energy policySaturday, June 20, 2026
Today's energy policy stories are split between two fights: one over who gets power and how fast, and another over who loses jobs in the transition. FERC ordered grid operators to speed up connections for AI data centers, while a Canadian piece argues that attacks on the transition are really attacks on workers whose fossil fuel jobs are vanishing anyway. A New York Times opinion piece offers a small-scale fix: plug-in solar panels for renters.
The biggest regulatory move of the day is about getting power to data centers fast, but it leaves rate-setting with states.
FERC ordered grid operators to speed up interconnection for large energy users, citing AI data center demand. The order leaves retail rates with states, which is where the backlash over data center power use is growing.
Two pieces frame the transition as a labor issue, from opposite angles.
Argues that attacking the energy transition hurts workers, because fossil fuel jobs are already disappearing due to automation and consolidation, not just climate policy. In Canada, oil and gas employment dropped 38,000 jobs over five years despite rising production.
Reports that the Trump administration paid Invenergy $765 million to not develop three offshore wind farms, bringing total taxpayer spending on killing renewable projects to $2.5 billion. The piece frames Trump as an unlikely champion of renewable energy by blocking it.
A quieter story points to a technology that could bypass the grid battles entirely.
Makes the case that plug-in balcony or garden solar panels could let renters and apartment dwellers access solar power, bypassing the barriers of rooftop or community solar. The technology is already legal in more than half of U.S. states.
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