Trump picked a fight with Washington. Its AG is pushing back.

0:00A nation isn't just built, it's powered by people like us. In 2024, Chevron increased its U.S. production nearly 20% to help keep energy reliable. Since 2022, we spent $44 billion with local suppliers supporting good jobs across all 50 states. And this year, we're planning to invest about $10.5 billion in American energy projects to help build the future right here at home. We put in the work because America depends on it. Learn more at chevron.com slash America. Hey, welcome back to the Politico Energy Podcast where we explore the stories and the people shaping energy and climate policy. I'm Joe Schatz, the deputy editor-in-chief at Politico and your guest host for today. So it's a big week for us here at Politico. We just launched Politico's surge, our new global energy newsletter, and we expanded our state-level coverage with the new state-power newsletter. Which brings me to this episode. I want to look at an important state-level fight through the eyes of Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat.

1:02So like many blue states, Washington State has spent years pursuing a cleaner energy system and expanding renewable power. But recently, the Trump administration has thrown a wrench in those plans by moving to slow or stop wind energy development. And it's pushed the state to keep a coal plant operating beyond its plant retirement. That's led Brown and other state attorneys general to challenge those efforts in court. This is really becoming a familiar pattern across the country. Blue State Attorney General taking the Trump administration to court over its energy policies. So today, we talk about Washington versus Trump, how Brown is defending his state's energy policies, and why AGs are becoming increasingly important players in the energy space. Here's my extended conversation with Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown. His Friday is September 4th. Mr. Attorney General, good to see you. Thanks so much for joining the Politico Energy Podcast. We very much appreciate your time. Happy beer, I appreciate it. Well, why don't we get right to it?

2:03You were elected AG out in Washington in November of 2024. The same day, Donald Trump was reelected to the White House. And on the energy front, you've challenged several of the Trump administration's energy policies, including very much as efforts to slow down or stop wind development. And at a high level, what is Washington State been trying to protect through these lawsuits? And what do you think the administration is getting wrong? Well, let me just start the macro level. Washington State for many years now has been one of the foremost state leaders when it comes to climate resiliency programs, environmental protections, developing and being very mindful of the strategic need to think about energy alternatives as we move forward. So this has been a multi-year, multi-decade focus of Washington State, both in our legislature and through our AG's office, but also just a lot of policy leads.

3:03And outside groups who have been very important for us. And that's a good foundation, I think, to sort of start with because Donald Trump, sort of to the second party of your question, really presents a unique threat to those efforts and a unique challenge. He seems, you know, one very attached to sort of traditional dirty energy sources, oil and coal principally. He has advocated both through policy and through his bully pulpit attacks on any sort of alternative energy source. He clearly has a lot of ties and connections to big oil companies and to a traditional energy companies. And that seems to be one of his priorities to CalTal, to their needs and make them happy. They're wrong for just a whole host of reasons. One, we know that all sort of traditional energy sources are a dwindling resource. At the end of the day, these are things that are not going to be here in this country or

4:05across the world forever. And so the idea that we could rely on that or future generations could rely on that is just silly, it's just wrong. A lot of the narrative against alternative energy in terms of its scope and effectiveness, its safety, I think they often get wrong as well. Again, it's hard to pinpoint all of the various ridiculous arguments. But I think their general opposition to all these alternatives that the country is going to need, that our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren are going to need as a resource for them is just there. And we know. We need to continue to fight for that as a state and really proud of our work in that space. To even get more specific, I think earlier this year, you let a lawsuit to overturn the defense department freeze of national security reviews for onshore wind energy projects. I sort of get to talk a little bit about how did you approach that? What's the state of play and what did that effort look like? Sure. Yeah, there have been really two big cases for us that we've been participating in in

5:06addition to some other things. But the DOD case was a very important one. First, it's important to note that that case was started by other third parties, wind industry groups who were advocating for the use of their products and their technology in this space. And we filed a motion to intervene with a coalition of, I think, 19 other states, or maybe 18 other states in us to make sure that Washington State was had a place at the table because what the DOD was trying to do would greatly impact our state and the participating states. What it did is that federal law requires DOD to review proposed wind projects for potential national security concerns and work with developers. And for more than a decade, frankly, DOD engaged in what we would consider a very sort of standardized, predictable review process where both states and impacted parties knew the process that was going to be used. And we worked, and the industry worked with developers and local communities to mitigate

6:11potential concerns that they might have on these projects. But in August of last year, several just over a year ago, DOD really abruptly changed the process that they were using. They stopped following it. They stopped taking any necessary steps to approve these projects. And that freeze, which is really what it was, a halt on these projects are moving forward for reported national security concerns, impacted projects across our state and the coalition of states that we were partnering with. In Washington State, that was really five significant projects all across Washington State. I would note that many of these projects are in Eastern Washington, which for people who aren't from Washington, it's a fairly conservative, fairly rural portion of our state. These projects were important for providing energy across our state, but also the jobs and resources in those jurisdictions. When we sued as part of this coalition, or we joined the coalition, a federal district

