With the resignation of White House CEQ member and “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones over Labor Day weekend, the movement toward a green tech economy took more than just a symbolic hit. Take these three lessons from Jones’ resignation as signals that the Senate’s lift on energy/climate change legislation in the coming weeks may be even tougher than predicted:

Green as Granola…or Worse? We have seen time and again this year that in spite of further entrenchment with skeptics, the green movement is still not resonant in red state America. In fact, they see climate change and energy reform as hippie holdover hokum. The Jones resignation proves that in at least one way, the movement is still way too far out on the fringe. The idea that a White House-level official with Jones stature and profile could possibly have been affiliated with a 9/11-truth group — even in a peripheral way — demonstrates that a lot of the movement’s leadership comes from well outside the political mainstream.

How to Replace a Rock Star? From a messaging standpoint, Van Jones is irreplaceable for Obama. He – literally – wrote the book on “green-collar jobs” and no other single figure has the kind of bona fides in both the Mother Jones and Fast Company crowds. To his credit, Jones built that reputation as an early adopter of green economy ideals, and the impressive resume of vision and leadership that he cultivated in the Bay Area — especially his innovations on urban job training — looked ripe for nationwide scalability.

A Sign for the Senate? The White House has stumbled in selecting a core message around climate change for the general public, using the summer months to float trial balloons on approaches like national security that are thought to be more resonant with middle America. But, green jobs promised to be a central motif as Senate debate on a climate bill kicks off in September. While the bureaucrats running the programs in Washington will remain in place, Jones departure is a leadership upheaval at an inopportune time for the White House and the Senate progressives who will be carrying the water on the climate/energy bill.

[photo credit: Flickr]

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It is worth taking a minute to run over to National Journal Online’s Energy-Environment blog to read their ongoing discussion, entitled “Running in Place.” The series reflects on progress made in energy-environment policy in the last thirty years, since President Carter committed that we would never again import as much oil as we did in 1979.

Obviously, Carter could not bring that to reality, and we now import three times as much oil as we did when those words were uttered (from a little over a million barrels a year then to 3.5 M bpy today). “Running in Place” brings together leaders from the energy industry, policymakers and environmental advocates to analyze what has gone right, what has gone wrong, and what needs to happen going forward.

Alas, I was not one of the “invited” participants for the forum. Had I been, I would have answered the NJO’s question: “Has anything changed?” as follows.

President Obama’s push for action on climate change is really only the first bite at the apple. The actions that Carter took (i.e., PURPA amendments) and that subsequent administrations carried forward (i.e., deregulation/PUHCA repeal) were not directed at the energy-environment nexus as we recognize it today.

Those policies viewed energy and the environment as discrete commodities. They were economic policies, aimed at bringing us more affordable energy. They were national security policies, aimed at weaning us from dependence on foreign sources of fuel – especially unreliable or unfriendly sources.

But, Barack Obama has climate change. Things have changed. National security and domestic control and cost may all have been a part of the conversation during the Waxman-Markey debate, but the ballast in that bill is the critical energy-environment linkage.

The bill itself may not have been ideal, and nothing better is likely to pass the Senate, but just this shift in perspective is significant. It is something to build upon. It remains to be seen if Obama can do what Carter promised.

[photo credit: BL1961]

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Ken Salazar's solar array and cowboy hat combo should be more common under the plan announced yesterday for the Southwest

Yesterday’s big announcement by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar heralded what may be a new era for solar power, as thousands of acres of federal land in six Southwestern states were set aside to become a special federal solar energy zone designed to facilitate siting, construction and deployment of as much as 70,000 MW of new solar capacity.

Today, it is wind’s turn in the sun. The front page of the Boston Globe and local broadcast reports are abuzz with the news that Governor Deval Patrick’s administration has released a new plan to re-zone state coastal waters to better balance the need for marine ecological protections with the hope that Massachusetts can harvest more of its offshore wind as useful electricity.

In the absence of all of the plan’s details (a full presser was scheduled for the afternoon of July 1 at the New England Aquarium in Boston), the media has already shifted to score-keeping. There is at least one clear loser, as the plan deals a death blow to a particular Buzzards Bay proposal for 300 MW of offshore wind. The wind farm would sit in what is now a restricted area.

The plan does set aside two specific areas for large-scale wind, and Jim O’Sullivan of the State House News Service quotes Ian Bowles, the state’s energy secretary, as telling reporters that “the Commonwealth [of Massachusetts] will want to put those areas out to bid and they would be, relatively speaking, on the fast track for development.” (sorry, SHNS is a subscription site – no link). Bowles allowed that the proponents of the Buzzards Bay project could bid to shift their 90+ turbines to one of the newly-designated areas, but added that he had no idea whether they intended to do so.

Bowles’ “fast-tracking” comment is direct, but not surprising. His own March Op-Ed in the NYT made reference to the administration’s perception of major offshore wind potential; and, those comments were strengthened considerably by the testimony Paul Hibbard, a state regulatory commissioner, gave before Congress in mid-June.

All the international investment, Washington clout and technological innovation in the world is for naught in a climate where a neighbor and ten friends can still get together and tie a project into a Gordian knot of appeals and reviews.

Until the full rule-making process is complete on both of these new policies, it is unclear what the real impact on siting will be. But, it seems obvious that neither policy will address all of the potential delays in getting turbines spinning. For example, the Massachusetts plan still grants local towns and regional planning agencies the authority to approve smaller wind projects in state coastal waters.

