US energy policy

The U.S. has a long record of extracting resources on Native lands and ignoring tribal opposition, but a decision by federal energy regulators to deny permits for seven proposed hydropower projects suggests that tide may be turning. As the U.S. shifts from fossil fuels to clean energy, developers are looking for sites to generate electricity from renewable sources. But in an unexpected move, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied permits on Feb. 15, 2024, for seven proposed hydropower projects in Arizona and New Mexico. The reason: These projects were located within the Navajo Nation and were proposed without first consulting with the tribe. FERC said it was “establishing a new policy that the Commission will not issue preliminary permits for projects proposing to use Tribal lands if the Tribe on whose lands the project is to be located opposes the permit.” We are a cultural anthropologist and a water resource geographer who have studied tensions between...

The Biden administration has frozen pending decisions on permit applications to export liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to countries other than U.S. free trade partners. During this pause, which will last for up to 15 months, the administration has pledged to take a “hard look” at economic, environmental and national security issues associated with exporting LNG. Environmental advocates, who have expressed alarm over the rapid growth of U.S. LNG exports and their effects on Earth’s climate, praised this step. Critics, including energy companies and members of Congress, argue that it threatens European energy security and energy jobs in the U.S. Emily Grubert, associate professor of sustainable energy policy at the University of Notre Dame and a former official at the U.S. Department of Energy, explains why large-scale LNG exports raise complex questions for U.S. policymakers. Is the US a major LNG supplier? The U.S. is now the world’s largest LNG exporter...

As renewable energy production expands across the U.S., the environmental impacts of these new sources are receiving increased attention. In a recent report, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine examined whether and how constructing offshore wind farms in the Nantucket Shoals region, southeast of Massachusetts, could affect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. The Conversation asked marine scientists Erin L. Meyer-Gutbrod, Douglas Nowacek, Eileen E. Hofmann and Josh Kohut, all of whom served on the study committee, to explain the report’s key findings. Why did this study focus on such a specific site? The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior and regulates offshore energy production, asked the National Academies to conduct this study. Regulators wanted to better understand how installing and operating offshore, fixed-bottom wind turbine generators would affect physical oceanographic pr...

Through a year of war in Ukraine, the U.S. and most European nations have worked to help counter Russia, in supporting Ukraine both with armaments and in world energy markets. Russia was Europe’s main energy supplier when it invaded Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin threatened to leave Europeans to freeze “like a wolf’s tail” – a reference to a famous Russian fairy tale – if they imposed sanctions on his country. But thanks to a combination of preparation and luck, Europe has avoided blackouts and power cutoffs. Instead, less wealthy nations like Pakistan and India have contended with electricity outages on the back of unaffordably high global natural gas prices. As a global energy policy analyst, I see this as the latest evidence that less wealthy nations often suffer the most from globalized oil and gas crises. I believe more volatility is possible. Russia has said that it will cut its crude oil production starting on March 1, 2023, by...