7:12court put a preliminary injunction in place that was stopping the freeze, but it was just a preliminary injunction. And so we continue to litigate that case. It's only now been a few weeks since that PI was issued in that case. So we don't know quite yet how this is going to result or end up. But we're really optimistic. So many of our cases, including the cases that we've brought in the climate or environmental resiliency space, are because the government, the administration, is blatantly disregarding congressional mandates and obligations. They're disregarding the Administrative Procedure Act. There are things that the administration, every president, has to do to implement their policy proposals or priorities, and they just don't do that. And they don't do it, particularly in these types of cases. Okay. Well, you mentioned Eastern Washington. What before you decided to intervene in the case that you mentioned? I guess what leads you in that direction? Were you hearing from folks on the ground?

8:14Were you hearing from companies? What does that process look like that gets you to intervene? Well, I would say for all of our federal cases, at a high level, there's a very simple test for us. The first and foremost is what the administration doing illegal or unconstitutional. There are plenty of things that they do that are perfectly legal or authorized. And so even though we might disagree, we have to look in my role for things that they've violated. So we believe that the DOG and putting a freeze on these projects was violating a number of different laws that Congress had passed. So that's the first test, right? Second is does it impact Washington? When everything the administration does, even if it's illegal, will impact our state, and not every state has the type of projects that we do. So we need to see, I need to be convinced that this is going to impact our state, either state governments, state companies, state agencies, people, etc. And then third, for me, is do we need to be part of the litigation to get the relief in our state for people who have been harmed?

9:14There are some times where we don't necessarily need to participate in a case to ensure that we were getting, or that we can get relief for the harm that's being caused. And this particular case, as I said, there were some wind developers who filed the case, but we wanted to make sure that we were a party to the case so we could get relief for the projects and advocate specifically for the projects that were being brought here, because the original plaintiffs weren't necessarily going to be able to bring that voice and bring that relief for every single project in the country or every other state that impacted. And so when we hear about these sorts of changes from the federal government, we get a lot of quick research and analysis. I don't know if in this specific case, we heard from people on the ground in Eastern Washington, but I do know historically how important these projects have been for jobs and other resources in these counties and these local jurisdictions. So with the preliminary in Junction, what does that mean at this moment for those companies for those developers and sort of for the state overall as you wait for the next step?

10:18Well, the shortest way to describe it is it prevents DOD from doing what they are doing. So it prevents them from putting on the freeze. It goes back to status quo in terms of the administrative process that the federal government would use to review and approve and advance these projects. So it limits DOD's ability to act accordingly. Compliance with these sort of orders is always very important for us. We want to make sure that they are actually abiding by what the courts are doing, but it's only initial ruling from the court, both finding an initial termination that they likely broke the law and two that we were being harmed currently by these actions. So, but we have to get to the merits of these cases as I move forward. Let me shift gears to coal for just a second. I know Washington is home to the Centralia coal plant, I think which was supposed to close at the end of last year. The Department of Energy has been issuing a series of emergency orders extending it, forcing it to stay open past its retirement date, putting seemingly Washington state rate payers

11:21on the hook. How are you approaching that? Well, you know, it's always remarkable when we see the administration do things like these, like they did here with respect to transalters, the company or project here. And it's almost like they just didn't have a concept of what was happening on the ground in Washington. First and foremost, clean energy is a cheap energy source in general once you get these projects built. And so we wanted to continue to help our companies in Washington state make that transition. The state and transalters have been working together for well over a decade now, I think, to implement a fairly carefully planned transition of that plant towards lower polluting fuel sources. And the plant had already substantially scaled down their operations. So it was fairly ridiculous for the administration to come in and say under an emergency order that you have to restart this plant using coal when transalters itself did not want that to

12:27occur, was not prepared for that to occur and did not have the natural workforce or resources to start up pursuant to this emergency order. And really, it just was sort of a ridiculous circumstance. And so we sued repeatedly to block this order from moving forward and multiple extensions of the order. In the meantime, transalta has said that they need to charge their ratepayers $20 million for the cost of getting this inefficient and outdated facility back up and running. Really no power has generated from that facility and since December of last year. It really just seems like a desperate need from the administration to try to appease their coal industry supporters and such, but it was a real good example of how it just don't have a concept of what's actually happening in our states. Gotcha. Why don't I shift gears again here to the upcoming midterms and sort of your party specifically.

13:30As an AG, you have the ability to intervene on some of really the biggest issues of this election cycle on utilities, on energy costs, on data centers and related issues. How are you thinking about that beyond what we've talked about, where are you sort of engaged in those spaces? Well, honestly, we do this job irrespective of whatever the upcoming election cycle is. And so I don't really think about the work that's happening here in our agency with respect to the midterms. In part, because state AGs have been sort of leading the charge on these issues for a very long time irrespective of what's happening in Congress. I don't know if the House switches control or the Senate switches control, whether or not that really impacts my job. Certainly it would be nice to see more normalcy in having, I think, a control of Congress switch.

