Citizens Prevail over Venture Capitalists and Carbon Capture - Mike Eisenfeld

In this climate fight will Big Fossil Fuel, it is hard and rare to have a clear-cut victory. The last time we did a podcast episode with Mike on 7/12/22, his group was fighting to prevent a closing coal-based power plant in Farmington, New Mexico from reinventing itself to keep open using the questionable technology of Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). This was described a June 29, 2022 High Country News article. A company named Enchant led this effort with the backing of financial groups to force this unproven technology through to keep the highly polluting plant open. Once they could not raise enough money privately, they were trying to get federal money to keep the plant going. However, this did not work out and the activists like Mike kept pushing to stop it. Last month, Enchant abandoned its efforts. We wanted to have Mike back on the program to explain what led to the closing of this plant for good and to explore and celebrate the loss of one less coal power plant.

Mike points out that this project was billed as a “demonstration project”, intended to show the potential of carbon capture and sequestration as an approach to combatting climate change. Back in December of 2021, the General Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report titled, “Carbon Capture and Storage: Actions Needed to Improve DOE Management of Demonstration Projects” which showed essentially no success among demonstration projects. Of eight projects, for which we, as taxpayers, paid $684 million, only one achieved operational status. That one plant operated for only three years, closing due to economic infeasibility.

Eisenfeld questioned when DOE and companies promoting these projects will be held accountable for this poor track record. Within the aforementioned report, DOE was described as addressing this by creating a dedicated Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. After waiting nearly a year, the Biden administration appointed David Crane, the CEO of NRG, the company in charge of Petra Nova, one of the failed carbon capture projects described in the GAO report.

Climate Money Watchdog will be following up on this and other appointments relevant to environmental spending.

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Episode Transcript

Gregory A. Williams (00:10):
Thanks for joining us for another episode
of climate money watchdog wherewe investigate and report on how
federal dollars are being spenton mitigating climate change and
protecting the environment. Weare a nonprofit, private,
nonpartisan organization thatdoes not accept advertisers or
sponsors. So we can only do thiswork with your support. Please

(00:31):
visit us at climate moneywatchdog.org To learn more about
us and to consider making adonation. My name is Greg
Williams, and I learned toinvestigate report on waste,
fraud and abuse in federalspending. While working at the
project on government oversight,or Pogo 30 years ago, I learned
to do independent research, aswell as to work with

(00:51):
confidential informants orwhistleblowers to uncover things
like overpriced, spare spareparts, like the infamous $435
hammers, and expensive militaryweapon systems that didn't work
as advertised. I was taught bymy colleague, Dena razor, who
founded Pogo in 1981, andfounded climate money watchdog

(01:12):
with me last year, Dina hasspent 40 years investigating and
sometimes recovering millions ofdollars wasted by the Defense
Department and other branches ofgovernment, while at Pogo, as an
independent journalist, as anauthor, and as a professional
investigator. Dina, would youlike to say a few more words?

Dina Rasor (01:34):
Yeah, we're gonna go back we're gonna go through.
We've got Mike Eisen Feld ontoday, and he's come has come
back from the when he did apodcast with us in July with
some, you know, as good as nerdyas you get when you're trying to
take on big fossil fuel. But oneof the reasons I wanted to have

(01:56):
him back on is that he, he workswith the San Juan environmental
group. And up in Farmington, NewMexico, and they were trying to,
there was a coal based powerplant. And it was supposed to be

(02:17):
retired out. And some peoplewith money came in and made his
company name and chant. And theykept saying, Oh, we can keep it
open. They told the logos, wecan keep it open. Because we're
going to use carbon capture andsequestration. Anybody who
listens to our podcast regularlyknows that we are having a hard

(02:39):
time finding anything, anythinggood that really works about
carbon capture. And it eventhough it's being pushed, and it
is taking up probably almostabout half of the money that's
going to to you know, quote,clean energy. But what happened
is this company and tried to getfinancial groups and everybody
was doing, do it. And then theytalking about getting federal

(03:02):
money, state money that didn'twork. And they finally
surprisingly, suddenly, in themiddle of December, said, Okay,
we're gone. And we're going toin the plant is going to close.
And I'm just I'm giving thenickel sketch. But why the
reasons I wanted to talk to Miketoday and have him back on is to
talk about what led to the plantclosing for good and exporting

(03:25):
to celebrate landless coal powerplant, but there's always ask
starts to that. And we'll alsotalk about what's next. So
that's, I'm being I'm beinggiving the short talk on it. So
but just for those people whomay not have heard our podcast,

(03:45):
with Mike Gregg, maybe you wantto introduce him in his
background.

Gregory A. Williams (03:50):
Sure. I also want to just recognize that
we're recording this episode onMartin Luther King, Jr. Day. And
I like to see the work that Mikehas done as being an example of
how grassroots organizing canstill do really important
things. And it's a it's simplymy way of honoring the idea that

(04:11):
activism can help communitiesseek justice. So Mike, sorry, I
thought I had my notes in frontof me. So, my guys and Phil, as
some of you may remember, is SanJuan Citizens Alliance, Energy

(04:34):
and Climate program manager.
Mike joined us JCA in 2006,following 10 years as an
environmental consultant in theFour Corners region of New
Mexico. Mike works on energyissues including coal, oil and
gas, air quality and publiclands. He specializes in the the
National Environmental PolicyAct, Federal Land Policy and

(04:55):
Management Act, and EndangeredSpecies Act Campbell. Lyons.
Mike is a Bachelor of Arts fromBates College and a Master of
Arts and environmental policyand management from the
University of Denver. Okay,

Dina Rasor (05:11):
well welcome, Mike.
And is there anything that we'vetalked about you'd like to
clarify or expand on before Istart act acts asking the
questions.

