By Frank Jossi for Energy News Network.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Joyce Foundation-Public News Service Collaboration

A coalition of labor and environmental groups is putting its support behind perennial Minnesota legislation meant to lift a barrier to building power lines in the rights-of-way of federal highways in the state.

NextGen Highways is a national collaboration that promotes co-location of utility infrastructure in existing highway corridors as a way to accelerate expansion of the electric grid.

The concept has widespread public support, according to the group's polling, but it also faces various legal, financial, and technical obstacles across the country.

"What we're trying to do in Minnesota - and in states across the country - is to identify barriers and work with our coalition partners to develop strategies to overcome those barriers," said Randy Satterfield, executive director of NextGen Highways.

One example in Minnesota is a state law requiring the Minnesota Department of Transportation to pay utilities if they are forced to move any assets, such as poles or towers, in federal highway rights-of-way. A pair of bills (House Bill 3900, Senate Bill 3949) would shift those costs to utilities instead, making it consistent with existing rules for state highway corridors.

Without that change, the state won't allow transmission projects to be built in its portion of federal highway rights-of-way. State transportation officials have proposed such legislation multiple times since 2012, but the bills have never succeeded amid opposition from utilities.

Many transmission projects already follow highway corridors, Satterfield said. They include several announced last year by MISO, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. Three of those projects cover portions of Minnesota and follow highways for parts of their routes.

Not all transmission lines that share routes with highways are located within the public right-of-way. Some are built on adjacent private property instead, which still requires negotiations with hundreds of individual owners. When developers have the option of placing towers or burying lines within the public right-of-way, it can significantly streamline a project.

With clean energy's escalating growth trajectory, more solar and wind developers will request permission to build projects and power lines in rural communities, Satterfield predicted.

"I think we owe it to (communities) to at least consider utilizing existing linear infrastructure, like highways and interstates, for the transmission infrastructure," he said.

'This is a kind of low-hanging fruit'

Still, transmission developers wanting to take these routes often run into obstacles. Many state departments of transportation still recall a federal restriction, since rescinded, that did not allow transmission in federal highway rights-of-way, he said. Other states have no culture of allowing highway rights-of-way to co-locate with transmission.

NextGen Highways formed to advocate for transmission in highway corridors and to encourage states to remove any barriers to that goal. Minnesota is the first state where it has launched a state coalition to advance the concept.

"Transmission congestion is the biggest hurdle that we have to overcome to reach our 100% energy goals and to get more renewables and other forms of energy on the grid," said George Damian, government affairs director for Clean Energy Economy Minnesota, a nonprofit that is part of the coalition. "This is a kind of a low-hanging fruit. These rights-of-way owned by the state can be utilized for transmission."

Utilities, lawmakers and stakeholders continue to discuss the legislation. Theo Keith, Xcel Energy's spokesperson, said the utility has been "encouraged by the early conversations we've had with lawmakers and other stakeholders." Xcel has proposed hundreds of miles of transmission lines in road corridors and often shares easements with the transportation department, he said.

Keith cited the CapX2020 project as an example of Xcel and other utilities building a major transmission corridor adjacent to the Interstate 94 right-of-way.

"Building new transmission lines is critical to meeting our clean energy goals and those of the states in which we operate, including Minnesota's 2040 benchmark," he said.

Overcoming barriers

Minnesota can look to its neighbor in Wisconsin for an example of how highway corridors could be used for transmission. That state passed a law 20 years ago to make federal and state highway rights-of-way a priority for siting transmission. Satterfield, who once worked for a transmission company in Wisconsin, said the state's utilities built more than 200 miles of transmission projects on federal highways.

Wisconsin did not ask utilities to move poles or other assets on any of the projects, he said. Wisconsin's Department of Transportation coordinates and plans projects with utilities to avoid potential problems, such as highway lane expansion that could encroach on transmission lines.

In addition to changing the Minnesota statute on utility colocation on federal roads, the NexGen Highway Coalition wants the Legislature to consider a siting priorities law. The law requires utilities to consider existing transportation corridors, such as highways and railways, before opting for greenfield development.

Minnesota Department of Transportation Strategic Partnerships Director Jessica Oh said the agency had put forth five to six legislative proposals since 2012 to repeal the language in the statute regarding utility infrastructure near federal highways and will support continued efforts. Utilities opposed the measure because of the additional expense they might incur in projects, she said.

A change to the state law was also suggested in a report to the legislature based on permitting reform discussions held by the Public Utilities Commission, she said.

In studying Wisconsin's experience, the department learned the importance of early coordination with clean energy developers and utilities "is key to the success of the whole process." Minnesota transportation staff have conducted early planning sessions involving aerial encroachments on state highways with utility partners.

