External Affairs at @APVenturesOrg 🇺🇸 MBA candidate @Georgetown 🖊 Views expressed here are my own.
Washington, DC
Joined January 2021
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Greg Nasif retweeted
Happy sports equinox day! Today is the only day this year that you can (try to) watch an NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL and WNBA game at the exact same time, or as I call it: The Sickos Challenge.
Bostonians
Approximately 5,000 gallons of molasses spilled into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor after a storage tank at Westway Feed Products overflowed, according to a Maryland Department of the Environment inspection.
Inspectors visited the facility at 1075 Hull Street on Oct. 17 after receiving two complaints about the release. The site manager reported that a chemical reaction began after midnight, causing the tank to overflow around 2 a.m.
The inspection found extremely hot, pressurized molasses still spilling from the top of the 1-million-gallon tank. The facility’s manager estimated that approximately 15,000 gallons left the tank, though Miller Environmental’s vice president of operations estimated that about 5,000 gallons reached the harbor.
Crews used sand berms, water booms and vacuum trucks to contain and remove the spill. The overflow was stopped around 5 p.m., and no dead fish or immediate harm to aquatic life was reported during the inspection.
State inspectors found Westway in violation of environmental laws for allowing molasses waste to enter the water. The company was ordered to stop unauthorized discharges and use approved methods to clean up the affected ground and water. Officials warned that continued violations could result in daily penalties.
The facility is located less than 200 feet from the Patapsco River, which supports marine life, shellfish harvesting and recreation. The state has closed its complaint cases following the inspection.
Greg Nasif retweeted
But that's what the Certainty Title is for!
Goodwill is ideal and helpful for negotiation, but the certainty provisions themselves are why Democrats don’t need to trust Trump.
Here's how BAAJA enforceably stops future delay, revocations, and industry-wide abuse: 🧵👇
1. BAAJA sets timelines for agencies to take action on federal permits and authorizations.
- Why it's enforceable: (A) If the agency misses the deadline, mandatory interagency coordination starts and penalties kick in for permitting officials and agency leads. (B) project sponsors can sue and get courts to compel action on specific timelines (much faster than current law)
2. BAAJA disallows actions against issued permits — the only exceptions are narrow, specific circumstances (like demonstrated threats to national security or imminent harm)
- Why it's enforceable: If agencies issue illegal stop-work orders, sponsors can sue and courts must grant monetary damages (25-50% of money put into the project), overturn the illegal action, and *forbid* future gov action against the project unless the agency petitions the same judge
3. BAAJA bans Trump-style permitting blockades against classes of energy projects by making “disparate treatment” of projects in the federal permitting process illegal
- Why it's enforceable: Trump-level abuse (continued or new abuse) would allow a host of developers to sue and recover enormous monetary damages, which courts can toggle upward based on the level of abuse (50% of construction costs is the baseline, 100% is the ceiling). To keep the damages, developers are *required* to build the project they proposed
- The Trump admin (any future admins) would have a strong incentive to avoid disparate treatment because (1) they don't want to hand out $ billions to developers they dislike, and (2) getting the monetary damages *ensures* the proposed project they tried to block will get built (because the Dev will want to keep the damages)
We'll soon find out how gullible some people are. I predicted this move weeks ago - a hint of a partial hostage release in Trump's crazy war on clean energy involving the DOD's national security hold on a few onshore wind projects. Dig deeper. These holds were always frivolous. Nothing prevents Trump from finding other ways, later, to block or delay these projects. And there's nothing to end the obstruction/delay of hundreds of other clean energy projects, including the active attacks on offshore wind as recently as this week. A serious permitting deal must start with an end to the war on clean energy, and this cheap window dressing doesn't even come close to cutting it.
Greg Nasif retweeted
Multiple pieces of legislation either led by progressives or endorsed by the CPC would require data centers to pay for grid upgrades.
BAAJA would require them to pay for upgrades *plus* their use of the existing grid.
The bill is not perfect, but it's not soft on data centers.
