WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Tuesday, readers! In today’s newsletter, we’re taking a closer look at how lawmakers are thinking about a potential bipartisan permitting bill 🏛️. Callie spoke with Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who expressed confidence that the Senate could ultimately reach a bipartisan agreement.
In other news, nearly 2,000 planned power projects that were slated to come online over the next five years have been scrapped ⚡🔋. The cancellations come amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on renewable energy – we’ve got all the details below.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner energy and environment writers Callie Patteson (@CalliePatteson) and Maydeen Merino (@MaydeenMerino). Email cpatteson@washingtonexaminer dot com or mmerino@washingtonexaminer dot com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
SENIOR SENATE DEMOCRAT OPTIMISTIC ON BIPARTISAN PERMITTING BILL: As the House rushes to pass several permitting reform bills before the holidays, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse remains confident the Senate will also be able to come to a bipartisan agreement.
Whitehouse told Callie this morning that the party’s focus in the upper chamber is a “strong, bipartisan bill,” and that they’ve received signals from Majority Leader John Thune that he also wants to see a bipartisan package pass through the Senate.
The Rhode Island Democrat said he has met personally with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the issue, focusing on how he – as the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works committee – can help move discussions along.
“I think there’s a lot of potential in the Senate,” Whitehouse said, insisting that any meaningful reform will come from the Senate, rather than the lower chamber.
“The House is going to do what the House is going to do, but I think the plan is that the bill will be put together here and then sent over to the House on a package that requires some attention to it, which I think is a good strategy,” he said.
Like his Democratic colleagues in the House, Whitehouse indicated that he is worried about the Trump administration continuing to discriminate against renewable energy projects, even if legislation includes technology-neutral language.
“As I’ve said over and over again, we can do a big bipartisan bill, but if we can’t get either a behavior or a personnel change out of the Trump administration, there’s no point doing a big bipartisan bill and feeding it into the partisan wood chipper of the Trump administration,” he said.
PLUG PULLED ON HUNDREDS OF POWER PROJECTS THIS YEAR: Nearly 2,000 new power projects that were set to be built and connected to the grid over the next five years were scrapped by developers this year after facing increased pressure from the Trump administration’s crackdown on renewable energy, pushback from local communities, and growing costs to connect to the U.S. grid.
The details: A report published by energy transition tracker Cleanview this morning found that approximately 1,891 power projects were canceled this year, with a combined generation capacity of 266 gigawatts.
The green energy industry was hit the hardest, with wind, solar, and battery storage projects making up 93% of those scrapped. Over 86 gigawatts worth of solar generation capacity was canceled, around 79 gigawatts of battery storage capacity was scrapped, and around 54 gigawatts worth of wind projects were also canceled.
These recent cuts were not just limited to renewable energy projects, as Cleanview found that more than 4 gigawatts of gas power projects were slashed this year.
Michael Thomas, founder of Cleanview, told Callie that “virtually all” of these projects would have been built within the next five years. The cancellations come as the Trump administration has said at least 100 gigawatts of energy needs to be added to the grid – however, the administration has called for this to come from firm, baseload power like fossil fuels.
The why: Cleanview’s report attributed the cancellations to five key factors.
- The Trump administration’s crackdown on renewables
- Growing opposition from local communities
- Falling revenues and rising developer costs for battery storage projects
- High interconnection costs
- Grid operators cleaning up interconnection queues to prioritize faster projects
Read more from Callie here.
BUT – SOLAR CAPACITY STILL SOARING: While hundreds of projects were canceled, the U.S. solar industry still saw record growth in the third quarter, according to data released by the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenzie today.
The details: In its solar market insight report, SEIA revealed that roughly 11.7 gigawatts of direct current capacity from solar projects were installed during the third quarter of this year, a 49% increase from the second quarter. The trade group estimated that solar accounted for 58% of all new electricity generating capacity added to the U.S. in the third quarter, though that percentage jumps to 85% when combined with storage capacity.
The domestic solar energy supply chain is also growing, as the U.S. added roughly 4.6 gigawatts of solar module manufacturing capacity in the quarter, bringing the total to around 60.1 gigawatts, SEIA estimated. With the opening of a new wafer manufacturing facility in Corning, Michigan, the trade group said, the U.S. is now able to produce every major component of the solar module supply chain – though production levels still remain far below demand.
While utility-scale and commercial solar installations increased during the third quarter, residential and community solar segments both declined. SEIA blamed part of these dips on “equipment constraints.”
Key quote: “We expect 250 gigawatts of solar to be installed from 2025 – 2030. But the US solar industry has more potential,” Michelle Davis, head of solar research at Wood Mackenzie, said in a statement. “Wood Mackenzie is tracking substantial increases in power demand across the nation. The solar industry would be well positioned to meet more of this new demand if existing constraints were alleviated, presenting upside to our forecast.”
EPA SCRUBS REFERENCES OF HUMAN-CAUSED CLIMATE CHANGE FROM WEB: The Environmental Protection Agency has removed references to humans’ contribution to global warming from some of its websites, according to a review conducted by E&E News.
An archived version of a webpage saved from October shows that the agency previously described both human and natural causes of climate change, pointing to increased greenhouse gas emissions and reflectivity or absorption of the sun’s energy through things like buildings and pavement.