Oh said the department's "highest concern" around utility infrastructure has always been safety. Should the legislation pass, the transportation department will continue to work closely with utilities, especially since power lines will become instrumental in moving electric vehicles on highways.

Oh added Minnesota is among 11 states selected by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the Transportation Research Board's National Cooperative Highway Research Program for a "moonshots" program for state departments of transportation. Oh leads the initiative in Minnesota to co-locate more transmission and broadband in highway corridors.

"We have a stake in this because of the electrification of transportation," Oh said. "I tend to think our fates are intertwined in energy and transportation."

Great Plains Institute convenes NextGen Highways, which partners with the Center for Rural Affairs, Clean Energy Economy Minnesota, Conservative Energy Forum, Fresh Energy, Laborers' International Union of North America-Minnesota and North Dakota, Mechanical Contractors Association, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and the National Audubon Society.


Frank Jossi wrote this article for Energy News Network.


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Advocates and lawmakers want New York's Power Authority to amend its draft plan to build at least 15 gigawatts of renewable energy.

The current draft calls for building 3.5 gigawatts with an expectation the projects will not move ahead. It comes as reports showed the state will not reach its 2030 climate goals at the pace it is currently developing renewables.

Andrea Johnson, a member of the Public Power Coalition, said money is a major reason clean energy development has slowed in New York.

"Private developers are dependent on their investors and there's been issues with the supply chain, and rising costs that they're citing," Johnson observed. "They're basically saying to NYSERDA (the New York State Energy Research Development Authority), who issues the renewable energy credits, 'it's not enough,' so they're canceling the projects."

She pointed out many of these projects are expected to rebid. Another reason is the state needs to build up its transmission infrastructure which has led to a long queue of projects waiting to be connected to the state's electrical grid. However, the RAPID Act, passed in the budget bill, is intended to make clean energy projects' permitting and interconnection more efficient.

The state of New York has many avenues for developing clean energy but Johnson feels the state is at capacity with hydroelectric power. Only last year did the state's first offshore wind come online off the coast of Long Island. She said the power authority must provide greater consideration to clean energy projects at different scales.

"That can mean distributed energy, working with communities rooftop solar. We see a huge opportunity to work with SUNY (State University of New York) and CUNY (City University of New York) campuses," Johnson pointed out. "So, public institutions such as CUNY, SUNY, NYCHA (the New York City Housing Authority), MTA (the Metropolitan Transportation Authority) and municipalities across the state are existing customers."

Johnson thinks the power authority can develop projects on brownfields and other state-owned lands with fewer uses. Building the projects could help the Renewable Energy Access and Community Help program, which reduces energy costs for low-income communities but it only happens if clean energy projects are being built.

By Seth Millstein for Sentient Climate.
Broadcast version by Edwin J. Viera for Connecticut News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

We talk a lot about carbon emissions in the context of climate change, but some of the most dangerous emissions aren't carbon at all. They're methane - a colorless, odorless glass that's primarily produced biologically and warms the planet much faster than carbon dioxide. The Biden administration took some good first steps to reduce America's methane emissions - but will President-elect Donald Trump build upon these steps when he assumes office, or claw back the progress that's been made?

Understanding Methane Emissions

Methane is one of the three main greenhouse gasses, along with carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. The Earth and its various ecosystems produce methane naturally; freshwater lakes, wetlands and permafrost are the primary natural sources of methane. It's also the main component of natural gas.

However, a 2021 United Nations report found that currently, roughly 60 percent of methane emissions are anthropogenic, or the result of human activity. Agriculture produces more methane than any other sector around the world, and around 90 percent of anthropogenic methane emissions come from one of three sources: agriculture, fossil fuels and waste.

The line between anthropogenic and naturogenic (naturally-occurring) methane emissions can be blurry. For instance, a major source of methane is cow burps (and, to a lesser extent, farts). While cows are obviously "naturally-occurring," animal agriculture is not, and neither is the amount of cows we've brought into existence. The sheer amount of methane produced by cows is the result of our domestication of them, not any sort of natural process.

Similarly, methane is the main ingredient in natural gas, and natural gas existed long before humans came around. But it's the extraction of natural gas that actually causes this methane to enter the atmosphere, and natural gas extraction is a human activity.

Semantics aside, one thing is certain: There's a lot more methane in the atmosphere than there would have been had humans never existed. And that's not good.

Why Is Methane a Problem?

Like other greenhouse gasses, methane contributes to climate change by warming the atmosphere and the planet. But it works a bit differently than carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas.

Carbon dioxide makes up almost 80 percent of all greenhouse emissions, whereas methane constitutes just over 11 percent. In addition, methane dissipates rather quickly; it only sticks around in the atmosphere for around a decade, whereas carbon dioxide can linger for up to 1,000 years.

