| | | | |  | | By Lamar Johnson | |  Vice President Kamala Harris shares a light moment with Tanzanian climate entrepreneur Gibson Kiwago at the SNDBX Space, a space for freelancers, entrepreneurs, builders, innovators and creatives, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on March 30. | Ericky Boniphace/Pool Photo via AP | | Vice President Kamala Harris has spent recent weeks as a chief salesperson for President Joe Biden’s climate agenda. She returned from Africa last week boasting clean energy deals with some of the world’s poorest countries, burnishing her leadership credentials on the issue of climate change. Then, Harris jetted off to a factory in Dalton, Ga., on Thursday to announce the largest sale of solar panels ever to a U.S. developer of community solar projects. Since the start of the year, Harris has also moderated panels on climate change, broken ground on electric transmission projects and visited an electric bus assembly line. The vice president’s climate policy focus could grab the attention of a younger generation of voters that a recent Pew Research survey says is more supportive of aggressive climate action. “It’s a savvy political decision to be focusing on an issue that is very important to a very important subset of voters,” presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky told POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Scott Waldman. That political strategy is especially apparent in her overseas trips, Chervinsky said, and could help her appeal to young, climate-focused voters who will be crucial to her future ambitions. The veep’s trip deets: In her trip across the African continent, Harris championed the potential benefits of a clean energy transition and the need for climate resiliency in Zambia, Ghana and Tanzania, Waldman writes. In all, she garnered more than $7 billion in financial commitments from the United States and private sector for climate adaptation, resilience and mitigation. Harris’s visit Thursday to a Georgia factory operated by Hanwha Qcells, one of the world’s biggest solar panel manufacturers, was part of the administration’s “Investing in America” tour, writes POLITICO’s E&E News reporter David Iaconangelo. Earlier this year, Qcells announced a $2.5 billion expansion. Harris, Biden and other administration officials are zigzagging the country to highlight investments tied to the government’s trillion-dollar spending spree on infrastructure and energy projects. Summit Ridge Energy, the largest U.S. community solar developer, has agreed to purchase enough panels for 1.2 gigawatts of capacity — approximately 2.5 million solar panels, or enough power for 140,000 homes — from Qcells.
| | | It's Thursday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Lamar Johnson, filling in for Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to ljohnson@eenews.net.
| | | Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: POLITICO's Alex Guillén takes listeners through EPA's latest rules on toxic pollutants from coal plants and what it means for the Biden administration's broader climate agenda.
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Chunks of ice float on Mendenhall Lake in front of the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska. A new study finds that thousands of years ago, glaciers retreated much faster than researchers thought possible. | Becky Bohrer/AP Photo | Lessons from an ice age
A new study detailed the rate of ice loss during the last recorded ice age. The findings could help scientists assess the ice loss and sea-level rise that may be ahead, writes Chelsea Harvey. Ice is being lost at a much higher rate than scientists previously thought and raises concerns about how fast seas will rise as Arctic ice thaws. Scientists are especially concerned about what the new study means for the shrinking Thwaites Glacier in the Antarctic, also known as the "Doomsday Glacier."
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POLITICO illustration by Claudine Hellmuth/Photos by Freepik, iStock | Checking the books
States are going back and checking the financials of utility companies after winter saw heating and electricity bills spike for consumers. Connecticut is leading the charge, with bills working through its state legislature that would bar utilities from passing along certain costs to consumers, writes Jason Plautz. Connecticut is not alone. Several other states are also looking at the practices of monopoly utilities. New rules for chemical plants
New draft regulations out of EPA would require more than 200 chemical plants to cut emissions of hazardous materials and would eliminate exceptions that allow for increased pollution during plant startups and shutdowns, writes Sean Reilly. EPA estimates that the rules would cut 6,000 tons of toxic air pollution each year and reduce the number of residents at higher risk of cancer by 96 percent. Nord Stream
Sweden is still unsure who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines last year, writes Charlie Cooper. Swedish investigators still point the finger at a state actor as the likeliest culprit but have no concrete answers for who was behind the sabotage. Two of the Nord Stream pipelines, which carry natural gas from Russia to Germany, were blown up in 2022, immediately setting off investigations in multiple countries. To date, Ukraine, Russia and the United States have all denied involvement as various theories emerged.
| | | | GO INSIDE THE 2023 MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE: POLITICO is proud to partner with the Milken Institute to produce a special edition "Global Insider" newsletter featuring exclusive coverage, insider nuggets and unparalleled insights from the 2023 Global Conference, which will convene leaders in health, finance, politics, philanthropy and entertainment from April 30-May 3. This year’s theme, Advancing a Thriving World, will challenge and inspire attendees to lean into building an optimistic coalition capable of tackling the issues and inequities we collectively face. Don’t miss a thing — subscribe today for a front row seat. | | | | | | | | | Pipelines for sale: Two of the nation's largest utility providers, Dominion Energy and National Grid, are selling off parts of their natural gas distribution networks and pipelines in parts of the country, as more places explore gas bans on new buildings. Feeling scorned: After backing California Gov. Gavin Newsom's plan to put a price cap on oil company profits, California climate groups are disappointed with the law's implementation plan and say it's an ineffective way to wind down the state's oil refineries.
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A model of the Orion spacecraft is displayed at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Nov. 16, 2018. | John Raoux/AP Photo | A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. NASA's updated climate strategy includes plans to develop the ability to generate renewable power in space, among other strategies the agency will undertake to better assess, prepare for and mitigate climate change. There is a rising backlog of requests to connect renewable energy sources to the electric grid. Power operators received 700 gigawatts' worth of capacity in new requests in 2022, bringing the total backlog to 2,040 gigawatts. That's more than double the U.S. power production. The U.S. grid watchdog is warning that electric and natural gas need to be brought together and governed by a singular entity to avoid the type of emergencies that led to the 2021 winter blackout in Texas. That would require bringing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corp. together under a unified mission. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.
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