating capacity as it seeks to meet rising load growth, and this addition will triple the total amount of solar it has on its grid. Around 1GW of its existing solar was also developed by NextEra.

• Despite its relatively low profile, SRP saw headlines in recent months as it held elections for its board system, in which a pro-clean energy slate won an outright majority, defeating candidates backed by the far-right political group Turning Point USA.

6. Tipping Points Threaten Global Stability

Climate change’s irreversible thresholds threaten fundamental global climate patterns that undergird the modern world.

• As climate change brings about felt impacts via climate-driven disasters, its sub-surface impacts on global currents are becoming more clear, and worrying. Experts have identified the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) as “under threat” from climate change as warming seas and temperatures, melting ice, and more rainfall change the balance of the North Atlantic.

• The AMOC is a critical system of ocean currents, which includes the famous “Gulf Stream,” keeps much of the world as it is today: it keeps Europe warm, and cools down areas close to the equator. As climate change weakens the streams of currents, AMOC approaches a “tipping point,” in which the climate-driven changes weaken it to the point of collapse.

• Countries, companies, and key decisionmakers are now having to think about these threats more clearly. In late 2025, Iceland declared the potential collapse of AMOC an “existential threat” and a key national security concern. Meanwhile, JPMorgan is responding to client interest in understanding tipping points and navigating uncertainty.

SPOTLIGHT: New Recommendations for Insurance Regulators

A new report from Brian Shearer, Director of Competition and Regulatory Policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, argues that there’s a “greedflation” problem in insurance markets, and outlines steps that regulators and policymakers can take to address it.

The report argues that insurers are spending too little of the money made from people’s premiums on paying out claims, creating a low “loss-ratio.” A loss-ratio is the term for the proportion of premium-revenue paid as claims. The report finds that most insurers’ loss-ratios are between 50% and 70%, and have been falling for years. Shearer argues that property and casualty insurers should be held to a similar standard as health insurers, which are required under the Affordable Care Act to spend a minimum of 80% of their premiums on medical care and improving the quality of care.

This ratio matters for families as climate-related risks increase financial risks to properties. The report also argues that insurers spend too much money on unnecessary expenses, advising lawmakers to cap or prohibit insurers from spending corporate dollars on private jets, lobbying, campaigning, and excessive advertising.

The Virginia Governor spotlights energy and energy affordability in her first 100 days in office.

• Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger has made energy, especially energy affordability, a focus of her first hundred days since taking office in January. Spanberger was elected in 2025 after focusing much of her campaigning on tackling rising electricity rates in Virginia.

• Spanberger has signed a number of bills aiming to lower energy bills, including legislation to allow utilities to assign costs of servicing data centers directly to those large loads, to simplify transmission permitting, and legislation to develop demand flexibility programs for large loads.

• By January 2027, new governors will be taking office in at least 18 states, and are looking at a similar set of challenges: Spanberger’s focus on affordability and energy is perhaps an indication of what should be on their agendas moving forward.

2. Gas Plants Get Even More Expensive

The cost of fuel isn’t the only thing driving up the cost of gas generation.

• As the World Bank is warning of the “largest energy price surge” since 2022, new analysis from Bloomberg’s BNEF found that the cost of building natural gas power plants has jumped 66% in just two years.

• While the number of gas plants and projects in the pipeline is rising dramatically to meet data center-driven load growth, projects are significantly more expensive, going above $2,100 per KW of capacity, compared to just $1,500 in 2023.

• On top of higher infrastructure costs, natural gas is a historically volatile and geopolitically vulnerable commodity: it is incredibly sensitive to global economic and political upheaval. While gas prices remain lower in the United States, rising LNG exports mean that domestic gas consumers will see prices rise, which we’ve warned about.

3. Mills Vetoes Data Center Pause

Maine Governor Janet Mills vetoed what would have been the country’s first moratorium on data centers.

• Last week, Maine Governor Janet Mills vetoed LD 307, which would have banned new data centers in the state larger than 20 MW for at least two years. The bill, which passed the legislature in April, would have been the country’s first data center moratorium.

• As the politics of data centers and AI gets more contentious, Maine isn’t the only state to consider moratoriums: at least 13 other states have proposed temporary bans on data centers. In other states, lawmakers are interested in paring back incentives for data centers as the costs of tax breaks reach into the billions.

• Still, there’s more states and policymakers can do to protect ratepayers. Innovative rate designs, direct-cost assignment, and special rate classes for large loads can be used to help insulate ratepayers. States can also look to data centers’ significant capital and time-sensitivity as a means of bringing and encouraging more investment in clean energy and critical grid upgrades.

