Energy Affordability Report, 2nd Edition

Energy, and electricity specifically, is essential for success in virtually every aspect of our daily lives. Electricity prices vary greatly by demand sector and generation source across all 50 states. These differences are often linked to the varying policy approaches by states as they balance the needs of consumers with the push to tackle the environmental challenges of today.

Some states rely on free market principles and innovation to limit manmade emissions into the atmosphere, while others use a more heavy-handed approach by implementing of standards, enacting mandates and pricing schemes that benefit specific types of technologies.…

How Does Permitting for Clean Energy Infrastructure Work?

There are many obstacles to the rapid deployment of this infrastructure, but one key obstacle at the center of much debate is the federal permit process. As part of recent negotiations to secure the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Senator Joe Manchin made a “side deal” with Democratic leaders. In this deal, he made his critical support for the IRA contingent on passage of an energy infrastructure permit reform bill, which, among other provisions, aims to speed the processes of federal permitting by setting time limits on environmental reviews, prioritizing certain big-ticket projects, and limiting state powers in …

Let’s Get Organized! Long-Term Market Design For A High-Penetration Grid

This paper describes how to support continued rapid investment in new clean energy resources and retirement of dirty energy resources even as the raw output from variable energy resources gets more and more out of sync with customer demand profiles. It lays out principles for an “electricity markets cascade” that efficiently recruits capital for electric sector investment to deliver on investor expectations of risk and return while meeting customer and policymaker expectations for a least-cost, clean, and reliable grid. It also proposes a new feature, Organized Long-Term Markets, as part of the standard design for restructured wholesale electricity markets.…

Pay for Climate Performance: Linking CEO Compensation to Emissions Reduction

Linking greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets to compensation is one important means by which CEOs can be incentivized to achieve timely and systematic progress on climate. This report is a first step in assessing how effectively companies are currently linking GHG emissions reduction incentives to CEO pay. The percentage of companies integrating ESG goals in compensation is rising rapidly as investors push for climate progress. In 2021, 52% of S&P 500 companies reported including ESG metrics in compensation while 69% of companies report they will be included in their 2022 compensation packages. While this indicates some progress, such generalized linkages …

The Role of Categorical Exclusions in Achieving Net-Zero by 2050

With the urgent challenge of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 in mind, we must prioritize building the clean infrastructure required to achieve that goal as quickly as possible and without sacrificing any environmental standards.

A 2020 CEQ study found that the median time to complete an Environmental Impact Statement across all federal agencies is 3.5 years, while the average completion time is even longer at 4.5 years.¹ Of the 1,276 EISs reviewed by CEQ, half took longer than 3.5 years to complete and one quarter took more than 6 years.

Due to the amount of time, effort, and interagency …

State Leadership in Clean Energy 2022 Awards

The pace of clean energy expansion is accelerating rapidly, thanks in large part to states putting in place goals, standards, and public funding to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve community resilience, and advance energy equity. The 2022 State Leadership in Clean Energy Awards recognize six outstanding programs that are providing the benefits of clean energy expansion to the people in their states, while demonstrating to others how they could establish similar programs.

This marks the 8th time these biennial awards have been given to highlight state programs and policies that have helped change the trajectory of clean energy. Without exception, …

Offshore Wind Can Lower Energy Prices and Beat Out Oil and Gas

A new Center for American Progress analysis found that, per acre, Americans are getting significantly more return on investment from offshore wind energy leasing than they are from oil and gas leasing. This is true across the board, from taxpayer revenue to energy production, consumer energy costs, and carbon emissions. The average acre from an offshore wind lease sale brings in nearly 12,500 percent more revenue for taxpayers than 1 acre of oil while providing enough electricity to drive an electric vehicle almost 65 times farther than a gasoline-powered vehicle.

Offshore wind leases are a massive potential source of public …

Utility Front Groups Spending on Disinformation Advertising

The Energy and Policy Institute launched a new tracking tool that exposes up to $2.4 million in spending on advertising by 14 utility front groups in the last year. 

Utilities stall and limit climate action by establishing, controlling and funding front groups to spread climate misinformation through advertising on social media.

Utility front groups have spent thousands of dollars on disinformation advertising that target people of color and historically marginalized groups, mislead the public on the impacts of gas bans, highlight false concerns regarding the reliability of renewable energy, and promote “renewable natural gas” and hydrogen, despite multiple …

State-Level Planning for Decarbonization: Critical Elements of Effective State Action

Three important institutional issues arise when pursuing subnational climate policy: coordination, authority, and expertise. Coordination among a large number of states (and other jurisdictions) is challenging even when the costs and benefits of acting are confined to the jurisdictions involved. For decarbonization, with costs and benefits shared both among and beyond the acting states, the transaction costs of coordination can be expected to rise rapidly. Such problems exist within states as well, as effective decarbonization policies require actions across traditionally independent lines of agency authority. The difficulty of inducing
cooperation across agency lines of authority presents a substantial friction that …

Electricity Transmission is Key to Unlock the Full Potential of the Inflation Reduction Act

This report assesses the role of electricity transmission in enabling the full emissions reduction potential of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Previously, REPEAT Project estimated that IRA could cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by roughly one billion tons per year in 2030 and reduce cumulative greenhouse gas emissions by 6.3 billion tons of CO2-equivalent over the decade (2023-2032). That outcome depends on more than doubling the historical pace of electricity transmission expansion over the last decade in order to interconnect new renewable resources at sufficient pace and meet growing demand from electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other electrification.

While our …