Mike Eisenfeld (05:21):
Yeah. Well, thank you very much. And thank
you for having me. I'm honoredto be associated with people who
have devoted their life tooversight of projects and
wasteful situations withtaxpayers and I certainly know
Pogo very well and but anyway,thanks to climate money watchdog

(05:43):
for having me. Last time I wason I talked about the San Juan
Generating Station, which is oneof the two very large coal fired
power plants just west ofFarmington, New Mexico, San Juan
generating station was built in1972, came online in 1973. So
basically a 50 year old coalfired power plant at the nine

(06:04):
owners decided to retire to theplant in 2022. And and that was
in 2017. So our group, the SanJuan Citizens Alliance, said,
Hey, you know, we have got afive year window for planning
when it comes to energytransition, just transition
environmental justice,transition to renewables. But in

(06:28):
2019, the city of Farmingtonwhich is a 5%, owner is Mr.
Generating Station said, Oh, wehave partnered with a hedge fund
called Acme equities, a twoperson closet office, New York
hedge fund with no money to tryto do carbon capture carbon
sequestration and keep San JuanGenerating Station open. And

(06:51):
that was greeted in ourcommunity by Oh, wow, that's
fantastic news. You know, weknew that someone would save San
Juan generating station. But ourorganization, you know, then
that became sort of a challengeto us to sort of evaluate and
inventory all the aspects of howthis would happen. First and
foremost, there was an alarm orred flag that, you know, Acme

(07:13):
equities really had no money.
And our over our oversight ofdocuments, including the
operating permit led us tobelieve that the city of
Farmington is a 5% owner wouldhave to take over the other 95%
ownership of the San Juangenerating station. So anyway,

(07:34):
we inventory like all thepermits are going to be required
all the aspects of transfer allthe aspects, especially with
power purchase agreements, theplant as a 50 year old plants
falling apart, so they wouldhave to be like a major major
investment. And so we sort ofheld on to that inventory for a

(07:54):
couple years. And internally,you know, had to listen to all
the rhetoric about how, you knowthere was a plan to move forward
on this facility. And so, overthe past three or four years,
Acme equities after we paradedthem for being like wily Coyote.
They changed energy. And then,you know, we started doing

(08:17):
things like Freedom ofInformation Act requests to see
how they were reporting. Theyreceived two federal grants, one
for a front end engineeringdesign study, to see if, if they
could even do this on do if theyget it put the carbon capture
technology on the facility, thisold and then they also got a

(08:40):
grant for the carbon SafeProgram, which is the carbon
assurance storage facilityenterprise, which is basically
finding a place to store six to7 million tons per year of
carbon dioxide. And so both ofthese both of these grants, they
seem like a lot of money, butthen you start bringing in all
the subcontractors and a lot ofthe subcontractors like

(09:04):
Mitsubishi and I think slumber Jand Halliburton and a bunch of
consultants a lot of a lot ofdifferent entities feeding at
the trough. And in in thatmoney, I believe, went pretty
quickly. But the front endengineering design study was
delayed. The carbon safe projectnever found a place for carbon

(09:26):
capture carbon sequestered.
Sequestration to occur and ofthe $1.6 billion that was
believed to be solely going. Theonly reported investment that we

(09:46):
can find for enchant energy was$100,000. And so on. December
20. We were fairly surprised butthe city of Farmington was the
first one out saying that Didthey were giving up on the
project. And this had to dowith, they were trying to take
legal action against the otherowners to either other owners

(10:10):
who want to decommission anddemolish and reclaim the site.
And I think that they saw thewriting on the wall that they
were going to incur on tons oflegal fees, and they were going
to lose. And then the next dayand chant energy said, oh, yeah,
we've given up on this project,too. But we're still going to
pursue carbon capture projects,and we have a whole bunch in the

(10:31):
works. And then we asked them,well, what are the prices? Oh,
that's confidential. So, um, Iguess, you know, for us, it's
just sort of perpetuates thefailure of all these carbon
capture carbon sequestrationprojects, it coal fired power
plants, that are considereddemonstration projects by the
government. And I think it'stime to, to fully and completely

(10:53):
say that the demonstrationprojects have failed.

Gregory A. Williams (10:56):
So I just wanted to ask, how far into the
process can you get withoutapplying for permits and doing
all of the things that create apublic record? In other words,
how far could these how faralong? Could these projects
really be if they are completelyconfidential?