14:31But in terms of the day to day, what's happening in our agency, much of that is unaffected by what happens in DC. I wear a separate hat as a elected politician and want to support my party in candidates to help get elected. But as in my official capacity as AG, I don't truly give it that much thought. To me, state AGs are underrated players in the energy policy space. And I'm curious, what can an AG accomplish in energy utility space that other elected officials can't? And I'm curious how much more powerful is that role when AGs work across states as you and your democratic colleagues have been doing quite a bit. And as Republican AGs obviously did quite a bit during the Biden administration, during the Obama administration. Well, I think, let me answer in a few different ways. I mean, the biggest thing that we can do that most other elected officials cannot do is that we can take action very quickly. You know, if we see the administration like in the DOD case or in a number of other spaces

15:33in the climate space, you know, they tried to cancel some of the EV infrastructure projects up and down the West Coast. They tried to cancel climate resiliency funding for a number of jurisdictions across the country, including here in Washington. When we see the administration do this, we can very quickly oppose it and be in court and take action and stop these things from happening in a way that governors cannot or state legislators cannot or even Congress, at least the minority party, they don't really have much ability to stop harm from happening in the present term. And so AGs have really seen our role grow in that space because of our ability to act quickly to protect our states and our people that are being harmed. That's really important. It's a fun role to be in because of how relevant it seems to some of the major important issues happening in particularly around energy projects and climate resiliency. One thing that you highlighted that's been really a renewed focus here is how we interface

16:33with utility companies and, you know, the prices that consumers are paying to heat and keep their homes functioning. And every state operates a little bit differently, but in my state, we have, as one of our divisions, within the AGs office, a office of public council where our role is to advocate before our utility and trades commission when we see utility companies attempting to raise rates in a way that we don't think is in the best interest of consumers. And we've seen across the country prices dramatically go up and a lot of companies propose even further increases. And that's including here in Washington. And we have the ability to go in as our advocate council to advocate against these sorts of increases. And we've seen in the last few months are two major utility companies advocate for, you know, upwards of 30% increases over a period of years, but also using that money to pay

17:38their shareholders and make sure their shareholders are getting the high return of investment. We've seen that money that they're proposing to consumers bear the burden of to pay their lobbyists, to pay their CEOs, to do all these things that have nothing with providing cheaper utility services to their constituents. And in those cases, we've been very strong advocates to say that is not a good use of your money. And the thing that I would note is, you know, it's a little strange in some ways. And for me too, for an AG to be coming in to say, you know, you can't business, you can't take these actions because of the harm that's being caused. But these companies have a state-sponsored monopoly essentially over providing utilities. This is not something that most homeowners or business owners that use power have the ability to go out in the market and shop for and compare rates and get the best possible deal. They are stuck with the power company that is in their particular city or county or state.

18:38And in Washington, we have one major in Eastern Washington and one major in Western Washington. And because of that state sanction monopoly, we have a really important role to play to make sure these companies are operating properly and actually providing benefit for their consumers in a unique way. And so we're doing that through that space and thinking about what are the legislative changes that we should be involved in. But this is something that again is uniquely within the hands of AGs. And we do that in partnership with our colleagues across the country as much as possible. I can ask you one more question before you go. Your predecessor as Washington AG ended up as governor. Do you see higher office in your future at some point? Probably. This is certainly not my last job. I'm going to have to keep working for the foreseeable future as I put off my kids in the middle school this week. But I love truly being AG. And what I always tell people when I get questions like this is that I have no interest in going

19:38to DC. I think the state focus work is really important. And I want to try to serve my state as long as possible. So governor, governor down the line? Maybe. Yeah, I mean, I'm in no rush to go anywhere. I like being AG, but I'm only 20 months in. So I got a focus on this job. OK. Well, I think we'll leave the conversation there. Attorney General Brown, thank you so much again for joining us. We really appreciate it. Hope to have you again sometime soon. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it. Also, one quick thing before you go will be off this Monday for Labor Day and will return on Wednesday, September 9th. All right, that's it for Politico Energy. For more news on energy and the environment, subscribe to our free global energy newsletter, Politico Surge, and explore Politico Pro for additional energy newsletters and more extensive coverage. And if you like this show, please give it a follow and review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe on Politico's YouTube page. Dana Beckman is the publicist for the show. Nicholas Serone is the show's booking producer.

20:41Ejo Shen is the show's video producer. Debra Khan, Matt Daley, and Veronica Tehera are the editors of the show. Our theme music was made by Pran Bandi, and Normal Moleical is the show's executive producer and co-host. That's it for us. I'm Joe Shots, and I'll see you back here on Wednesday. A nation isn't just built. It's powered by people like us. In 2024, Chevron increased its U.S. production nearly 20% to help keep energy reliable. Since 2022, we spent $44 billion with local suppliers supporting good jobs across all 50 states. We're planning to invest about $10.5 billion in American energy projects to help build

21:46the future right here at home. We put in the work because America depends on it. Learn more at chevron.com slash America.