As of Tuesday, that same web page now only lists natural causes of climate change, such as changes in the Earth’s orbit and rotation, variations in the sun’s energy output, changes in the Earth’s reflectivity, volcanic activity, and changes in naturally occurring carbon dioxide concentrations.
The EPA has also completely removed two webpages titled “Climate Change Indicators” and “Climate Change Impacts and Analysis.”
What the administration is saying: The agency did not tell E&E News when these changes were made. Instead, the agency reiterated the Trump administration’s focus on rolling back past climate initiatives.
“Unlike the previous administration, the Trump EPA is focused on protecting human health and the environment while Powering the Great American Comeback, not left-wing political agendas,” the agency told the outlet “As such, this agency no longer takes marching orders from the climate cult.”
CALIFORNIA’S WILDFIRE ‘ZONE ZERO’ RULES DELAYED UNTIL NEXT YEAR: The California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection yesterday said officials would wait until March 2026 to continue to work on regulations aimed at protecting homes from wildfires, Bloomberg reports.
The regulation at issue is California’s “Zone Zero” rule. The regulation would require homes in wildfire-prone areas to have a five-foot buffer cleared of flammable materials, such as mulch, dead plants, and firewood.
However, the regulation remains in limbo, as nearly 2 million houses are in high wildfire-risk areas. The regulation was enacted in 2020, with a deadline of January 2023. Yet, wildfire officials and insurance executives pushed for a strict interpretation of the law, while some residents oppose removing lush landscaping.
Following the most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles in January, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom called on the board to finalize the regulation by Dec. 31. The board drafted a rule in March but has since gone back and forth on which plants are acceptable in the areas surrounding a home.
MILITARY TO DEVELOP SMALL CRITICAL MINERAL REFINERIES: The U.S. military said it plans to develop several small critical mineral refineries to make weaponry like bullets and armor.
Reuters reported that the Army will work to develop refineries alongside the Idaho National Laboratory and antimony and gold miner Perpetua Resources. The mineral the military plans to first refine is antimony, which is used in various military applications, such as night vision goggles, explosive formulations, flares, nuclear weapons production, and infrared sensors.
The plan is to reduce the military’s reliance on commercial refineries and to allow access to a consistent supply of minerals. The military may plan to develop refineries of other minerals like tungsten, rare earths, and boron.
Mark Mezger, a munitions procurement adviser for the U.S. Army, told Reuters, “We need to come up with a way to make our own (critical minerals) domestically that we can actually monitor and control within our borders.”
The Army has spent $30 million developing the refinery program over several years. Reuters said the refinery will be able to produce 7 to 10 metric tons annually of antimony known as trisulfide.
Trisulfide is used to make primers, the explosive cap at a bullet’s base. The Idaho National Laboratory will test the facility and, if it passes, will operate it for the Army and Perpetua.
“Without antimony trisulfide, you can’t make primers. And without primers, you can’t make bullets. And an army without bullets is just a parade,” Mezger said.
2025 ON COURSE TO BE THE SECOND HOTTEST YEAR: The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a new report that 2025 is on track to be the second hottest year on record, tied with 2023.
November 2025 was the third-warmest globally, with Northern Canada and the Arctic Ocean witnessing notably higher-than-average temperatures.
The group said this year will likely mark a three-year period where the average global temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial period.
“For November, global temperatures were 1.54°C above pre-industrial levels, and the three-year average for 2023–2025 is on track to exceed 1.5°C for the first time,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate for the group.
“These milestones are not abstract – they reflect the accelerating pace of climate change and the only way to mitigate future rising temperatures is to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Burgess added.
The data comes just a month after delegates from around the world met in Brazil for the United Nations climate conference, also known as COP30. Delegates aim to keep global warming from exceeding 1.5°C, but countries were unable to agree on a clear commitment to shift away from fossil fuels.
ICYMI – FEDERAL JUDGE DECLARES TRUMP PAUSE ON WIND ENERGY PROJECTS ILLEGAL: The wind energy industry was handed a major win yesterday afternoon, when a district judge in Massachusetts ruled that Trump’s executive order halting permits for onshore and offshore wind projects was unlawful.
The details: U.S. District Judge Patti Saris issued her ruling late yesterday, vacating the president’s Day One executive order. The relief had been sought by more than a dozen states, Washington, D.C., and Alliance for Clean Energy New York.
“After review of the parties’ submissions and a hearing, the Court concludes that the Wind Order constitutes a final agency action that is arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law,” the ruling read.
Trump’s executive order, issued in January, paused all approvals and permits for onshore and offshore wind projects. The moratorium was intended for a multiagency assessment to take place, reviewing existing wind leasing and permitting practices.
However, Saris ruled yesterday that the Trump administration failed to provide adequate justification for the moratorium on wind energy permits, and inaccurately framed the pause as temporary as the administration to provide a timeline for its assessment.
Plus, the judge said the plaintiffs proved the executive order was causing the industry “ongoing or imminent injuries,” including reduced or deferred tax revenue or returns related to the state’s investments in wind energy developments, as well as a delay in promised energy generated by the held-up projects.
Read more from Callie here.
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