Mike Eisenfeld (11:16):
Well, I mean, for us, you know, like back in
2019, you know, these two to twoguys, Jason self. And Lauren's
Heller showed up and said, youknow, we're energy experts, and
we're, we're the hedge fund orowners, so we're gonna make this
happened. And we kind of werelike, who are you? And what and
what, okay, right, you know,sure. 2019 to 2022, or 2023,

(11:41):
with a project kickoff, a fiveyear process, you better start
getting your permits right away.
So, as is 2019 turned into2020 2021. We were we're we're
watching real carefully, becauseI mean, there's a lot of permits
that will require publicinvolvement in scoping. And
that's one of the that's one ofthe foundations of the small

(12:05):
group that I work for send onecitizens alliances that we
expect there to be robust publicinvolvement. And then, you know,
a project like this has so manymoving parts, and so many, so
many design criteria that needso much design criteria that
needs to be coordinated into thepermits. And so you're also

(12:26):
multi jurisdictional here,because a lot of the project
would have crossed tribal land,it would have crossed federal
land, state land, private land,I mean, there's a lot of
jurisdictional issues. And so,you know, when these folks kind
of came into town, is Acmeequities and said, Hey, we're,
you know, we're energy expertslike, oh, Surely not. Like, like

(12:49):
coming 22 We were convincedbasically, that, you know,
there's no way that they couldget in into permits and they,
they readily identified, capturecarbon sequestration equipment
would not be on the sale andgeneration until 2027. So the
sale and generating stationclosed in September 2022. And

(13:12):
all the other owners were readyfor it to be done when they want
it off their books. They want itdecommissioned. And there's a
real value in that to theutilities that have decided to
abandon this facility. And theyabandon it because it was an
economic loser, that they can nolonger produce coal in economic

(13:36):
fashion for the utilities thatinclude California,
historically, Arizona, Utah, youknow, it's the classic energy
export and the utilities that wekind of we intervened and a
bunch of abandonment processesparticularly Republic service

(13:57):
company in New Mexico and wesecured renewable energy
replacement so that's wherewe're going in the San Juan
Basin.

Dina Rasor (14:08):
Okay, and my understanding that with their
arbitration going on because theowner the most of the owners
wanted to liquidate the plantand its equipment and all that
and and then what they did youknow, which would be a hard
thing to piece back together. Iffor some reason this sort of

(14:28):
pipe dream of carbon capturecame back and then that was one
of the reasons that enchantdecided to blow because and go
somewhere else possibly.
Probably also didn't like beingwatched. Like, there but also
it's interesting to me thatenchant is still going to keep
their headquarters inFarmington, what's that all

(14:48):
about? Because they don't haveit? Are they are they planning
some kind of other local thingthat you don't know about?

Mike Eisenfeld (14:56):
Um, well, that I mean, they could be they could
be I'm knowing kind of thepeople who've taken over it and
chant. They're like Utah utilitypeople who took over for the
hedge funders who are nowhere tobe found. So there were the two
hedge funders, Heller, and selltwo were then joined by a guy

(15:17):
named Peter Mandelstam, andthey've all left town, I think
they grabbed them money thatthey couldn't get out of here.
And now, there's a lady namedCindy crane used to be Rocky
Mountain Power. And I'd bebelieved Pacific Corp. And I
don't think that she's reallypaying attention to like the
details, because in my opinion,I think that they would probably

(15:38):
say something like, well, wehave a field study for San Juan
generating station. So let'slike move that over to four
corners power plant across theSan Juan River. But it doesn't
really work that way. And then Ithink that they have sort of hid
under this idea that a lot oftheir projects are confidential.
And I, I think until they comeclean, and kind of say, hey,

(16:00):
here are the real projects. Whatour organization does is we get
engaged as soon as the projectis announced. And then we
started looking into all thepermitting mechanisms, all the
design criteria, all thepotential power purchase
agreements, utility, utilityworld can be real wonkish. But
we track that pretty, pretty,pretty readily. They may have

(16:24):
another project that they'veconcocted, but I would say it's
probably on a 10 year, seven to10 year permitting timeline. And
I think that, you know, that'snot the issue here in San Juan
Basin. The issue in the San JuanBasin is what comes now.

Dina Rasor (16:41):
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's one of the things I
wanted to ask you. What was thereaction to the local officials
and you know, some of thecitizens in your area who
worried about the jobs, what wastheir reaction that this plant
was really was closing? Did theysuddenly have this jolt of oh,
these hedge fund people aren'tgoing to come back in and save

(17:04):
us? And is anybody asking what'snext? Who was for the plant but
has now realized that they haveto try to make up the economy in
another way?

Mike Eisenfeld (17:15):
No, I you know, this. The mayor, and the city
manager sort of came up withsome, you know, justification,
that you know, they gave ittheir best shot and the energy
transition act and publicservice company in New Mexico
are one of the reasons thatenchant couldn't have their
great project and then theyquickly kind of came in and

(17:37):
said, Well, you know, we'llreplace it with a with natural
gas. And again, you know, thecity of Farmington has ownership
and sandwich generation is veryminor 43 megawatts. So what's
interesting is that they'rewilling to like pay for the most
expensive natural gas facilitythat that they want next, and
totally overlooking renewableenergy and the cost

(17:57):
effectiveness. So um, but to me,like the community already knew,
you know, that this that thisenchant project was going
nowhere in public meetings havebeen to their were had to do
with carbon dioxide emissionstandards at San Juan generating
station that state of New Mexicohad, there was no opposition to

(18:21):
the idea that seminargeneralization was closing, I
think the community has come togrips with the fact that it's
done.

