Power Technology – January 26
The coronavirus pandemic and resulting global economic slowdown curtailed some energy projects in 2020, but corporations worldwide still bought a record 23.7 GW of clean power through long-term purchase agreements, according to a report published on January 26 by BloombergNEF. The 2020 record for corporate clean energy power purchase agreements (PPAs) topped the 20.1-GW level of 2019, and was nearly 75% higher than the 13.6 GW bought in 2018. The U.S. once again was the largest market for corporate power purchases, though the 11.9 GW of PPAs announced in 2020 was down from 14.1 GW in 2019, the first year-over-year decline since 2016. The report comes one day after a group of 36 U.S. companies representing the nation’s largest buyers of renewable energy released a joint statement asking the federal government to make the transition to a zero-carbon power generation sector a national priority. The companies include General Motors, Target, Walmart, Am
U.S. Sen. Shelley Capito is right.
“I’ve seen this playbook before, so we’re back to the future,” she said last month as she spoke on the Senate floor about President Joe Biden’s flurry of executive orders to start his term.
She was most critical of course of the orders she believes will negatively affect West Virginians. Capito, R-W.Va., called them “an economic, energy and national security disaster.”
Among the changes Biden hopes to make with his orders are to make the climate crisis a focus of foreign policy and national security, creating a White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy and task force, and protecting 30 percent of federal land and water by the end of the decade. He has also issued orders revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit and rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement.
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A Look at President Biden’s Executive Order on Climate Change
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After 8 days in office, President Biden published 21 EOs in the
Federal Register compared with Trump’s 6 EOs signed during the same time frame. Biden’s number is growing, as new EOs were announced on January 27, 2021, but not yet published in the
Federal Register. Here are some of the key points in the recent climate change EO:
Center the Climate Crisis in U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security Considerations
This section states that climate considerations will be central to all foreign policy and national security matters; affirms the administration’s commitment to achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement; establishes that Biden will host a Leader’s Climate Summit on Earth Day, April 22, 2021; begins the process of developing the United States’ emissions reductions target; and instructs “the Director of National Intelligence to prepare a National Intel
President Joe Biden
President Biden has wasted no time in turning his campaign promise to take on the climate challenge into action. He issued a series of consequential executive orders in the first week of his presidency, punctuated by declaring one of the first days of his administration “Climate Day” at the White House. Among the executive orders the new president signed are rejoining the Paris Global Climate Agreement and scheduling an Earth Day Summit of world leaders to reassert American leadership, affirming our steadfast commitment to sufficiently curbing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst consequences of global warming; establishing a Civilian Climate Corps; cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline; establishing a White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy; ordering a stop to new oil and gas leases on public lands and offshore waters; and leveraging the purchasing power of the federal government by requiring federal agencies to purchase electric cars and
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President Biden is filling out his administration with some of the most diverse, progressive appointees in history. That is no accident.
Over two years before the 2020 election, progressives started organizing to make sure we were ready to influence this process, no matter who became the Democratic nominee. This effort was driven in part by Senator Elizabeth Warren’s mantra that “personnel is policy” and the growing recognition that the right personnel will have the authority to lower prescription drug prices, modify or forgive student loans, funnel billions of dollars into green energy, and use other powers vested in the executive branch to get things done for the American p