Western states in US will go even greener with or without Trump

Dec 20, 2016 17:51 CET by Tsvetomira Tsanova

December 20 – The western states in the US will not abandon their pursuit of low-carbon energy, but they may be challenged to do it without federal support with Donald Trump as President, energy attorneys predict.

In a client alert, LeClairRyan’s attorneys offered their predictions for the US energy industry. They say it is hard to be sure what the new Presidential administrations would or would not accomplish, but it is quite certain that renewable energy subsidy and valuation will decline at the federal level.

“California will continue to despise coal and even turn away from natural gas in a quest to move toward more and more renewable energy,” say the energy attorneys. They believe that California probably expects to further grow the share of renewables in its mix with less or no federal subsidy, and the same goes for Oregon and Washington.

California aims to reach a 50% renewables share by 2030. With nearly 31 GW of installed wind, solar and other green power capacity, California was the top renewable energy state in 2015.

Trump’s election came as very bad news for President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, and that plan is facing a long period of rulemaking proceedings, litigation, and, for sure, uncertainty. LeClairRyan says in the alert that the repeal of the Clean Power Plan will have little effect on the western states, but one cannot say the same for the Midwest and South. As far as coal is concerned the impact there will be significant.

The full note is available at https://www.leclairryan.com/pubs/xprPubDetail.aspx?xpST=PubDetail&pub=1081.

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