Dina Rasor (18:29):
I've always been surprised about the fact it's a
new term for me is that yourarea and the Permian Basin and
other places in New Mexico areconsidered sacrifice zones. And
they call them that because theyjust say, Well, you know, the
environment, the people andeverything are gonna have to be
sacrificed. Because we have tohave this oil and gas. And when

(18:52):
I talked to Kaylee shoop, who'san activist down in the Permian
Basin, in New Mexico, and theyhave a down near Carlsbad, they
have a giant thing and when wetalked to her and her podcast
was the week last week beforethis one aired, and she was
saying that it is so it's stilleasy to get oil and gas out of

(19:18):
the Permian Basin, it's stillvery economical to do it. And so
therefore, that makes it veryhard for her and but you've
gotten a situation where it'sgetting less and less and less
and it reminds me of the CookInlet, Alaska oil gas leases,

(19:38):
where President Biden had a bigbig auction for and nobody came.
And then the big the big oilcompanies didn't come the one
small oil company with the youknow, because you said that
they're bomb gold in yourcommunity to date. They just did

(20:01):
one little small part. And itreally was sort of the attitude,
I think it would have been acombination of. It's very, it's
getting very hard and expensiveand Alaska to go up there and
try to get things done. There'salso a pushback from the
community and environmentalists,and it just wasn't economic. And

(20:23):
so you're sort of, I think, sortof in between Alaska and the
Permian Basin, you probablystill have some income from
that. But then you're startingstarting to talk about
transitioning. And do you thinkthat you're as far as you being
able to convince the people orthe the officials around you in
the population around you thatyou need to have a trans

(20:44):
transition to clean energy? Thatthat'd be easier for you to do
then for Kaylee? Shoop, in thePermian Basin?

Mike Eisenfeld (20:52):
Yeah, no, Kelly's wonderful, I admire, you
know, the work, but the PermianBasin in that that's just a,
that's boom, boom town. Youknow, the Four Corners area was
designated the National Energysacrifice zone in 1972, by
President Nixon's projectindependence. And at that point,

(21:13):
you know, that was when the SanJuan generating station just
been built in the four cornerspower plant had been built in
1962. And those two facilitiesare probably responsible for
places like Phoenix, SouthernCalifornia, the energy export
associated with quote, quote,clean energy from coal fired

(21:35):
power plants where, you know,nobody really thought too much
about it. But in the FourCorners area where we're getting
all the externalities, andaccording to project
independence, this area wasdevoid of culture. And also,
because we get less than 10inches of precipitation per
year, the National Academy ofSciences said, Yeah, you know,

(21:57):
might as well just sacrifice it.
And so I think that over thepast, you know, 15 years, I've
worked for satellite systemsscience for 16 years. And we've
learned from fighting newproposed coal fired power
plants, like desert rock outhere, which was really funded by
the Blackstone Group. toexisting coal fired power plants

(22:18):
to now what comes next. Andthere's this huge economic
opportunity here on remediation,Reclamation and renewables. And
actually, when our group andothers bunch of Navajo groups
that we work with, we allintervened at public Regulation
Commission for the state of NewMexico and the abandonment, the
similar generating station, andthere was a big controversy over

(22:40):
what was going to replace the847 megawatts. It's in one
generalization. And there's alot of advocacy for natural gas
facilities, but the PRC chosewhat we advocated for which is
full replacement, with solar. Sowe should have our first solar
project being constructed inMarch of 2023, couple months

(23:05):
from now. And that's, that's our300 megawatt project is going to
be just north east of San Juangenerating station on basically
brownfield reclamation, land onarea, kind of sits on top of the
Old San Juan mine, and then it'sgonna utilize stranded assets of
the powerlines and, and theelectrical, electrical

(23:32):
substations. And that was thesort of stuff that, you know,
with the enchant folks were wekept saying to him, like, well,
you don't have any transmissionlines, where are you going to
build your transmission lines,and these people looked at us,
like, we're idiots, you know,and we're like, you don't have
any transmission? They probablydidn't have any water. I mean,
it's always projects aroundhere, you always got to kind of

(23:54):
look at and comprehensively kindof go, okay, where, you know,
where, where are you gettingyour, the natural resources
from? What are you going to dowith them? Where's it going? And
we're still a real remote area.
So, for the San Juan Basin, Ithink our issues are distinct

(24:17):
from the Permian Basin. And, youknow, like I said, I think, you
know, Kaylee's doing a wonderfuljob trying to, you know, work
within that community and, and Ifeel like, the, the impacts are
really becoming prevalent downthere. And that area really is
out of attainment on ozone. Andthose are the sorts of things

(24:41):
that I'm here in the San JuanBasin, for the first time ever,
I mean, we're seeing you know,clear, clear skies, taking this
San Juan generating station,offline and then four corners
power plant is going to go toseasonal operations next year,
and so it'll close down inOctober. I'm not sure the
community He realizes that, butin essence, Farmington, New

(25:04):
Mexico will be coal free for thefirst time in 60 years.

Dina Rasor (25:09):
Wow. That's That's amazing accomplishment. Yeah.

Gregory A. Williams (25:13):
But to what extent did the solar projects
have battery storageincorporated in them? Or are
they simply designed to providepower during the day?

Mike Eisenfeld (25:22):
Yeah. So the main project that I'm talking
about is the San Juan solarproject, which is a replacement
power PPA for San JuanGenerating Station closure. And
that project is 300 megawatts ofsolar panels and 100 megawatts
of storage. And it's a first,it's a first part of a 1400
megawatt project, it will doublethe amount of power that was

(25:48):
coming at a San Juan generatingstation at about a third a third
of the cost of coal.

