Aug 30, 2025 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate
Among energy and environmental policy wonks in the northeast, an obscure provision of a 1972 environmental law is at the heart of a dispute over a natural gas pipeline. The provision in question is Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, and it gives states a veto over...
Aug 19, 2025 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
As policy, the abundance agenda was inevitable. It is a reaction to a pollyanna-ish view that assumed away the complexity and hard choices of the energy transition. Its popularity is a learning story. One of the joys of teaching is helping students develop a deep...
Aug 6, 2025 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate
One of the few low-carbon energy technologies that the Trump administration is not actively trying to hobble is nuclear power. (Geothermal energy is another.) Nuclear power boosters have been heartened recently by the tech industry’s interest in 24/7 clean power to...
Jul 2, 2025 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate
Climate “tipping points” are events that could rapidly accelerate warming or suddenly change the climate in ways to which humans would have trouble adapting. I list a few of those potential tipping points in a note in Climate of Contempt, including “the...
Jul 2, 2025 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate
As the tragedy that is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act works its way through Congress, let’s talk about something equally cheery: namely, fears of climate disasters. Climate “tipping points” are events that could rapidly accelerate warming or suddenly...
Jun 17, 2025 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
The U.S. Senate is currently considering the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). The version passed by the House would drastically scale back the energy infrastructure investment subsidies contained in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The Senate is trying to cobble...
