GLOBALVARS
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1. Virginia Beach, Virginia – The right-wing interest group lawsuit against Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind is now dead, concluding one of the wackier tales of the Trump 2.0 energy era.
- In case you may have forgotten, conservative activists – including climate denial organization the Heartland Institute – sued the federal government in 2024 to strike down the permits for the Virginia offshore wind project arguing that it didn’t take into account impacts on North Atlantic right whales. The lawsuit played into misinformed public fears that offshore wind was killing lots of endangered whales.
- After Trump re-entered office last year, there were glimmers this lawsuit would become a sue-and-settle case. But the feds ultimately let that idea go amidst heavy lobbying. In May, the presiding judge ruled against the conservatives and last week their lawyers dismissed the appeal.
- This outcome removes one of the more ridiculous hypotheticals possible here – that Trump would forcibly deconstruct Coastal Virginia. The project is nearing completion and began delivering power to the coastline in March. I’d consider this one as good as done.
2. Box Elder County, Utah – Call it the Box Elder County massacre.
- On Tuesday, voters in Kevin O’Leary’s data center development jurisdiction soundly rejected incumbent candidates in an election result that ousted two sitting commissioners who voted for the Shark Tank judge’s controversial hyperscale proposal. They also ousted the county sheriff.
- Elsewhere in the state Utahns took out state Senate President Stuart Adams, which local political pundits attributed to his role chairing the state entity involved in the O’Leary project known as Stratos.
- It’s unclear how these election results will impact the Stratos project. At the same time, voters usually remember if a clear statement like this is ignored. Box Elder County only two weeks ago issued a 180-day moratorium, but that didn’t impact Stratos.
- As an aside: on Thursday, O’Leary posted to social media recanting a claim he’d made for months about Chinese entities funding Utah-based opponents of his project, stating he has “no evidence” any of the people or groups he’d previously named “are funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party.” Maybe somebody was afraid of a defamation threat? Who’s to say.
3. Davidson County, Tennessee – We have the latest updates in the Nashville Zoo data center drama and they’re a doozy and a half.
- Nashville mayor Freddie O’Connell claimed Thursday that developer DC Blox failed to meet with the owner of the Nashville Zoo despite instructions to do so before advancing their project next to the site. This led the zoo to learn about the project from media reporting – talk about a community engagement failure!
- The Nashville city council, which is quickly becoming quite hostile to the data center will meet after the July 4th holiday to consider whether to enact a comprehensive zoning measure and a temporary moratorium on data center development. Nashville’s metro council sent both proposals to the city council earlier this week. A moratorium would block the DC Blox project. Company leaders claim they’ll move forward as planned because they do have permits.
- Conversations with nearby landowners are crucial for community engagement.
4. Clark County, Ohio – Yet another utility-scale solar farm is in the Ohio state permitting graveyard.
- The Ohio Power Siting Board rejected Invenergy’s Sloopy Solar project, pointing to “unanimous” opposition from municipal and county officials at and surrounding the project site. I predicted this would happen back in January. This would’ve been the county’s first utility-scale solar project.
- The board also gave permission for Hillclimber Solar to withdraw its proposal to build a contested solar farm in Knox County, where anti-solar sentiments run so hot they determine who runs the county commission. So that makes two more down.