Dina Rasor (25:56):
That's great. And how, what, what, how many home?
Can you translate that intosomething for an average person?
How many homes does that meanthat you can supply electricity
to? And? Or how is it going tohelp replace what the power
plant was doing?

Mike Eisenfeld (26:15):
Yeah, we're, we think that it's about 100,000
homes. But I think that one ofthe things is there were
advocating for its use of thatpower here in the four corners,
they will be kind of accessingthe transmission to go into kind
of the western grid. But, youknow, for many, many years, the

(26:38):
four corners, the Four Cornersarea was provided under provide
power to far off places. And Ithink that's been part of the
problem of why we wereconsidered a national energy
sacrifice down. And then, youknow, the acknowledgement in the
year 2023. That that's not okay,anymore. That, you know, I mean,
I think that our next battle isprobably going to be over

(27:00):
environmental justice and energyjustice, and even like the
enchant people, were trying tokind of convey that, you know,
the real environmental justiceissue was that the coal workers
didn't have, you know, jobsanymore. And, and in many ways,
I mean, I think that we went to,to great lengths to make sure

(27:23):
that any replacement power uphere would create jobs would
replace property taxes, andprovide money for local school
districts, and we insisted thatPNM have some of their
replacement projects up here inSan Juan County. And now, that
was a lot more than any of ourso called political leaders up
here advocated for all they weresaying is we've been victimized

(27:46):
and our coal fired power plantsneed to be allowed to continue
to run. And I mean, in terms ofclimate change, the power plants
here have been a disaster.
Number one single point sourceof pollution. The United States
at one point was a combined fourcorners power plant in San Juan
Generating Station pollution.

Dina Rasor (28:06):
Wow, well, I guess it may, you know, it was
certainly would make sense tothe average person, you know,
you've got local people that areresistant to having things
change. And, and, you know, andespecially when you're in, you
know, in a low income area,people don't have the luxury of
saying, Okay, I'll, you know,I'll transition, you know, in

(28:27):
six months and do something elseor whatever. But when I think
about when I think about whatthey're, you're looking at here,
you got to dig up the coal, youknow, power of the plant, and
you know, and all the pollutionand everything, but a place that
only gets 10 inches of rain ayear, I would think that would
be a real goldmine for solar.
Because, you know, a lot oflike, right now in California,

(28:51):
we're not making much solarbecause we will next week
because we've had since midDecember, almost monsoonal
conditions, but in a place likethat you I would think that
would be a real good place to dosolar. I don't know about wind.
I don't know about the windroses in your area, but do solar
because and get people tounderstand, look, we're all

(29:13):
about the sun. The sun's alwaysalmost always shining here. So
is the the is Do you see thecommunity starting to look
through that? And are you guysthinking about encouraging the
local government to apply forenvironmental justice plants
because the DOE Department ofEnergy just is and the and the

(29:35):
EPA are just desperate to throwout environmental justice money
and have it go to a place thatactually can transition so they
can say see, we need to do this?

Mike Eisenfeld (29:49):
Yeah, we're we're looking at some possible
partnerships with some CountyCounty entities and possible
some of the Navajo chapters TheNavajo government broken into, I
think 110 chapters and some ofthe chapters over here have
expressed interest in pursuingfederal money. And you know, the

(30:11):
energy. justice issues arepretty pretty loaded, but we
have not seen any indication ofreal applications for for money
associated with the inflationReduction Act and other
resources here. That was one ofthe most dangerous things about

(30:34):
the enchant project was the cityof Farmington, we asked him to
do an audit of enchant and theyrefused. And so, I think the
fact that the city of Farmingtonwas like, everything's going
great, everything's going greatand kind of lulled people into
this idea that there was noproblem. And this is a community
that's you know, is we, we don'twant abrupt closures. We want

(30:57):
transition time. And so our nextthing is going to be for
Congress power plants probablygoing to retire sooner and 2031.
So let's consider it an eightyear process and let's get to
work on you know what comesnext. But I think once some of
these solar projects get builtand create job opportunities and
create significant economicdevelopment opportunities, the

(31:22):
city of Farmington thinks thatthey have this. This this slogan
called Joe, your journey tobring in like recreation,
retirees investment andcommunity and we keep asking
them, don't you think that iflike you were able to like
convince, like outdoor companiesto come? What would be the first

(31:43):
thing they would ask for if theywere going to have a warehouse
in Farmington, do you think itwould be renewable energy? So
they need to incentivize thisconnection between like quality
of life diversity,diversification of the economy,
Reclamation clean up. I mean,there's a lot of things that we

(32:04):
could be doing particularly onthe Brownfields side of things.
But it's going to take politicalleadership that is something
different than what we've had. Ithink the city of Farmington
political leadership has beenvery weak at best. And I think
you know, them claiming thatthey were victimized by the
energy transition act and PNM tosignify that they are in a very,

(32:28):
very poor position and couldn'treally leverage anything once
they committed to the enchantproject, which was looked bad in
2019. And looks even worse in2023.