Taken together, yesterday’s federal announcement of a new plan for Southwestern solar zones and the Massachusetts offshore wind farm rezoning plan, demonstrate some interesting trends: first, a shift that brings policy more in line with rhetoric and second, a clear bias for executive action as against legislative enactment.

The two announcements are tangible steps toward aligning policy with the increasing rhetoric about the desire for greater renewable deployment. The major problem remains siting. Even in a fantasy scenario where there is no additional public opposition (which does NOT happen), the environmental and administrative processes at the local, regional, state and federal level are cumbersome.

Streamlined siting of generation assets is less meaningful without equivalent relief for building the transmission interconnections that are required to get wind off the high seas and solar rays out of the desert, and deliver usable energy to load centers.

The siting problem is a drag on development even as aggressive renewable portfolio standards have sent utilities out on the market for new renewable capacity (in spite of a year where they saw overall demand drop). It remains true even as huge sums of public money have been made available to subsidize renewable power and to spur development of new generation capacity.

Both of these announcements should – ostensibly – make siting, permitting and constructing a project easier. Both are still subject to public comment periods and possible amendment, but however the details emerge, it seems clear that what we will be left with is a more favorable climate for developers.

Both plans face at least one big additional question: even if they allow for streamlined siting of the generation asset, do they offer equivalent relief for building the transmission interconnections that will be required to get the wind off the high seas and the sun’s rays out of the desert, and deliver usable energy to load centers? Just ask Cape Wind, who was able to site their entire proposed farm in federal waters, whether relief from zoning and local/state court appeals for transmission infrastructure is needed.

The second trend is perhaps a little more wonkish and nuanced, but what does this spate of executive action mean for the future of energy infrastructure siting? Based on the blood bath that emerged in the House trying to get Waxman-Markey through, the measured bill that emerged, and the dim hopes of getting even that kind of bill through the Senate, it seems clear that if we are going to see swift, aggressive action on game-changing energy policy matters, it is likely to come from the executive corner of the government. While we can’t say how that trend might be greeted by the legislative bodies off in the other corner, we do have some indication of how the third member of the troika – the courts – will respond.

Swift, aggressive action on game-changing energy policy matters is likely to come from the executive corner of the government.

This spring, the Fourth Circuit rejected FERC’s attempts to grab a greater share of power under Federal Power Act amendments that were a part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Piedmont decision interpreted FERC’s backstop authority as a sort of riding crop that allowed the executive agency to help spur movement in state siting decisions and prevent undue or bad faith delay. The court expressly rejected FERC’s claim that the EPAct 2005 amendments allowed it to overturn the decisions of state siting agencies.

We may soon have a similar indication of the expansiveness of executive agency authority in Massachusetts. After receiving a consolidated “super-permit” from the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board, Cape Wind faces a new SJC appeal that is sure to allege that local zoning approvals should not have been preempted. Cape Wind already prevailed in a 2006 SJC decision that focused more on the question of administrative authority and practice than on the substantive issues around siting.

It will be interesting to see if the Massachusetts court follows the 4th Circuit in some sense by limiting executive authority over energy infrastructure. Either way, the fact remains that project developers will remain subject to a full panoply of potential legal remedies that opponents can use to delay construction. These policies themselves – in whatever form they ultimately take – will inevitably be tested and interpreted by the courts.

In spite of the new policies, a fundamental conflict in renewable energy generation siting remains: the resources are most often not collocated with load. In other words, the locals who are experiencing the hardships presented by the development are probably not the ones who need the increased capacity. Even if a developer can site a project in one of the Commonwealth’s new zones (say on the beaches south of Boston headed toward Cape Cod), they still face the fundamental question from locals: why should I allow 10 turbines on my beach so that you can generate more power for skyscrapers downtown? And that is to say nothing of the permits required to construct transmission lines, transformation facilities and other ancillary infrastructure needs.

It is a positive sign for developers when the leaders of our nation and our states decide to put some of their political capital where their rhetoric has been. But, none of these policies are a panacea. Developers need to focus on the whole project picture, but they must keep a wary eye at ground level. All the international investment, Washington clout and technological innovation in the world is for naught in a climate where a neighbor and ten friends can still get together and tie a project into a Gordian knot of appeals and reviews.

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If you are tight on time jump over to 1:50; President-Elect Obama sees upgrades to the US’ infrastructure, the development of alternative energy and the implementation of alternative energy projects as critical components to the country’s economic recovery.

It is a somber testament to the dire nature of the economic backdrop we face – but it is encouraging that the leader of the US has made a strong pledge to promoting the future of renewable energy, efficiency, alternative transportation and the development of jobs and careers in those sectors.

Yesterday I went for a hike with Sanjay Wagle, a principal with Vantage Point Venture Partners and co-founder of CleanTech for Obama (CT4O);  we spoke about his meetings in Washington this past week with members of the transition team.  He was impressed with the attention they were given and by how the President-elect’s team seemed committed to working with legislators from both sides of the aisle and experts from around the country. CT4O was the first outside entity that the Transition Team has met with – which would indicate an earnest commitment to seeking energy independence and environmentally sustainable solutions.  Sanjay and the rest of the CT4O team pulled an all-nighter to get their initial recommendations on everything from transportation to biofuels to the transition team in time for yesterday’s announcement (the video above).

I’m excited, and I look forward to seeing President-elect Obama steer the country into the right direction on these issues with informed and engaged advisers like Sanjay and the rest of the CT4O.

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