4. Colorado Senate Advances Geothermal Bill

The state is looking to join other states in the west as leaders in geothermal energy.

• The Colorado Senate on Tuesday voted to advance SB 142 in a landslide with significant bipartisan support. The bill seeks to encourage geothermal energy development in Colorado, by authorizing municipal governments to build their own geothermal systems, allowing larger community geothermal projects, and requiring the state to develop recommendations on geothermal production.

• Colorado has long lagged behind other states in the Mountain West when it comes to geothermal, but has made an aggressive push in the last five years in an attempt to cultivate the resource beneath the ground. The State Energy Office operated a $12 million geothermal grant program and an investment tax credit for geothermal projects.

• Geothermal energy is a critical piece of the transition towards a zero-emission economy: geothermal energy can be used to provide energy to meet demand without any emissions. Recent advances in next-generation geothermal have unlocked significant new geothermal resources, including 90 GW of new capacity that could be “economically built.”

Sen. Matt Ball, who sponsored SB 142, said, “Colorado is set up really well for geothermal energy. We think this is a really innovative and exciting place for Colorado to invest to achieve all of our emissions goals in the next several years.”

5. DeSantis Preempts Local Climate Rules

The Florida Governor, a long-time culture warrior, signed a bill prohibiting local governments from adopting “net zero” rules.

• On Earth Day last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a new law blocking local governments from adopting any rules or setting policies that would in any way take into account climate change or emissions impact, including transitioning municipal fleets to EVs, requiring low-emission construction materials, and tracking local emissions.

• The new Florida law will put a number of key local initiatives at risk, including many that sought to protect Florida communities from climate impacts like worsening hurricanes, sea level rise, and other climate damages.

• It’s not the only time DeSantis has moved to restrict local governments that disagreed with him: in 2021, DeSantis signed HB 839, a bill which preempts local governments from restricting fossil fuel infrastructure. And DeSantis also removed all mentions of climate change from state codes two years ago, a move many at the time criticized for being willfully blind to many of Florida’s risks.

Miami-Dade County Republican Commissioner Raquel Regalado said, “Every time they preempt us, they take tools away, right? [They] don’t necessarily understand the unintended consequences.”

6. Trump Reaffirms Biden Administration’s Transformer Orders

President Trump issued a Defense Production Act Section 303 Order to support domestic transformer and grid equipment manufacturing, the same move made by President Biden in 2022.

• Last week, President Trump issued a Section 303 Order under the Defense Production Act, which allows the government to take a more active role in supporting certain technologies. The order specifically targets transformers and grid equipment that are critical to meeting the demands of the grid, and can support new clean energy connection to the grid.

• The Section 303 Order allows the federal government and critical agencies, like the Department of Defense and Department of Energy, to purchase and make financial commitments to support these technologies. President Biden issued a similar order in 2022 to support the domestic manufacturing of critical energy technology, including transformers.

• Transformers have been a significant bottleneck in the global energy transition for years, as global supplies have always lagged behind the need for them on the grid. Still, it’s unclear what this order will actually do now: multiple companies are already bringing new manufacturing capacity online, which will begin bringing new supplies in 2027, and not sooner. Meanwhile, the administration’s other policies, particularly on trade and tariffs, have significantly worsened the supply shortage of key grid technologies like transformers.

Spotlight: Pleiades At Climate Week

Thanks to all those who joined us to cover the wide-ranging political, policy, economic, and real-world implications of the ongoing energy transition, and a special thank you to our partners Climate Cabinet Education, the World Resources Institute, and Natural Resources Defense Council for working with us on these three great panels.

Experts, practitioners, and policymakers came together where climate finance, policy, infrastructure, risk, and the real world all meet. With over 200 people registered across three events, we had awesome turnout and really fruitful conversations about some tough issues. To those of you who attended and this is your first issue of Transition Finance Weekly, welcome!! We’re so happy you’re here.

1. ERCOT Claims Its Load Could Quadruple In Six Years

A new forecast from Texas’s grid operator shows load growth even higher than previous, skyhigh estimates.

• ERCOT released a new CEO update this week, in which it said that its forecasted load could grow as high as 368 GW by 2032, a massive increase over the current 2026 load forecast of 98 GW. A similar presentation by the CEO in 2024 anticipated 152 GW of total system load by 2032.

• But it’s not a realistic number: regulators and ERCOT officials alike have said that the forecast is likely an overestimate, and it’s likely closer to the highest-end possible scenario.

• Still, it’s clear that demand for energy is growing, in Texas and everywhere else. The impetus is on policymakers to make sure the growth in demand continues to drive the clean economy, domestic energy supply chains, and the energy transition, while protecting ratepayers from negative impacts.