Dina Rasor (32:43):
Okay, well, I do know from looking around, in
fact, I'll, for anyone who'slistening this as a local
activist, will also have this onour website. But they're the EPA
is looking to fund nonprofitgroups who are working on
environmental environmenvironmental justice and
transition. So they're actuallyunderstanding, you know, like,

(33:08):
what some areas are likeAppalachia and stuff, they're
actually understanding thatthere's the sort of the
ingrained power that powers thatbe, and the money and the
politicians and Big Oil,whatever, but that there are
local activists, and they'retalking about giving them money
to help get make sure that the Ithink that what I get from

(33:29):
reading this is, especially withthe Biden administration, that
they want the environmentaljustice thing to work, because
it's become it's a political,football, and they'd love to see
some success in it, becausethere's going to be pressure to
get rid of that with the Houseof Representatives. And so I

(33:52):
will put that on our website. Soanybody who's looking to say, in
a smaller group, oh, yeah, weneed some money to really do
public education on what's outthere, and what the federal
government and state governmentscan do and what we know what
needs to be done to have asuccessful transition. And it
sounds like you you guys, as yougo, right now are sort of

(34:16):
starting starting the out thegate on the new frontier of
renewable energy, and it's whatpercentage of your population
you think is really going to gofor it?

Mike Eisenfeld (34:31):
So, um, you know, so So basically, there
have been two full time peopleworking for San Juan Citizens
Alliance and disenchant projectand all this transition work for
the past five years, six years.
And so part of the challenge forus is building capacity to like
be advocating for the types ofprojects that we want, rather

(34:54):
than just being in sort ofdefense mode to fight back ACC,
you know, these really, reallybad projects. And that's why
it's great that on December 20,and 21st, the city of Farmington
and chant, threw in the towel ontheir project, you know, they
they finally realized thatenormous legal problem for them
and the city of Farmington keptsaying and chants taking over,

(35:18):
and enchant, you know, wasincompetent, had no had done
virtually nothing in terms ofpermitting, couldn't really show
much of an investment and reallydidn't make a dent in their
problem with eight of nineutilities wanting to
decommission and demolish SanJuan generating station. So

(35:41):
we'll we'll, we'll kind of haveto deal with San Juan generating
station being gone, andhopefully the renewable energy
projects kick in, and hopefullyour community will at some point
be like, alright, you know, wewere part of a transition. I
think that places like you know,Farmington, New Mexico are some
of the hardest places in thecountry for change. And, you

(36:03):
know, I'm not saying that, youknow, we have all the answers.
But I think that we recognizedthat the speculative kind of
snake oil projects that are onlysort of pushed out there as the
next solution. There's more tothem. And so now we're gonna
have another round of hydrogenis a big issue, particularly

(36:27):
blue hydrogen derived fromnatural gas. And we're going to
continue to see carbon capturecarbon sequestration,
particularly the sequestrationside, I think that from the two
studies that we're aware of, inthe San Juan Basin, they were
both unsuccessful in being ableto sequester large amounts of
carbon dioxide. So that'sanother thing and it, you know,

(36:50):
you hear it a lot, you know,where people are like, oh, yeah,
well sequester. And it's I thinkit's more complicated. And so
our community, I think theyshould be asking questions about
the city of Farmington and whythe city of Farmington failed so
miserably in terms of in termsof reporting on what was going

(37:14):
on within Chan. I mean, I wentto meeting after meeting and
said, I think enchant isunderperforming. I don't think
they know what you're doing. AndI think you should start
thinking about a plan B, andthey just blew us off.

Dina Rasor (37:31):
Well, it sounds good. It sounds like you're
right. Go ahead. Great.

Gregory A. Williams (37:35):
Yeah. So in that vein, we discussed before
the recording the idea thatthere's there's a lot of
evidence on the side, the thethe sequestration projects are
very problematic and often don'twork out. Well. We were talking
about the GAO report that cameout and I think 2021 That showed
a series of projects that mostof which never got off the

(37:59):
ground and the few that did onlyoperate for a short period of
time and dramaticallyunderperform their targets. And
then the do E's response to thiswas well, we'll create a whole
new agency to to overseetechnology demonstration
programs. They've yet to appointand, and confirm a permanent

(38:26):
director of that Bureau and thatBureau's website hasn't changed
in almost a year. And so I'mwondering what thoughts you have
about accountability and and howthe federal government needs to
do a better job of you know, notleading communities like yours
down the garden path?

Mike Eisenfeld (38:43):
Yeah, yeah. So.
So carbon capture and storagewhen it comes to coal fired
power plants, has across theboard failed. And so the
Department of Energy has beenmanaging what they've been
calling demonstration projects.
And g Gao found that theyinvested $1.1 billion and carbon

(39:07):
capture and storage. were eightof the projects of 684,000,001
operational facility was theresult. And then they also
talked about kind of carboncapture sequestration for other
industrial projects, which Iwould assume around here would
be for natural gas. But youknow, the fact of the matter is

(39:29):
that and chant is anotherfailure along the lines of Petro
Nova future Gen camper. At whatpoint does the Department of
Energy sort of acknowledged thatthese carbon capture carbon
sequestration projects hadfailed across the board because
in chat for a while, was toutingthat they were you know, similar
to Petra Nova and touting PetraNova is their model and then

(39:54):
Petra Nova closed and then theydidn't talk about it anymore.
But I think that uh, There'sthis idea that, you know, we
continue to, to burn coal, andsomehow there's some panacea
that we're going to, you know,utilize that carbon dioxide
enhanced oil recovery, orsequester it. And I mean, we
started saying with the enchantproject, Oh, you guys, you guys

(40:17):
just want to burn coal. So youcan bury it in the ground and
get 45 Key tax credits, how evilyou people are pathetic, you
know, and I mean, this is sortof way I would be talking to
him. When I would run into himin meetings, I'd be like, what
do you guys doing? You know, andthey're like, Well, I mean, I
think there's a class of humanbeings out there. Now. They're

(40:38):
called venture capitalists. Theydon't care. Right? They come
into your community, leech asmuch as they can. And then when
they go, they're just like, oh,well, we gave it our best shot,
and they move on to their nextvictims. So, um, you know, I
mean, I'm, I don't know if Ishould be judging, you know, the

(40:58):
hedge funder guys and judgingdoe, but at some point enough,
is enough. And I mean, it'sdisingenuous to tell a community
like Farmington that this isgoing to work. I mean, the whole
thing was fraught with problemsfrom day one.