Greg Nasif retweeted
Bingo. I’d only add that litigation against projects used to be “good guys against bad guys,” but now is often fossil fuel front groups litigating to delay low-cost clean energy competition. 90% of new power is clean; we know what the market wants.
vox.com/future-perfect/50506…
Scoreboard @capitalweather
It's DC's last day with an average high of 80 until May! capitalweather.com/its-dcs-l…
Greg Nasif retweeted
New England is a great example of why energy regulation via permitting-friction is structurally bad for clean energy:
- Fossil fuels can be transported several ways, making them flexible — if a pipeline gets blocked fossil can move on ships or trains.
- Clean electricity HAS to move on transmission lines that connect generation in specific locations to market.
- Permitting and other frictional costs are bad for building all complex infrastructure, BUT that's much worse for clean energy than for fossil.
Case in point: New England
- Over the last 10 years several pipelines to bring natural gas into New England were blocked.
- At the same time major transmission projects to bring hydro power from Canada to New England was also blocked/delayed.
- What happened when both pipelines and transmission lines were constrained? We just shipped more expensive natural gas to New England on tankers because fossil is more flexible under frictional costs
- Ironically New England often ends up using dirtier foreign LNG because of the Jones Act
xitter.cf/mattyglesias/status/21…
Blocking gas infrastructure in New England hasn’t caused renewables to magically sprout, it just means that electricity is expensive to “electrify everything” is unattractive.
We need a better strategy.
slowboring.com/p/the-permitt…
Greg Nasif retweeted
Remember those giant binders that blocked congestion pricing? BAAJA fixes that
- The bill would force agencies to finalize environmental assessments in one year.
- If the highway department dragged its feet like it did under Trump 1.0 NYC could sue them and get a court to compel action.
- The review would also be shorter: BAAJA gets rid of unnecessary alternatives analysis and the need for litigation proofing.
- If New Jersey (or anybody else) sued the NEPA review they wouldn't be able to delay or block congestion pricing.
- DOT would be barred from revoking any approval for congestion pricing & NYC could take legal action if they tried
xitter.cf/AidanRMackenzie/status…
Greg Nasif retweeted
"Even [Boston Mayor] Wu's own consultants found that increasing the amount of inclusionary zoning would decrease the amount of housing built. But she did it anyway."
Greg Nasif retweeted
🚨 WE HAVE A PERMITTING DEAL🚨
And it is easily the best permitting bill we've ever gotten!
- The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act is HUGE (400+ pages) and both sides got a LOT.
- The bill is much bigger and better than either Manchin post-IRA in 2022 or Manchin-Barrasso in 2024.
Once I finish reading the text I'll publish an explainer. For now, here are a few high level takeaways.
1. Transmission: The bill is absolutely HUGE for transmission, going further than Manchin-Barrasso. Includes: interregional transmission, limited federal backstop authority, interconnection queue reforms, directives for advanced grid-enhancing tech, and oversight of utilities. It's absolutely AMAZING all of this got in.
2. NEPA: The bill has BIG changes to NEPA, including fixes for judicial review that underpins the law's costs. Still reading but this is even better than I expected!
3. Certainty: The bill includes strong provisions to push back on misuse of permitting, like we're seeing with the admin's abuses against offshore wind.
4. Historic Preservation: The bill includes changes to the NHPA 106 process, including changes to judicial review that will help right-size the process.
5. Clean Water: The bill fixes problems with section 401 by adding new requirements for states and makes section 404 nationwide permits easier to comply with.
6. Geothermal: The bill includes big wins for geothermal, including parity with oil and gas catexs.
7. Mining: The bill fixes the "Rosemont decision"
8. Endangered Species: The bill creates a new path for states to take on endangered species consultation.
9. Hydro: Fixes for certain hydroelectric projects
10. Ratepayer protection: The bill adds protections for ratepayers from added data centers. Looks to be stronger than the House passed bill by quite a bit.
Greg Nasif retweeted
Huge kudos to the 4 senators and the White House for completing negotiations on energy permitting reform.
The bill has been so difficult because the 4 senators came with very different priorities and constituencies.
Capito (R-WV): pipelines and permitting certainty
Whitehouse (D-RI): reducing emissions
Lee (R-UT): removing regulatory barriers and protecting states' rights
Heinrich (D-NM): protecting lands; transmission and renewables
They came to the table because the current system fails on all four sets of priorities. But permitting reform is not zero sum. This deal advances all of them. It's good for America and the American people.