2. Repurposed EV Batteries Get New Life

A new deal between EV maker Rivian and storage company Redwood Materials will give new life to Rivian batteries.

• Last week, EV maker Rivian and battery recycling company Redwood Materials announced a partnership to repurpose “second-life” EV batteries to provide storage at a Redwood Materials factory in Normal, Illinois.

• Second-life batteries are batteries that have reached the end of their useful life as electric car batteries, but are still useful as stationary grid-serving batteries.

• The new partnership is an example of the value of a domestic energy supply chain, and is an example of how to deliver one step further toward a circular economy.

3. Georgia Power To Let Businesses Sponsor New Clean Energy

Georgia’s largest utility will let its customers pay for new clean energy resources through the utility.

• The Georgia Public Service Commission approved a new plan by Georgia Power to allow major commercial and industrial power users to identify and sponsor new clean energy projects across the state. The program, called the “Customer-Identified Resource” (CIR) Program, comes as data centers are flocking to Georgia and gives a pathway for those large loads to pay their own way — for clean power.

• The CIR program will work by having customers pay a monthly tariff to Georgia Power to cover the cost of constructing and operating new renewable energy projects, along with a guaranteed rate of return to the utility. The program also allows 25% of potential savings to be shared with other Georgia Power customers.

• However, the program allows up to 3 GW of customer-sponsored resources by 2035, which Georgia Power will use to satisfy a majority of its 4 GW target of new clean energy.

“These large customers are willing to put down capital on the front end and take on the risk,” said Katie Southworth, CEBA’s deputy director for market and policy innovation in the South and Southeast. ​“This program opens up the procurement pathways.”

4. Hawaii Closer To Requiring Polluters Pay For Their Impact

A Hawaii bill cleared major legislative milestones, bringing new potential pathways for recovering the costs of climate change from polluters.

• Last week, the Hawaii House advanced SB1166 in a floor vote, a bill which authorizes the state and insurers to sue large fossil fuel companies for the costs associated with climate-driven disasters. The Senate and House are now resolving their differences after the bill was amended in the House.

• Meanwhile, in California, the Senate Insurance Committee failed to advance a similar bill after it cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. The bill, SB982, would have allowed the Attorney General to sue major polluters for their role in contributing to climate-attributable disasters.

• These bills have faced significant opposition in legislative proceedings as the oil and gas industry has funded efforts to pass legislation at the state and federal levels to give the industry legal immunity from paying for the costs associated with their business.

• In Congress this week, Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman introduced a bill to give the oil industry “sweeping immunity” from legal and financial accountability, including from state lawsuits against th

5. Michigan AG Asks Courts To Examine PSC Approval For Data Center Contracts

AG Nessel is seeking to unseal and examine “special contracts” signed between DTE and a data center developer.

• Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has once again filed to challenge a utility, as the Michigan PSC approved DTE Energy’s special power contract with a 1.4 GW data center planned south of Ann Arbor. Nessel is seeking to invalidate the PSC’s approval of the contracts, after the Commission rejected her earlier efforts to review the secret contracts.

• Nessel previously requested a contested rate hearing before the PSC, seeking the right to review the “still heavily redacted” contracts, verify DTE’s claims about customer affordability, and verify adequate ratepayer protections. Nessel said she is seeking “clarity” on the contracts, stating that they will set a precedent for all future data center development in the state and their deals with utilities.

• A big challenge for communities facing data center development has been transparency, with key proposal details shrouded from the public eye — and sometimes even from the key legislators and policymakers.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said, “Our utility companies are preparing to bring aboard massive new data centers in the years to come. On these first, precedential contracts, we must have clarity from the Court, and hold the MPSC accountable to the law.”

6. VA Clean Energy and Grid Provisions Signed into Law, with Amendments from Spanberger

VA Governor Spanberger amended two key energy bills, signing others, after campaigning on electricity affordability in November.

• Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, who campaigned heavily on energy affordability in her 2025 gubernatorial race, amended two bills passed by the legislature: amending two bills to reduce how much money Dominion can spend on undergrounding wires and reducing the rate of return Dominion is allowed to earn on its expenses. The legislature will need to concur with them before they can take effect.

• Spanberger amended one bill, HB 1393, which extends an existing program that allows Dominion Energy to underground power lines, and requires the State Corporation Commission to approve lines with a per-mile cost of less than $750,000. Spanberger changed the bill to limit the per-mile cost at $900,000, and gave the SCC greater discretion in rejecting deals.