Dina Rasor (41:13):
Like gives you an idea of why the what what the
word sacrifice means andsacrifice zones, they just come
in to see it's a place for them,they probably come and say, Look
at this old dusty area, andnobody answers sit in and blah,
blah, blah. And you know,they've been doing it for hear
yours, they're already polluted.
So let's, let's try to get thecarbon tax credits, which I'm

(41:34):
something I'm do want to do apodcast on one point, because I
think that's gonna be a giantdisaster. So based on this
victory that, you know, that youguys have earned even though you
you know, you say there wereeconomic things happening,
something happening. But yourthe one of the things that
probably helped a lot is theyknew that if they were going to

(41:55):
go in there, you pesky activistsare going to just keep watching
them and pointing out that theemperor has no clothes. And so
that, you know, it's easier forthem to go down to some other
place that's much has much lessactivism and just keep not
getting the bad PR. So based onthis victory, you have what what

(42:17):
advice would you have for otherlocal community groups are
trying to shut down localclimate damaging industries and
planning for transition? I knowit's hard. But what what kind of
advice would you give them?
Because you've probably gottenfarther than a lot of them?

Mike Eisenfeld (42:32):
Yeah, yeah. So So in my 16 years, with San Juan
systems Alliance, and the 10years earlier, I learned a lot
in the 10 years earlier opinion,environmental consultant around
here, because there are a lot ofpeople who kind of, you know,
they wanted their projectyesterday, or they didn't want
to give you the project details,or they thought that they could,
you know, just get away withdoing things illegally. So in a

(42:55):
lot of ways, a lot of our workis in one systems Alliance, the
same model, you know, one, youknow, you just gotta dig in, and
be persistent. And look at whatthe project components are,
what's the plan? Who's involved?
What are the opportunitiesavailable to us? I mean, can is
it gonna be like a federalnexuses, where you could do a

(43:16):
Freedom of Information Actrequests, you can ask for
scoping where you can ask forpublic involvement where you can
prepare comments, is it going torequire environmental impact
statements is in choir airpermits, a complete inventory,
and just that persistence, andthen when they start having
public meetings, where theystart, like, you know, appearing

(43:37):
at the legislature, sure, or,you know, trying to convince the
community about how great theirprojects show up at every event,
and you know, kind of like, makesure like, like the enchant
guys, like they knew we were atevery event, they would kind of
look at us like, well, you know,what are you thinking of which
sometimes we, you know, wouldrespond. But we also had a bunch

(44:02):
of experience with the desertrock energy project, which I
mentioned before, which wasactually funded by the
Blackstone Group, StephenSchwarzman, from New York City
in the great philanthropist,his, his private equity firm,
and it was Basil, basilGiuliani, Rudy Giuliani's law
firm, and it was a crediblecompany, safe global. And at

(44:24):
that point, you know, when wefirst started on that project, I
started going to some of theirmeetings. And one of their
principals got up and said,there's no environmental
opposition. in Farmington, thisis great. And I was like, okay,
and kind of took that as achallenge. And then the other
thing is that, you know, webecause of our partnerships with

(44:48):
some other groups, kind ofthrough the region and then our
partnerships with some otherenvironmental organizations, you
know, we I think we're prettyformidable. And then we also
have, we had secured legalrepresentation through the
Western Environmental LawCenter. Basically, we're the
ones who are standing here. Andthey're the ones who agreed to

(45:10):
represent us. So that wassomething that happened about 10
years ago, where we reallyworked hard to make that
partnership work. But havingkind of the ability to sort of
be like, Hey, we're going towrite comments. And then you
know, we're going to appeal. Andif we don't appeal, we're going
to consider litigation. I mean,all those sorts of things become
viable if you really want tochallenge a project. So you have

(45:33):
to have those relationships inplace. But I mean, again, you
know, the enchant project, Imean, you know, it was so poorly
conceived, so poorly executed.
And the fact that they abandonit at the end of December just
allows us to work on otherthings, which is great.

Dina Rasor (45:56):
Do you do you think it actually helped that you
didn't have to take on one ofthe major oil companies like in
the Permian basis, you know,there's Chevron and Exxon, and
everybody's down there, becauseof the big PR, money, lawyers,
everything that they can throwat you. And instead, you had
something that was a smallerentity that didn't have
unlimited resources? Do youthink that helped to?

