Why Solar Might Be Better Off Than You Think
March 5, 2025
Longtime listeners of Shift Key will recognize the name Intersolar and Energy Storage North America, one of the country’s premier solar industry conferences. Shift Key was live at this year’s event, hosting a panel on the present and future of the solar industry featuring a pair of marquee panelists: Tom Starrs, currently the vice president for government and public affairs at EDP Renewables, North America, who has more than 30 years of experience in the renewables industry; and Maria Robinson, until recently the director of the Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office and now the president and CEO of the Interstate Renewable Energy Council. (Robinson is also a repeat Shift Key guest.)
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk with the panelists about the momentum propelling solar energy forward in the U.S. and whether the uncertainty created by the Trump administration could put a damper on that. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.
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Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Maria Robinson: I actually want to go back to the permitting piece because I think this is directly related to the conversation. I suspect everyone here has tried to permit at some point in time on federal lands and found that to be an incredibly overwhelming experience, right? When we talk about this — and my new bugaboo, for the rest of my life, is we cannot call it NEPA anymore. It is not just NEPA. It is also the Fish and Wildlife Section 7 piece, it is also working with your state historical preservation offices. There are so many other pieces than just NEPA that some of these energy permitting reform bills do not, will not actually solve some of the issues that folks are looking at.Jesse Jenkins: They’re too narrow, yeah.
Robinson: They’re just far too narrow, associated with that. And I think that was one of the things that I was not allowed to say like four weeks ago but I can say now. That did not go far enough in —
Robinson Meyer: Do you think that friendlier lawmakers in Congress understand this distinction? Or is it all the focus is still on NEPA?
Robinson: I think all the focus is still on NEPA, and there has to be a little bit more of that conversation, right? It was fascinating to me: This weekend, the National Governors Association met in D.C., and they all agreed on this resolution about, we need to do energy permitting. And the truth of the matter is, I think, I’m sure for many of you who’ve tried to work with a state historical preservation office, that you’re actually butting up against a lack of capacity at the state level sometimes, as opposed to at the federal level.
So there needs to be that conversation that is not just all, if we suddenly make vast changes to NEPA, that everything in terms of investment is and infrastructure is going to move faster. And I think that that is something that, especially Republican lobbyists and members of Congress and members of the administration can get behind, is that sort of efficiency, right? Efficiency is the word of the moment.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
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