• Meanwhile, Spanberger also wants to revise Dominion’s authorized rate of return, the amount of money it’s allowed to earn on its investments, from 9.8% to 9.3% when the SCC conducts its next rate review.

Meet Pleiades at SF Climate Week

We spend a lot of time thinking about how climate conversations get siloed. Energy people talk to energy people. Transportation advocates talk to transportation advocates. Insurance wonks talk to insurance wonks.

But the threads connect.

On April 21, Pleiades Strategy is hosting a full day of conversations at SF Climate Week with some of our favorite thinkers and doers digging into topics that deeply matter — the Pleiades Salon. Three conversations, one through-line: the places where climate risk, the energy transition, economic opportunity, and policy collide in ways that demand our collective attention.

We hope you’ll join us.

Tuesday, April 21 | San Francisco

1. Data Centers Draw From State Budgets As Wallet Impacts Get Sharper

Data centers are costing governments larger and larger amounts of money, as energy done wrong costs ratepayers too.

• The Texas Comptroller’s office found that the state will lose out on $3.2 billion in state sales tax revenue as a result of the state’s tax exemption for certain data center project developers. Texas isn’t the only one, either: Virginia’s tax breaks for data centers cost the state $1.6 billion in missed revenue last year.

• As a result, more states are considering paring back or entirely eliminating state incentives for data centers, partially because the incentives themselves are secondary considerations for data center developers who are prioritizing fundamentals like land and energy.

• Meanwhile, the structure of energy deals themselves are just as important: without the right safeguards, state policies, and utility approaches, data centers can be incredibly costly for existing ratepayers. It’s on policymakers to reclaim their authority to exercise the appropriate oversight and supervision of continued data center development, without harming state budgets and ratepayer wallets.

2. Clean Energy Slate Wins in Arizona

Clean energy-supportive candidates won a majority on the Salt River Project utility’s board.

• Last week, a slate of candidates broadly supportive of renewables and clean energy won a majority of the seats on the Salt River Project’s board. SRP is Arizona’s largest public utility, and delivers power to more than 2 million customers.

• The races drew attention, in part because of the SRP’s unusual system of awarding one vote per acre to landowners in its service territory, and also because the far-right advocacy group Turning Point USA endorsed its own slate of candidates.

• Though two TPUSA-backed candidates won seats on the board, the Clean Energy Team swept the remaining races and won an outright majority on the board. SRP’s board will be majority pro-renewables for the first time in its history.

Ken Clark, one of the new Clean Energy Team board members, said,

“Starting when we’re sworn in, S.R.P. will be the largest utility in the country with a majority vote of clean energy supporters. There has been a pent-up demand, especially in Arizona, for people to have their energy freedom, to have solar panels, batteries and more energy-efficient measures.”

3. Climate Costs Are Already Costing Households $900 Per Year

The costs of climate change aren’t a far off abstraction: they’re here, and getting bigger.

• According to research from a trio of economists, climate change is costing the average American household around $900 per year, a figure with significant geographic variance. For 10% of counties, the cost is significantly higher at $1,300 per year per household.

• Insurance costs alone, driven upward by the increasing frequency and severity of climate-driven disasters like hurricanes and wildfires, account for a majority of the direct costs to households. Higher insurance costs are contributing to a $600 increase in household expenditures, up to $1,000 in the highest-cost areas.

• In total, the aggregation of these costs amounts to $110 billion per year in the United States, a figure that will continue to grow absent additional climate action.

4. Oklahoma’s Highest Court Rules Anti-ESG Law Unconstitutional

After years of litigation, the Oklahoma’s Energy Discrimination Elimination Act is dead.

• The Oklahoma Supreme Court issued a permanent injunction against the state’s Energy Discrimination Elimination Act of 2022, upholding a 2024 lower court decision ruling the law as unconstitutional. Oklahoma’s EDEA was one of the first anti-ESG laws passed nationwide, and required the state to blacklist companies that allegedly “boycott” fossil fuel companies.

• Though the law was blocked on constitutional grounds as a result of a retiree-initiated lawsuit, it also significantly increased costs to taxpayers, who were forced to pay $180 million in additional borrowing costs because of restrictions put in place via the EDEA.

• Oklahoma’s law isn’t the only anti-ESG law blocked either: a federal court struck down a similar law in Texas, which required the Comptroller to develop a “business blacklist.” And in Missouri, an anti-ESG rule proposed by the Secretary of State, which would have required investment advisors to make politically-charged statements, was struck down by a federal judge.

5. Coal Plants Aren’t Operating, Despite DOE Orders

“Emergency” orders by the Trump Administration don’t make the coal math work.

