|  | | Transition Finance Weekly |
| Exploring the policy, politics, and economics of the clean energy transition |
| Each week here in Transition Finance Weekly, researchers and analysts from Pleiades Strategy summarize the top stories and trends related to the policy, politics, and economics of the clean energy transition in the states.
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| 1. Texas Sued For Undermining Free Speech and Corporate Responsibility |
| The American Sustainable Business Council files a lawsuit challenging Texas attacks on corporate responsibility - read the full complaint.
Laying out the facts of the case: “Climate change poses significant risks to the American economy, and many companies take that risk into account in operating their business, including in choosing investments, manufacturing and other process designs, and in developing product and service offerings … These are grave risks to financial institutions, market functioning, and the stability of the American financial system as a whole.”
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| | 2. In Florida, Project 2025 is Already In Effect – and Stalling the Energy Transition |
| The Heritage-DeSantis alliance is working together to kill clean energy in America’s third-largest state. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 would bring an end to climate and clean energy programs, boost oil drilling, and add protections and subsidies for fossil fuel companies facing a loss of social license and stranded assets. And Heritage’s aggressive hands-on work to advance anti-ESG policies in Florida shows what that landscape would look like. Heritage and its lobbyists have worked hand in hand with friendly legislators to enact dozens of right-wing policy proposals — including handing legislators the bill language for their anti-ESG legislative crusade. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and his allies have been incredibly hostile towards clean energy , going so far as to repeal clean energy targets and banning offshore wind projects, effectively protecting one of the nation’s dirtiest power systems and leading to some of the nation’s steepest rate increases. Fossil fuel generation is now at 80% of supply, the highest in three years.
Learn more about how Heritage is writing and advocating for anti-ESG proposals at the state level in the Pleiades Anti-ESG Statehouse Report and Executive Action Report. |
| | 3. Does the U.S. Need a “Marshall Plan” for Clean Energy? |
| After World War II, the U.S. helped build Europe’s postwar economy. Now we could help shape the world’s clean energy future. In “The Clean Energy Marshall Plan,” Brian Deese — who served as director of President Joe Biden’s National Economic Council and now advises Vice President Kamala Harris — calls for the U.S. to carry the Inflation Reduction Act’s stimulus approach out into the world. “The clean energy transition remains the most important planetary challenge,” he writes. “It also presents the greatest economic opportunity: it will be the largest capital formation event in human history.” The U.S., he argues, should use its economic might for good by helping to fund, guide, and support the transition everywhere. U.S. government-backed loans and loan guarantees, he argues, will help ensure the energy transition’s economic benefits are shared, diversify the clean energy ecosystem worldwide, make American infrastructure more attractive to buyers in developing countries, and counter Chinese economic and geopolitical influence.
Deese: “There is already a bipartisan understanding that we need to have a more viable alternative to China’s Belt and Road. This plan gives [politicians] a credible way to go to communities across the country and say: ‘This is in your core economic interest, today’.” |
| |  | Image credit: Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal |
| 4. “Fire in the Hole!” — Demolition Brings Down A Major New Mexico Coal Plant |
| San Juan Generating Station smokestacks demolished as part of environmental remediation effort as state transitions to cleaner, more affordable energy sources. Via Albuquerque Journal photographer Eddie Moore, that’s the San Juan Generating Station, located next to the San Juan coal mine in northwest New Mexico, which has been dismantled — and removed from the energy ecosystem forever. Operating from 1973 to 2022, the plant’s four generating stations had a peak capacity of 850 MW of coal power, enough to provide power to 150,000 homes a day. The problem? The energy it produced was deeply polluting and by the 2010s, exceptionally expensive compared to cleaner renewable resources. Following years of local advocacy, New Mexico’s 2019 Energy Transition Act required investor-owned utilities like PNM to meet 50% renewable energy by 2030 and 80% by 2040. The landmark law was also written with San Juan in mind, providing $40 million in economic transition funding for the plant’s workers and local community and requiring significant environmental clean up. This isn’t the first obsolete plant to come down, and it won’t be the last; in 2023, 15.6 GW of fossil fuel generating capacity was retired. San Juan’s path showcases the need for comprehensive planning, deep community engagement, a focus on workers and community impacts, and dedicated funding for communities impacted by fossil plant closures.
Mike Eisenfeld of the San Juan Citizens Alliance, which led the community movement for a just transition: “There’s no doubt that this era is over.” |
| | 5. Republicans Hammer BlackRock — Even As It Reneges On ESG Promises |
| The world’s largest asset manager is pulling back on its energy transition commitments, but that’s not enough to stop the GOP attacks.
CEO Larry Fink: “BlackRock does not see itself as a passive investor in the low-carbon transition. We believe we have a significant responsibility — as a provider of index funds, as a fiduciary, and as a member of society — to play a constructive role.”
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| | 6. Cross-Government Partnerships Tackle Industrial Emissions |
| Federal and state “Buy Clean” policies are building low-carbon safeguards into construction materials procurement across the country. Public procurement exerts enormous leverage on the construction materials market — half the cement used in America is bought with public funds — and many state governments are using their spending power to build and grow a market for low-carbon products. So far 13 states have signed on to the Biden administration’s Buy Clean state partnership, and five, led by California, have already passed Buy Clean laws. Meanwhile at the national level, the IRA has allocated over $4 billion to support low-carbon federal construction; the Biden administration is investing in turning heavy industry green; and bipartisan bills in Congress would support low-carbon cement, concrete, and asphalt procurement for roads and bridges. Government can use its procurement power to promote climate change mitigation in other ways, too. New York’s first-in-the-nation TREES Act (Tropical Rainforest Economic & Environmental Sustainability), which has passed both houses and awaits Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature, would prohibit using public funds on products that aren’t deforestation-free.
From the Buy Clean Principles: “Partnership between states and the federal government is critical to leveraging the collective procurement power of government and ensuring Buy Clean investments in clean manufacturing and climate-resilient infrastructure benefit all Americans.” |
| | VIRUSES AND PYTHONS: CLIMATE CHANGE BRINGING THEM TO YOUR OWN BACKYARD
Mosquitos, poisonous oysters, even pythons: increasing heat, warming winters, and new precipitation patterns are already making the U.S. ecosystem newly hospitable to creatures and pathogens that can sicken or even kill us: Climate change is making life easier for mosquitos and ticks, and some mosquitos in the Northeast are now carrying Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), which brings serious complications, has a 30% mortality rate, and can’t be treated. The disease has been found in several states, and the emergency has put some parts of Massachusetts under curfew. West Nile virus is circulating again, too; infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci was hospitalized this month after a mosquito bite in his Washington, DC backyard. The CDC says extreme heat and drought are spreading Valley fever, a fungal infection dangerous to people with immune deficiencies that’s transmitted via soil, to new areas of the Southwest. Meanwhile, more oysters living in more waters are carrying the bacterium that causes vibriosis; cases have doubled over 10 years. If that’s not enough, you may see pythons in your backyard soon. They’re now firmly established in Florida, and warmer, wetter weather could spread them throughout the continental U.S. within a couple of decades.
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