Climate Movement Mondays: public utility commissions (PUCs)

July 22, 2024 / Tracy Abell / 12 Comments

Welcome back to another Movement Monday. I hadn’t planned on posting anything today (kinda low energy as I hunker down inside my home to avoid the bad air from the wildfires in Canada), but then came across a very cool resource on the Earthjustice site.

Here’s the page where you can access all the info about Public Utility Commissions (PUCs), but I’ll highlight a bit of the introduction:

In a conference room somewhere in your state, a small, largely unseen group of people is casting votes that could make or break the clean energy transition.

You’ve probably never heard their names, and you might not even know the name of the agency they’re running: the state public utility commission (PUC). Fossil fuel interests would love to keep it that way.

PUCs regulate utilities. (In some states, they have other names, like public service commissions, or PSCs.) They determine the cost of your gas and electricity bills and where your power comes from, whether it’s fossil fuels, hydroelectricity, or renewables like wind and solar.

States created PUCs to oversee utility monopolies because we all need power to live. In many ways, PUCs operate like courts. When a utility wants to increase rates, build a methane gas power plant or pipeline, prop up an aging coal plant, or build new energy infrastructure, the proposal typically comes before the PUC for a hearing.

I invite you to visit the page where you can learn more about PUCs and how they operate (click on the plus signs to expand explanations). But even more cool, there’s a pull-down menu of each state (The Public v. the Power Companies) that shows recent PUC activities and offers links to state organizations that are fighting for a transition to renewable energies so that you can check them out and see if you’d like to join their efforts.

Also on the main page is a link that takes you to the Earthjustice library of PUC cases, offering updates such as this uplifting story from Philadelphia: How This Faith Group Took on a Fight for Climate Justice and Stopped Energy Bills From Skyrocketing. I don’t know about you, but I get a real boost learning about people and communities coming together like that!

Here’s a map I found (via ElectricityRates.com) that illustrates most PUCs are appointed, but there are states that elect their commissioners:

I’d love to hear if you learned anything new about the PUC in your state, so please share in the comments. Here’s hoping your air is healthy and that ours here in Colorado will soon be cleaner. Until next time, solidarity! ✊🏽

Climate Movement Monday: FEMA, Puerto Rico, and renewable energy

May 20, 2024May 20, 2024 / Tracy Abell / 10 Comments

Welcome back to Movement Mondays in which we discuss climate-related issues. Typically, I highlight a frontline community (people/place that’s bearing the worst effects of climate change) and then offer a quick action you can take on their behalf. Today I won’t ask you to take action and am, instead, merely offering info that triggered an aha moment when I read it. I’m all about sharing the aha wealth! 🙂

I considered myself fairly well-versed in the many ways that climate change is connected to various aspects of our lives. For instance, our physical and mental health, infrastructure, insurance premiums, poverty, racism, food, supply chains, etc. There’s really no escaping climate change’s many tentacles . But for all that awareness, I somehow never considered that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) might play a major role in the continuation and acceleration of the climate crisis. I mean, FEMA’s job is to help people in the aftermath of disasters, so why would that agency take actions that ensure more climate-related disasters? Well, Center for Biological Diversity and a slew of other groups (energy justice , consumer and environmental) are suing FEMA for doing that very thing. From their May 2 press release:

Energy justice, consumer and environmental groups sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development today for withholding public records and failing to outline plans to use resilient renewable energy to rebuild communities ravaged by the climate emergency.

The groups also formally petitioned the agencies to craft new regulations to redirect taxpayer dollars these agencies are spending to prop up fossil fuels — the primary driver of human-caused climate change — toward distributed renewable energy recovery and mitigation projects. FEMA spent more than $14 billion last year in states across the country pummeled by floods, fires, hurricanes and other weather-related disasters made worse by burning oil, gas and coal.

The press release goes on to cite a 2018 congressional requirement that demands a definition of “resiliency” that could determine how much FEMA funding goes to environmental justice communities. When I read that, I realized how often “resilient” is thrown around (including by my own city’s “sustainability plan”) and how that term has become nearly meaningless in climate discourse. Because I’ve never asked my city to definite “resiliency,” I don’t even know if they have parameters or whether it’s just a feel-good word used to lull us into a false sense that something’s being done. My bet is on the latter.

I highly recommend reading the entire press release that also includes this reference to the Department of Housing and Urban Development: HUD also spends billions annually on public and assisted housing, further propping up the fossil-fuel economy, without significant effort to encourage the use of renewable energy.

I’m embarrassed to say I never thought about HUD being a willing accomplice in the climate crisis, either.

The press release ends with this: The proposed rules would redirect these funds, requiring that whenever the agencies provide energy funding, they prioritize efficiency and other demand reductions, zero-carbon technologies like rooftop solar and storage, and electric options for home heating and cooking rather than fossil gas.