• Three coal-fired power plants, which were ordered to stay open beyond their closure dates, are not operating. The Trump Department of Energy has used little-accessed federal emergency authorities to force coal power plants to stay open past planned closures, contradicting what utilities, grid operators, and states say they need.

• Generators at the Washington State Centralia power plant, Craig in Colorado, and R.M. Schahfer in Indiana didn’t generate any electricity in January. Tri-State Generation & Transmission in Colorado, the owner of the Craig Power Station in Colorado, formally objected to the DOE’s order.

• Meanwhile, as states, consumer advocates, and environmental groups sue the administration over its coal orders, the costs for utilities and ratepayers are mounting: the costs of keeping just one Michigan coal plant open have ballooned to over $135 million in less than one year. Even without generating power, Craig Station costs $80 million per year to keep operational.

Spotlight: Oil and Gas Industry Looks to Liability Shield

Fresh off its campaign to toxify corporate climate efforts, key anti-ESG leader Will Hild and donor Leonard Leo are organizing a new campaign to pass measures giving the oil and gas industry a liability shield against the damages their products have created. This replicates a playbook from the gun industry to avoid liability for the harms their products perpetuate. In 2026, Utah became the first state to pass measures to protect the oil and gas industry from litigation. The oil and gas industry is also fighting tooth-and-nail against measures in other states that would require the industry to pay for the costs caused by their extensive pollution.

Former California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones characterized the efforts as “beyond dangerous.” Jones argues that making polluters pay is one of the most important avenues for funding climate change mitigation and recovery efforts, especially as the Trump Administration slashes federal disaster funding and climate-related programming.

Pleiades at SF Climate Week

We spend a lot of time thinking about how climate conversations get siloed. Energy people talk to energy people. Transportation advocates talk to transportation advocates. Insurance wonks talk to insurance wonks.

But the threads connect.

On April 21, Pleiades Strategy is hosting a full day of conversations at SF Climate Week with some of our favorite thinkers and doers digging into topics that deeply matter — the Pleiades Salon. Three conversations, one through-line: the places where climate risk, the energy transition, infrastructure, and policy collide in ways that demand our collective attention.

We hope you’ll join us.

🗓 Tuesday, April 21 | San Francisco

🔗 Link here

1. California Earthquake Authority Releases Wildfire Study

As ordered by the state legislature and Gavin Newsom, the Wildfire Fund Administrator issued recommendations to overhaul California’s insurance and energy landscapes.

• The California Earthquake Authority, which manages the Wildfire Fund, came out with its final recommendations after a multi-month examination of the state’s insurance market and electricity system, which included nearly 80 submissions from environmental, consumer, industry, business groups, and government agencies. The study was mandated by SB 254, a bill passed in the wake of the 2025 wildfires that added $18 billion to the wildfire fund.

• The report falls short of endorsing a specific policy path forward, but issues a number of recommendations under three main categories, including how to manage physical risks, how to allocate risks and “burdens,” and what the state’s potential role could be in the market.

• Though it gives plenty of options for lawmakers to consider, the report is unequivocal in its declaration that any real solution to the insurance crisis must come with real, serious physical risk reduction measures at the property and community level.

2. Pair of Pennsylvania Bills Will Enhance Existing Electricity Assets

Lawmakers in Pennsylvania are considering bills to deploy advanced transmission technologies and VPPs to enhance the grid.

• As part of a growing trend across the country, lawmakers in Pennsylvania are considering two bills to increase the grid’s ability to take advantage of existing resources on the grid, HB 2223 and HB 2264. HB 2223 would require utilities to consider deploying advanced transmission technologies and HB 2264 would require utilities to develop virtual power plants.

• Both solutions would make the grid significantly more efficient and allow grid operators and utilities to increase grid utilization. And virtual power plants in particular have emerged as a significant opportunity to coordinate and aggregate distributed resources to potentially add up to 60 GW of capacity to the grid by 2030.

• The bills face significant headwinds, though: the legislature has been slow to take up bills, even those backed by Governor Shapiro. Strategies to take advantage of existing grid assets also don’t fix Pennsylvania’s relative lack of clean generation assets, which exists in part thanks to the state’s arcane rules which add $6,000 to the cost of residential solar systems.

House Energy Committee Chair Rep. Elizabeth Fielder said, “We know that we are dealing with serious supply chain problems and demand problems, and that we need to do everything we can to get as much as possible out of our existing infrastructure.”

3. Minnesota Approves Xcel’s “Distributed Capacity” Program

Minnesota regulators approved the state’s first virtual power plant, but distributed energy advocates criticize the utility-centric model.