This might have you thinking that methane isn't that big of a deal, at least insofar as greenhouse gasses go. The problem is that methane traps much, much more heat than carbon dioxide - so much so that, over a 100 year period, methane has 27-30 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. Over the course of 20 years, it has 80 times the warming potential.

In addition to warming the environment, methane also makes the air dangerous to breathe, because when sunlight interacts with methane, it forms a pollutant called tropospheric ozone. Although tropospheric ozone only stays in the air for a few weeks at most, it can be fatal; it's estimated that up to a million people die every year from respiratory diseases caused by ozone pollution, and methane is a major contributor to this.

How Do Farms Contribute to Methane Emissions?

Around one-third of all anthropogenic methane emissions come from livestock. There are two main reasons for this.

First, there are the burps. A number of animals produce methane as a natural byproduct of their digestive systems; these animals are known as ruminants, and they include not only cows but also sheep, goats, yaks and more. When ruminants burp, they release methane into the air. These are called enteric methane emissions.

The other main source of livestock-related methane emissions is the animals' manure - or, to be more precise, the manner in which farmers store the animals' manure.

Manure management is a significant component of livestock farming. One of the more common ways of storing manure is to put it in large lagoons or pits; this prevents it from leaking into nearby soil and waterways, and also allows farms to more accurately monitor and track their farms' manure output.

Over time, however, the top layer of manure in the lagoon hardens, which prevents oxygen from reaching the manure below. And this is a problem, because when manure is placed in an oxygen-free environment, the microorganisms that produce methane thrive and proliferate, thus increasing its methane emissions. That's exactly what happens in manure pits.

These two factors - enteric emissions and manure (mis)management - account for 80 percent of agriculture-related methane emissions. The other 20 percent comes from rice farming. Rice is a semi-aquatic plant that requires a layer of standing water to grow; this water prevents oxygen from reaching the microbes in the soil, allowing them to reproduce and create methane in a manner similar to manure in a lagoon.

The problem of livestock-related methane emissions is exacerbated by the fact that global meat production has been on the rise for the last 60 years, on both an absolute and per-capita level. This makes reducing these missions all the more important - but how?

How Can Farmers Reduce Their Methane Emissions?

A number of solutions have been proposed, and in some cases implemented, for reducing methane emissions.

Many of these involve new or emerging technologies. There are feed additives that reduce the amount of enteric methane production in ruminants' stomachs, for instance, and manure aeration systems that allow oxygen to flow into stored manure on farms. One company is even developing a methane-trapping mask for cattle to wear while grazing.

Other methane reduction strategies are decidedly more low-tech, such as selectively breeding animals to produce less methane. Simply making livestock farms more efficient on the whole can also have an impact, as this results in increased output with no corresponding increase in methane emissions.

All of these solutions, however, face obstacles. Fernanda Ferreira, Director for Agriculture Methane at Clean Air Task Force, tells Sentient that one of the biggest challenges in methane mitigation is the simple fact that production facilities and logistical operations vary wildly from farm to farm.

"Let's look at the U.S.," Ferreira says. "When you think about goats, sheep, beef and dairy farmers, you have a little over a million farmers. So we're talking about one million different ways of managing these animals. Even if you zoom in into one specific region - let's say the West, or a state like California - there will be variation."

This variation, Ferreira says, complicates efforts to implement methane mitigation technologies on a wide scale, because every farm is a unique operation with slightly different needs, capabilities and restrictions.

"When you zoom in, you have a lot of variation of how farmers handle these animals," Ferreira says. "And this is directly linked to the challenge of adopting [methane reduction] technologies."

Another major challenge is cost. Many of these solutions are expensive, and the cost of implementing them falls on the farmers themselves. But while methane reduction benefits all of humanity in the long run, it doesn't offer farmers any benefit in the short run. As such, farmers largely aren't incentivized to adopt these technologies.

Lastly, there's the simple fact that a lot of this technology is still in the research and development phase. As of this writing, only one synthetic methane-reducing feed additive has been approved by the FDA, and that approval only came six months ago. Other proposed additives are prohibitively expensive, not very effective or come with other drawbacks. The methane-trapping cow mask also has several logistical issues, and has been criticized as a potential form of greenwashing.

What Has President Biden Done About Methane?

In 2021, the Biden administration unveiled the U.S. Methane Emissions Action Plan, a 20-page document with various initiatives and proposals for reducing U.S. methane emissions. They include incentives for farmers to reduce their methane emissions, new regulations aimed at doing the same, and the formation of an interagency task force to collect methane and use it for "on-farm renewable activities."

"The U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan provides the framework for the work on agriculture methane emissions," Ferreira says. "The most important outcome that it supports is the deployment of climate smart-initiatives, such as the use of methane-reducing feed additives and the implementation, more broadly, of manure management practices."

