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Articles by Michael Panfil
Energy security, resilience, grid security
ENERGY SECURITYAnnouncing the Electric Resilience Toolkit Published 28 June 2022 A new Electric Resilience Toolkit aims to support policymakers and stakeholders working on issues around electric sector regulation and climate resilience planning. Such planning is essential to ensure electricity infrastructure is designed and operated in a way that accounts for the impacts of climate change—impacts that are already being felt and which will only intensify in coming years.
Announcing the Electric Resilience Toolkit
Announcing the Electric Resilience Toolkit Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Initiative on Climate Risk and Resilience Law today released an Electric Resilience Toolkit to support policymakers and stakeholders working on issues around electric sector regulation and climate resilience planning.
Climate change creates financial risks. Investors need to know what those are.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted recently to move a proposal forward that will require publicly traded companies to disclose the financial risks they face from climate change. These rules aim to bring corporate obligations for the disclosure of climate risk level with the requirements for disclosure of other forms of financial risk. Doing so is long overdue and a critical step to ensuring investors have access to information about the investment risks faced from climate.
Evaluating Climate Risk in NEPA Reviews: Current Practices and Recommendations for Reform
Abstract This report finds that in order to meet the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirement that federal agencies take a “hard look” at the environmental effects of proposed actions, agencies must consider how the changing weather and environmental conditions brought by climate change might impact an action and alter its environmental effects.
Climate Change Comes to Insurance
December 8, 2021 (The Hill) - Natural disasters have cost the United States more than $600 billion over the past five years. With climate change, those costs are expected to continue increasing. Moving forward, managing and distributing these harms will become increasingly important. Insurance is one tool to do so. Unfortunately, the insurance system is also at risk from climate change.
Climate change comes to insurance
Natural disasters have cost the United States more than $600 billion over the past five years. With climate change, those costs are expected to continue increasing. Moving forward, managing and distributing these harms will become increasingly important. Insurance is one tool to do so. Unfortunately, the insurance system is also at risk from climate change. By changing the underlying risk profile of certain insurance products, climate change threatens insurers’ business model.
Climate change will pose a huge disruption. Are the world’s banks ready?
As the climate change conference concluded last week in Glasgow, one thing set it apart from all the other conferences before: The world’s bankers were there in force. In recent years, the world’s leading financial centers, and their regulators, have been talking a lot about climate change. For all the attention to climate in the world of capital, investment dollars still too often aren’t moving in the right ways.
Extreme weather is a climate change inevitability; our responses shouldn't worsen the problem
Losing power, especially in times of emergency or crisis, can be deadly. During the February winter storm in Texas, at least 11 people died and 1,400 sought treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning after using cars, outdoor grills, and similar equipment in an attempt to stay warm when the power went out during record low overnight temperatures. It’s no wonder, then, that many Texans have since rushed to buy back-up generators, leading to near half-year waitlists.
How the SEC can protect investors, companies, and the public from another Texas power crisis
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is considering making important changes in disclosure requirements to reflect the growing recognition that climate change poses significant risks to the U.S. financial system. This week, hundreds of investors, companies, and concerned Americans responded to the SEC’s request for public input on climate change disclosure.
Global Warming Is Threat to Our Financial Health
Michael Panfil & Sarah Ladin The Hill March 29, 2021 Climate change is a threat to our financial system. It's encouraging to see steps are being taken in a financially sound direction. Read Full Article »
Climate change is a threat to our nation's financial health
Climate change — already a well-known threat to our weather patterns, infrastructure, electric grids, health and safety — also presents a profound and growing threat to our financial system. Public and private sector economic experts must — and increasingly are starting to — take steps to protect against that threat, including at the highest levels of the federal government.