• Xcel Energy received approval from Minnesota regulators on its Capacity*Connect program, a utility-owned 200 MW distributed storage and VPP program. Xcel has permission to develop up to 200 MW of energy storage across its grid with 1 to 3 MW batteries.

• The VPP program is unique: most VPP programs use customer-sited and customer-owned energy resources. Meanwhile, Xcel itself is operating a VPP program in its Colorado service territory.

• Though Capacity*Connect leaves out customer-sited resources, it’s revealing from the company and an acknowledgement that a substantial piece of the future of the grid will be distributed, including those operated by major investor-owned-utilities.

4. Nevada’s Largest Utility To Join New California Market

Nevada’s PUC will allow NV Energy to join CAISO’s new electricity market in a game-changing move.

• Last Friday, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission approved NV Energy’s request to join the California Independent System Operator’s new Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM). CAISO, which manages California’s electricity grid, is proposing a new energy market to share energy and grid resources across a wider geography, through EDAM.

• EDAM is launching May 1, 2026 with PacifiCorp and Portland General Electric, with more grid operators and utilities slated to join in the next year. EDAM will also provide significant benefits for DER and VPP integration into a wider wholesale market.

• The launch of a new Western energy market is a significant milestone for the grid. As with “smaller scale” energy system upgrades, linking regions with coordinated energy markets and transmission unlocks more capacity everywhere and reduces the need to build additional generation.

5. Trump Admin Takes Axe To Forest Service

As fire risk grows and the West approaches wildfire season, the Trump Administration is moving to close three quarters of its forest research facilities.

• The Trump Administration is moving to massively reorganize the U.S. Forest Service, which manages 193 million acres of federal land and works on wildfire suppression and mitigation across the country. As part of the cuts, the administration is shuttering 57 of the agency’s 77 research stations and moving its headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah from Washington, D.C.

• The move is reminiscent of Trump’s reorganization of the Bureau of Land Management during his first term, in which he moved the agency’s headquarters to Colorado from Washington. His chief of staff at the time claimed that moving agency headquarters was a “wonderful way” to get federal employees to quit. Some anticipate that the Forest Service will lose as much as half of its workforce in the move.

• The Forest Service could be unequipped for what is expected to be a more-dangerous-than-usual wildfire season across the Western United States, which is already dealing with a significantly warmer and drier winter than usual.

A prescribed burn site at the Crossett National Forest research station, one of the long-standing USFS research hubs that has added to our understanding of scientific forest management and resource management that is at risk from cuts to USFS science programs. Taken on a field trip by Frances in 2014.

Data shows natural gas is driving increases and volatility in energy prices.

• A new analysis published by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the Brattle Group on the state of electricity prices found that increases in the price of natural gas drove generation and wholesale electricity prices higher across the country. The effects, like most factors in electricity markets, were not evenly distributed across geographies.

• The report found that electricity prices had been insulated from excessive price increases over a six year period from 2019-2025 as a result of low natural gas prices, but fluctuations in commodity prices drove significant volatility in electricity prices. States that received more of their electricity from natural gas saw significantly more volatility in annual electricity prices.

• Natural gas exports will also worsen the price impacts of domestic natural gas use as more domestic producers seek to sell gas to the more expensive international markets, especially amid the U.S.-Iran conflict’s impact on energy markets.

• In short, the report affirms that relying on volatile commodities for fuel is a vulnerability for cost control. Technologies like wind and solar, which don’t rely on fuels, are free from this vulnerability.

From the report: “In 2025, the national-average price of natural gas delivered to electric generators increased 36% from the all-time low in 2024, pushing generation costs and real-time wholesale electricity prices higher.”

2. La Plata Leaves Tri-State, Lowers Costs and Increases Clean Portfolio

The Colorado distribution cooperative is leaving the Tri-State Generation and Transmission to pursue local affordable clean generation.

• On April 1, La Plata Electric Association, a Colorado-based distribution cooperative, exited its membership in the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, its longstanding wholesale generation and transmission provider.

• The move is expected to save La Plata 10% on its wholesale electricity costs and significantly reduce its emissions, savings realized through access to local clean generation, more market purchases, and an escape from legacy coal.

• The move away from Tri-State has been long-planned: the two coops signed an agreement in 2024 to terminate the contract and shift towards a continued relationship via PPAs for 40 MW of firm capacity and 40 MW of solar.

• In making their exit, La Plata in part took inspiration from the New Mexico Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, which pushed to leave Tri-State in 2016 and has since shifted to locally-sourced clean energy.

• In the meantime, Tri-State has made strides toward improving its resource mix and finances: it secured $2.5 billion in New ERA funds for modernization, has moved to procure significant solar and storage, and has offered new local generation for members.