After reading the press release, I went in search of more info and came across this excellent analysis of the lawsuit that highlights the disaster response in Puerto Rico: Lawsuit Challenges FEMA Funding to Rebuild Puerto Rico’s Fossil Fuel-Reliant Power Grid. The summary paragraph reads: Conservation and community groups filed a lawsuit today against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over their plans to rebuild Puerto Rico’s centralized power grid from the return to the status quo of fossil fuels instead of investing in the distributed renewable energy that Puerto Ricans need.

Catano, Puerto Rico, on Sept. 21, 2017. Hector Retamal / AFP – Getty Images file

The entirety of Puerto Rico is a frontline community in the climate crisis! The United States colonized Puerto Rico in 1898, exploiting the people and land ever since. The analysis includes this: Five years after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, causing thousands of deaths and decimating the archipelago’s already fragile electrical grid, FEMA is planning to finally spend funds intended to alleviate the consequences of natural disasters in making permanent repairs to the network. However, the agency plans to invest at least $12 billion in projects that lock Puerto Ricans into dependence on fossil fuels. The FEMA project conflicts with the Puerto Rico Law of 2019 that establishes the goal of basing 100% of energy production on renewable sources by 2050 and Puerto Rico’s energy plan based on the production and storage of solar energy.

$12 billion is a HUGE investment in fossil fuels and, frankly, it’s grotesque that those billions would be used to prop up the very industry that caused Hurricane Maria. Why would FEMA do that, especially when Puerto Rico could generate enough renewable energy for its own needs? Well, perhaps it has something to do with this (from that same analysis): In 2021, Luma Energy, a private American-Canadian corporation, assumed control of the archipelago’s public distribution system. LUMA will be a major recipient of FEMA disaster recovery and mitigation funds. In January, Genera PR, a subsidiary of US liquefied natural gas company New Fortress Energy, was awarded a contract to take over power generation in Puerto Rico.

I haven’t done the research on this, but it’s fairly easy to surmise that politicians receive money from fossil fuel lobbyists and then pressure these agencies to grant funds to fossil fuel companies. Again, completely grotesque and also another example of how our government’s policies are solely driven by special interests.

My intention in posting all this is not to (further) demoralize anyone, but to shine light on what’s happening. We’re better positioned to call B.S. and fight back when we understand the intricacies of exploitation.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for being here with me. Solidarity with you, Puerto Rico, and frontline communities around the globe! ✊🏽

Climate Movement Monday: clean energy for schools

October 2, 2023October 2, 2023 / Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

Welcome back to Climate Movement Mondays! I hope you’re staying safe and healthy during these difficult days of climate chaos. It was rough seeing those photos and videos of flooding in New York, knowing this is our new reality. Fortunately, we have the technology to turn this ship around and we have people organizing to enact change in their communities. Today I want to bring attention to the nationwide efforts to “Create resilient schools with electrified buildings and transportation powered by clean energy” via an organization I just learned about: Generation180. “We are supporting K-12 schools to electrify their buildings and vehicles, power them with clean energy, and create energy resilient hubs for their communities.”

Image from Generation180

Their website is vast and there are many resources available. I’d like to highlight a few things I found:

The application window to apply for the EPA Clean School Bus Rebate opened on September 28th and schools can apply through January 31, 2024. You can access all related info, resources, and application documents HERE. If, like me, you no longer have children in school or never had children in school, you might feel removed from this issue. But, schools are a great place to push for climate/pollution action and I’m going to contact my local school district to make sure they have the links and info to apply for the EPA Clean School Bus Rebate.
The group’s Alliance for Electric School Buses can be found HERE. Scroll down on that page to find a U.S. map showing states with active campaigns. A group called Moms Clean Air Force seems particularly active and here’s a snippet from their 9.28.23 press release re the EPA’s announced round of $500 million for the Clean School Bus Rebates: “Every day, millions of children across America ride school buses. Nearly all of the 500,000 buses in our nation’s school bus fleet are diesel-powered, spewing harmful tailpipe pollution into the air with every ride to school. But thanks to important investments like the Clean School Bus Program, we’re making critical progress. More and more school buses are becoming cleaner as polluting diesel vehicles are replaced by safer zero-emission buses.” It’s also pointed out that not only do children suffer the ill-effects of diesel vehicles, but also the drivers!
The Clean Energy Help Desk for Schools has tons of info including state resources, financing info, and success stories. That and more can be found HERE.
A webcast series that helps schools access federal funding can be found HERE.
Here’s a fun thing to do: scroll down to look at a map showing U.S. schools with solar. (Note: Colorado, which loves to tout its high number of sunshine-days, has only 129 schools with solar installations, while my home state of Wisconsin has 241 solar-powered schools! But the Colorado middle school my sons attended years ago now has solar. Yay!)

Thank you for reading and I hope you’ll pass along these resources to families with school-age children. We need to utilize the positive aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act and that means accessing federal funding to clean up our communities and make them more resilient to the effects of climate change. Until next time, stay safe. Solidarity! ✊🏽