Global Warming Will Bring More Texas Blackouts
Romany Webb & Michael Panfil The Hill February 24, 2021 / (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP) The electric industry needs to recognize the undeniable: Climate change is here and it needs to be factored into their planning and decision making. Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments Related Articles
Without planning, climate change will bring more Texas-style blackouts
© Getty Images Without planning, climate change will bring more Texas-style blackouts The events in Texas are a tragedy that should not have happened. Many Texans still face serious and potentially deadly conditions without power, heat or safe drinking water and they urgently need help to recover. State leaders are also demanding that it never happen again.
Without planning, climate change will bring more Texas-style blackouts
The events in Texas are a tragedy that should not have happened. Many Texans still face serious and potentially deadly conditions without power, heat or safe drinking water and they urgently need help to recover. State leaders are also demanding that it never happen again. To ensure that, they must require the electric industry to recognize the undeniable: climate change is here and it needs to be factored into their planning and decision making. That should be a no brainer.
Mandating Disclosure of Climate-Related Financial Risk
Mandating Disclosure of Climate-Related Financial Risk By Madison Condon, Sarah Ladin, Jack Lienke, Michael Panfil, and Alexander Song / February 10, 2021 Download PDF Climate change presents grave risk across the U.S. economy, including to corporations, their investors, the markets in which they operate, and the American public at large. Unlike other financial risks, however, climate risk is not routinely disclosed to the public.
The SEC should require companies to disclose financial risks due to climate change.
A climate strike protest in Germany. Markus Spiske/Unsplash This article is part of the Future Agenda, a series from Future Tense in which experts suggest specific, forward-looking actions the new Biden administration should implement.
Utilities should be required to disclose their climate-related financial risks
The following is a contributed article by Justin Gundlach, a senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law; Michael Panfil, a senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund; and Romany Webb, a senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.
Why Electric Utilities Must Engage in Climate Resilience Planning
By Michael Panfil / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: December 3, 2020 (This post was co-authored by EDF’s Sarah Ladin and Romany Webb of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School) As the owners and operators of immense infrastructure, electric utilities are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Many electric utilities are already struggling to respond to higher temperatures, changing rain patterns, more intense storms, and other climate impacts.
Recommendations for a resilient grid, no federal coal bailout required
In the past year, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has used the issue of grid resilience as cover for an aggressive campaign to funnel a multi-billion-dollar yearly bailout to the owners of old, uneconomic coal and nuclear power plants. Although this DOE effort was rightly rejected by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in January, the issue of resilience remains.
New study answers the question, ‘What is grid resilience?’
Whether or not our electric grid is “resilient,” and what if anything should be done to make the grid more resilient, has been a topic of intense scrutiny in the past year. The stakes in this debate reached new dimensions last fall with a highly controversial proposal by Sec. Rick Perry and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which claimed that the resilience of the electric grid is threatened by the premature retirement of uneconomic coal and nuclear plants.
FirstEnergy Shamelessly Begs DOE To Prop Up Uneconomic Coal And Nukes
This week, FirstEnergy submitted an outrageous request to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The Ohio-based utility giant wants DOE to bail out not only its uneconomic coal and nuclear plants, but all ailing plants across the PJM Interconnection region – which includes 13 states and Washington D.C. FirstEnergy’s request, if granted, would fundamentally undermine important energy policy and represent a major step backwards for the American electric grid.
FERC’s Rejection Of DOE’s Pro-Coal And Nuclear Proposal Shows Evidence Can Still Trump Politics
Last week the Midwest and northeastern United States experienced an historic cold snap that tested our nation’s electric grid. Like last year’s solar eclipse, unprecedented wildfires in California, and extreme flooding after Hurricane Harvey, this year’s “bomb cyclone” has not created a reliability crisis.
FERC’s rejection of DOE’s pro-coal and nuclear proposal shows evidence can still trump politics
Last week the Midwest and northeastern United States experienced an historic cold snap that tested our nation’s electric grid. Like last year’s solar eclipse, unprecedented wildfires in California, and extreme flooding after Hurricane Harvey, this year’s “bomb cyclone” has not created a reliability crisis.