La Plata Board President Nicole Pitcher said, “This is exactly why we made the decision to leave. I was proud to be part of that Board vote, and we’re already seeing it pay off for our members with lower costs, stable rates, and a cleaner, locally controlled power supply.”

3. Energy & Data Centers Take Center Stage in Texas

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick & Speaker Dustin Burrows highlight energy and data centers as priorities for the next Texas legislative session.

• On Friday, a day after House Speaker Dustin Burrows released his own list of priorities, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick asked state legislators to “study” a range of policy issues including energy and data centers ahead of the 2027 session. The Texas legislature does not hold regular legislative sessions in even years.

• Specifically, Patrick is asking legislators to review transmission policy, assess the impact of existing policies on the Texas grid, and examine the impact of energy-intensive technologies on the grid. Patrick also wants to examine “renewable energy decommissioning,” a common talking point among anti-renewable advocates seeking to block clean energy.

• Speaker Dustin Burrows similarly called on lawmakers to focus on energy issues, including developing microgrids and distributed energy resources, specifically as they relate to reliability and affordability for consumers.

4. California Resiliency & Insurance Study to Come Out April 7

The California Earthquake Authority will release a major study mandated by SB 254.

• On Tuesday, the California Earthquake Authority is expected to release the outcome of a multi-month study into California’s insurance markets, utilities, and resilience in the face of ever-increasing climate-driven disaster risk, primarily from wildfires.

• The CEA, which administers the California Wildfire Fund, was tasked with studying the state’s insurance market and resilience to catastrophes via SB 254, a major bill signed by Gavin Newsom in September 2025. Among other things, SB 254 also added $18 billion to the state’s Wildfire Fund, which faced near-depletion as a result of the 2025 Los Angeles fires.

• More than 80 groups and stakeholders have submitted commentary to the CEA as part of the study, but it’s unclear what the body will recommend. A separate SB 254-initiated report, by the California Public Utilities Commission, called for sweeping reforms to California’s insurance system, including by reining in utility liability, more risk sharing and pooling across different risk profiles, and changing the responsibility for wildfire mitigation.

• The SB 254 process has put a spotlight on the ways that climate-driven risks are reshaping the financial landscape, with taxpayers, ratepayers, and the insured (read: people) covering the tab across the board. Mapping these hidden climate costs makes it clear: fair and transparent investments in real, tangible risk reductions are crucial to California’s continued economic thriving.

5. MI, NY, MA — All Considering Virtual Power Plant Legislation

Lawmakers across the country are looking to allow the grid to take advantage of distributed, small-scale energy resources.

• Last week, a Michigan Senate committee voted to advance SB 731, a bill that would establish a framework for implementing VPP programs in the state, tasking the Public Service Commission with adopting program requirements within one year. The bill’s backers say that the bill will allow the state to take advantage of its plentiful distributed energy resources.

• Michigan’s not the only state moving on VPPs: a pair of bills in New York introduced in mid-March will require the utility and Department of Public Service to develop and deploy VPP programs if passed. In Iowa, legislators are considering legislation to require the Utilities Commission to develop VPP rules, and a Massachusetts bill would require utilities to develop VPPs.

• Across the country, policymakers are increasingly turning to VPPs as a means of addressing immediate affordability challenges and capacity needs on the grid. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, who ran on energy affordability, signed a bill allowing Virginia’s electric cooperatives to deploy VPPs.

SPOTLIGHT: Florida Port Rejects LNG Bid

A week before the Space Coast successfully launched Artemis II to the moon, Port Canaveral Commissioners voted unanimously against selling a slice of Port-owned land to Berkshire Hathaway and Chesapeake Utilities, which sought to build an LNG liquefaction plant for the cruise and space industry. Liquefaction facilities also unlock the export of natural gas to international markets, further tethering U.S. gas prices to international market fluctuations.

The Port Canaveral Commissioners rejected the bid in part because the land is “a strategic port property,” and because of significant opposition from the community. The LNG facility would have been built less than a mile from hundreds of homes.

Attorney General Dana Nessel is trying to cut DTE’s proposed gas rate hike by 85%.

• Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said last week that she filed against DTE Energy’s request to increase its rates for all customers by 10%. Under DTE’s proposal, residential customers would see at least an 8% increase.

• Nessel criticized DTE in February when it announced that it would seek yet another rate hike, just days after the Michigan Public Service Commission approved a $242 million rate hike for its electric service.