In 2023, the Biden administration announced The National Strategy to Advance an Integrated U.S. Greenhouse Gas Measurement, Monitoring, and Information System (yes, that's the official name). This set of policies is geared at improving the tracking, monitoring and reporting of greenhouse emissions, both inside and outside of the government.

These two action plans, Ferreira says, are important first steps in tackling the methane problem-head on. In addition to all of this, the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, contained funding for a selection of "climate-smart" agricultural practices, including some aimed at reducing methane emissions from farms.

The Inflation Reduction Act also expanded the EPA's authority to regulate methane emissions, and created the Methane Emissions Reduction Program for the purpose of doing so. The Biden administration allocated $1 billion to this program in 2023, and in December, introduced new limits on methane emissions via the EPA.

However, these initiatives only apply to the oil and gas industries, so they won't have any effect on agricultural methane emissions.

What Will Trump Do About Methane?

Methane emissions weren't a central focus of the 2024 campaign, or even a tertiary one, and President-elect Trump made no policy pledges regarding methane. However, actions that he took as president during his first term strongly suggest that he'll seek to undo the Biden administration's progress on methane reduction.

During his time in office, Trump withdrew or weakened a number of federal regulations aimed at tracking and reducing methane emissions, including Obama-era rules that required oil and gas companies to monitor and fix methane leaks at their facilities and take steps to reduce methane emissions on public and tribal lands.

After Trump's 2024 victory, the Biden administration finalized a rule that fines oil and gas companies for their methane emissions, and there's been widespread speculation that Trump will scrap this rule once he assumes office.

Trump, who once said that climate change was a hoax perpetrated by China to make U.S. manufacturing less competitive, withdrew or weakened over 100 environmental regulations during his first term. Nothing he's said or done indicates that he's changed his tune on climate matters since then, so it seems likely that he'll continue rolling back environmental protections, including those aimed at reducing methane emissions.

While this would be unfortunate, Trump is just one person, and America is just one country. There are plenty of other leaders around the world, both in the private and public sectors, making efforts to curb methane emissions.

Canada, Mexico, Japan and several other countries have made significant investments in methane reduction as part of the Global Methane Pledge, for instance. In addition, almost 100 mayors around the world have pledged to reduce their cities' emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement, which Trump withdrew the U.S. from. Meanwhile, Bill Gates has invested millions in a feed additive company aimed at reducing enteric methane production in livestock.

There are, in other words, plenty of opportunities for global action on methane that don't involve the U.S. president.

The Bottom Line

Reducing methane emissions is no easy task; there are technological, financial, logistical and even dietary hurdles. But given methane's rapid-fire warming potential, overcoming these obstacles isn't optional, but necessary.

Our planet won't remain liveable for future generations without a sharp reduction in methane emission. The Biden administration took some good first steps in bringing about such a reduction, and hopefully, more steps from other world leaders will follow, even if the Trump administration rolls back progress on the issue.


Seth Millstein wrote this article for Sentient.


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Connecticut is the subject of an offshore wind study which aims to identify supply chain opportunities for the state and the Northeast region.

Connecticut is committed to creating 100% zero-carbon electricity by 2040. So far, it has procurements for 1.5 gigawatts of offshore wind. The state's first offshore wind farm will be operational next year.

Kristin Urbach, executive director of the Connecticut Wind Collaborative, said the study can explore many offshore wind priorities.

"To pinpoint areas where supply chains currently fall short to propose actionable items to strengthen it," Urbach explained. "Also to boost our local economic growth with the support of local manufacturers for its infrastructure development while promoting job creation and sustainable growth in Connecticut."

Urbach pointed out the state can fill supply chain gaps by utilizing the 12,000-person shipbuilding and repair industry. Some experts believe tapping into this workforce can build up offshore wind development.

Connecticut's offshore wind future is strained. Gov. Ned Lamont paused a multistate deal, delaying Connecticut's ability to reach its 2030 goals. The study's findings will be released next spring.

Similar studies are underway in Louisiana, Maine, and South Carolina. Like them, Connecticut can generate sizable amounts of offshore wind power.

Courtney Durham Shane, senior climate mitigation officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts, said offshore wind has quickly become a lucrative business nationwide.

"The United States has already seen $25 billion in offshore wind supply chain investment to date," Durham Shane noted. "Projections are showing that there could be upwards of $100 billion in private investment and nearly 50,000 jobs that are up for grabs domestically."

The New London State Pier terminal became the first East Coast offshore wind marshaling terminal with unobstructed ocean access. It can speed along the staging and assembly of several states' offshore wind projects. New York State's first offshore wind farm created 75 jobs at the facility, a number which is slated to double.