FERC’s rejection of DOE’s pro-coal and nuclear proposal shows evidence can still trump politics
Last week the Midwest and northeastern United States experienced an historic cold snap that tested our nation’s electric grid. Like last year’s solar eclipse, unprecedented wildfires in California, and extreme flooding after Hurricane Harvey, this year’s “bomb cyclone” has not created a reliability crisis.
Cuba’s electric future: Lessons learned and pathways forward
A new report from Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) highlights for the future of Cuba’s electric sector. These include the benefits of Cuba’s decentralized grid, the potential benefits of fueling the grid with more clean energy, and new financing opportunities. The full report is entitled The Cuban Electric Grid, and an abridged version appears in The Electricity Journal. The report builds upon more than a decade of EDF engagement in Cuba. Here are five key takeaways from the report.
Cuba’s electric future: Lessons learned and pathways forward
A new report from Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) highlights for the future of Cuba’s electric sector. These include the benefits of Cuba’s decentralized grid, the potential benefits of fueling the grid with more clean energy, and new financing opportunities. The full report is entitled The Cuban Electric Grid, and an abridged version appears in The Electricity Journal. The report builds upon more than a decade of EDF engagement in Cuba. Here are five key takeaways from the report.
DOE's coal bailout plan could cost American business billions
Hundreds of thousands of businesses, large and small, would face rising electricity prices under the U.S. Department of Energy’s recent proposal to bail out uneconomic coal and nuclear plants. Such a disruption of America’s competitive wholesale power market would ripple across our energy landscape and directly affect operating expenses for companies, even entire industries.
Everything you need to know about Perry's coal bailout plan
Energy Secretary Rick Perry was a strong proponent of states’ rights and free markets while governor of Texas. Understandably, his recent federal proposal to effectively disrupt organized electric markets raised many eyebrows. Indeed, the proposal [PDF] the U.S. Department of Energy filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month has been met by a chorus of resistance from unlikely allies in the industry and policy worlds – and it’s easy to see why.
Rick Perry’s coal bailout is an attack on competitive energy markets, with customers footing the bill
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry – whose agenda as governor of Texas was squarely focused on states’ rights and free markets – is now pushing for a federal plan that could disrupt organized electric markets. Perry’s proposal to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) aims to prop up uneconomic coal at the expense of Americans’ health and wallets.
Secretary Perry continues to ignore the evidence on grid reliability, even his own
Secretary Perry commissioned the report in this April memo, asking the DOE to investigate whether our electric grid’s reliability is threatened by the “erosion of critical baseload resources,” meaning coal and nuclear power plants. Perry took the unusual step of providing his own, pre-study conclusion, claiming that “baseload power is necessary to a well-functioning electric grid.” His own report disagrees.
What will FERC do in wake of increasingly affordable electricity prices?
Electricity is becoming increasingly affordable throughout the United States. This fact was not lost on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the entity charged with overseeing our interstate electricity grid, during a Technical Conference held last month.
What will FERC do in wake of increasingly affordable electricity prices?
Electricity is becoming increasingly affordable throughout the United States. This fact was not lost on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the entity charged with overseeing our interstate electricity grid, during a Technical Conference held last month.
The Supreme Court Decides in Favor of a Critical Clean Energy Resource: Demand Response
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued an important decision in support of a vital clean energy resource: demand response. The case, FERC v. EPSA, revolves around demand response, a resource that helps keep prices low and the lights on, all while being environmentally friendly. It’s a significant victory for anyone in favor of a cleaner, cheaper, accessible, and more reliable grid.
So, How Do We Make Sustainability... Sustainable?
Last week the New York Times reported that, for the first time in history, clean energy resources like solar and wind are becoming cost competitive with conventional coal in some markets. This paradigm shift, where clean energy is beginning to compete head-to-head with traditional energy sources, calls for a change in perspective.
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