• Nessel isn’t alone here, either. Attorneys General are increasingly stepping into utility rate cases to defend their constituents’ pocketbooks as energy prices become more salient to customers. In Arizona, AG Kris Mayes has stepped in to block Tucson Electric Power’s proposed 14% rate increase, and North Carolina AG Jeff Jackson has stepped in to block multiple utility-proposed hikes.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, on DTE Energy’s proposed rate hikes: “It’s astonishing that our current system allows DTE to announce their next rate hike case less than one week after locking in a $242 million rate hike, all while the utility projects record profits.”

2. Massachusetts Sets New Energy Targets

Governor Maura Healey signs executive order setting new in-state clean energy deployment targets.

• Last week, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed an executive order ordering the state to bring 10 GW of new clean energy resources online by the end of 2035. The EO calls for 4 GW of new solar, and 3.5 GW of demand management capacity. Importantly, the EO also targets 5 GW of energy storage by 2035.

• Healey’s EO includes recommendations to support the development of new resources, including improving interconnection processes, supporting the expansion of wind generation, and expanding distributed resources including microgrids.

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said, “While the President is taking American-built energy sources off the table, in Massachusetts, we are saying yes to more supply from more sources of energy. We are saying yes to American jobs and American energy independence. And we are saying yes to lowering energy bills for all.”

3. DOE Coal Orders Undermine Utility Planning, Face Resistance

Utilities are working to resist the Trump Administration’s emergency coal power plant orders as they undermine system planning.

• Since taking office, the Trump Administration has forced 16 power plants nationwide to stay open, regardless of their cost to operators, in a bid to increase coal consumption in the United States. The plants forced to stay open include Tri-State G&T Cooperative’s Craig Station in Colorado, Constellation’s Eddystone in Pennsylvania, Campbell Power Plant in Michigan, and Washington State’s Centralia plant.

• For state utility regulators, policymakers, and grid operators, the federal government’s politically-motivated efforts to boost coal are undermining their ability to plan for the future. The orders undermine state-level agreements, utility decisions, and laws binding utilities to decommissioning assets that they’ve concluded are too costly or inefficient to run.

• For utilities, the orders are unnecessarily driving up their costs and similarly affecting their long-term planning. Consumers Energy says that the order keeping Campbell open has cost ratepayers $135 million in just a few months. Meanwhile, Tri-State and Platte River Power Authority filed to block the order.

Pete Wychoff, Deputy Commissioner of Energy Resources for the Minnesota Department of Commerce, on the order keeping Campbell open in Michigan: “This is nuts … we are not happy and are repeating to anyone who asks that there is a coal plant in Michigan that is being forced to stay open.”

4. Geothermal Can Connect Faster Than We Knew

Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) can achieve commercial operation within three to six years of project initiation — a timeline that aligns with near-term resource planning.

• A new white paper from the Center for Public Enterprise finds that novel enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) are ready for quicker deployment than previously thought. Unlike traditional geothermal systems, EGS uses horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies, borrowed from oil and gas extraction, to use the Earth’s heat to generate electricity.

• The paper argues that new EGS projects can start producing power within three years of breaking ground on construction, timelines which look incredibly attractive compared to other sources of clean firm energy like nuclear and traditional geothermal.

• Even more key, EGS has extreme potential in displacing dirty generation, particularly due to its high capacity factor (over 80%) and its continued eligibility for a 30% investment tax credit. Coupled with the attractive timelines, the paper argues that western utilities should rush to include EGS in their next round of integrated resource planning processes.

5. Hochul Says She Can’t Meet Deadlines Of Law She Failed To Implement

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has delayed the implementation of the state’s landmark climate law, and now wants legislation to revise the goalposts.

• Governor Kathy Hochul wrote an op-ed calling for legislation to delay the implementation of New York’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a landmark bill committing the state to 100% net-zero electricity by 2040. The law also binds New York to 40% GHG reduction by 2030 and 85% by 2050.

• Hochul is now arguing that the law is at odds with “affordability” and says that the state won’t be able to meet the targets. Hochul also claims that the Trump Administration’s war on renewables is undermining the buildout.

• But Hochul also failed to implement the law herself. Hochul’s administration failed to promulgate the rules and regulations required to achieve the cuts by 2024 as required by the bill. Hochul’s proposed rules would allow energy providers and homes to burn more dirty fuels for longer, exactly at the moment that those energy sources are skyrocketing in price.

SPOTLIGHT: Renewables Growing As Share of America’s Grid

Wind and solar grew to produce 17% of all U.S. electricity in 2025, up from less than 1% in 2005 according to the Energy Information Administration. Even amidst a “war” on renewables from the Trump Administration, renewables continue to drive growth in the electricity sector. In 2025, 93% of the 63 GW of grid additions were wind, solar, or storage.