Mike Eisenfeld (46:18):
Yeah, I mean, you know, like the San Juan
Basin, we had all the majorskind of go, BP, Williams, we had
them all of them left. And nowwe have hilcorp. And hilcorp,
doesn't want to put any moneyinto this area, they just want
to work off production. Butwe'll deal with them. If we had

(46:39):
to, they they tried to come inand try to increase their space
in here to get four more wellsper square mile. And we'd be we
we beat them on that. So, um,we've dealt with the big oil and
gas companies, a lot of them,you know, the game is to get out
of here before the reclamationand the remediation come into

(47:02):
effect. And I think that that'swhat's going on. Now we have a
lot of orphan wells, I believewe have a lot of companies that
are trying to get out of here.
That's that's, that's why SanJuan generating station and San
Juan mine, and four cornerspower plant, Navajo mine are in
the situation they're in becauseall the coal companies and
utilities are trying to leavebefore they had to account for

(47:25):
the liabilities.

Dina Rasor (47:29):
But it sounds it sounds like the classic thing,
they don't want to clean uptheir mess. Oh my gosh, the
environmentalists are moving in,and we've got this mess, we
might have to clean up, we getout of there, we don't have to
have the liability.

Mike Eisenfeld (47:41):
That's the story of why the Four Corners area was
deemed in the National Energysacrifice zone 50 years ago and
1972 was is because it's likethe uranium and all companies
that left behind all the wastesand all the hardrock mining from
the early 1900s. It's not a newscenario. I mean, it's like you

(48:05):
get out and you leave your mess.
And that's the sort of thingthat's why like the big oil and
gas companies left from appearsbecause they recognized that
they didn't want us to deal withit. And then they sell it to
like the column on pause, butthey're really not. My kill
caller is not in mon paw hilcorphas an abhorrent record,
particularly in Alaska. And Ithink, you know, we'll be

(48:29):
watchdogging them up here in theSan Juan Basin. But you know,
the Permian Basin is sort of anarea of growth. And I would say
that the San Juan Basin, thetransition is upon us. And part
of that really is reclamation,remediation and replacement with
renewables.

Dina Rasor (48:51):
And usually the federal government ends up
having to clean do the cleanup.
I know that was true with thedefense contractors, plants and
stuff when they left, they justleave a mess and it has to be
cleaned up. But it's and that'swhy you know, you have Superfund
sites and things like thatbecause they don't hold these
these corporations accountableonce they leave.

Mike Eisenfeld (49:15):
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's kind of a sad,
you know, historic reality thata lot, a lot of the particularly
the uranium on Navajo Nation andother tribal lands was never
cleaned up. And that's just apretty horrendous legacy. But I
think that you know, in terms ofno watchdogs, and in terms of

(49:40):
responsibility andaccountability, the big deal is
is going to be clean up, becausea lot of these areas, you know,
like four corners. The uraniumtailings site and Shiprock for
example, that should be cleanedup and noted similar one in Moab
was and what's the difference?
It's, you know, like, but thenext generation, I believe of

(50:04):
environmental activists, they'rereally gonna have a lot of work
on their hands. And I think Ithink it's going to be an
important work. I'm six yearsold, so I'm kind of like,
alright, you know, I can workanother 1015 years on this, and
then you know, be done. I don'tknow. But it's really kind of,
it's great to see like, youknow, the enchant projects of

(50:26):
the world go by the wayside.
It's great to kind of verifythat indeed, San Juan generating
station is going to bedecommissioned and demolished
and replaced with renewables.
And then also, you know, thereclamation economy that really
needs to be focused on so inmany ways, I feel like you know,
it was a it was a good Decemberand now that as we're moving

(50:50):
into 2023, let's do it add youknow, the opportunities bring

Dina Rasor (50:58):
so in a kind of wrapped up for other activists
is it's being savvy, beingsmart, let them know you're
there, let them know you're nota fly by night. You know,
sometimes we're reporters comedown peep the activists get
frustrated because you get a oneday wonder article, you know,
everybody's mad and then theymove on to the next thing that

(51:20):
persistency and and beingpersistent and and saying,
letting the, even the bigcompanies know, we're not
leaving, we're not moving. Thisis where we live, and then
calling them their, their bluffon all the sleight of hand
things they try to do. It soundslike that might be besides all
the other stuff, you do that,that despite the fear that

(51:42):
you're going to constantly have,you know, my guys and Phil show
up in every meeting and say, theemperor has no clothes. They
don't like that. And so theydidn't expect that in a small
town, I think I think they'dexpected like, oh, yeah, these
people are used to it, you know,these people use the pollution,
they you know, they don't likeyour thing. So I'm really glad
that that gotten to that point.
And we are, we're pretty. I'mpretty dedicated to seeing, keep

(52:06):
following up with you. Andfollowing up with Kaylee shoop,
because she's got a, she sort ofmight, the more the beginning of
that process, and follow youguys and find out when whenever
something comes up, you comeback on, and we talk about it,
because it'd be great to havesort of a primmer of activity
through our podcasts that youlisten to four or five podcasts.

(52:27):
And you can find out how Mikewas able to in his groups or
groups were able to keepmarching away and keep changing,
and whether or not that thefederal government is serious
about their environmentaljustice money.

Gregory A. Williams (52:49):
So I was going to offer maybe as a
summary that, while the longmoral arc of the universe may
have been towards justice, andonly does if you show up, be
informed, be organized and bepersistent. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Eisenfeld (53:03):
And also, you know, it's like, I think a lot
of times that, you know, theseproject proponents are used to
sort of like bullying theirprojects through or, or, you
know, it's a side deal. And kindof, you know, like, a lot of
them don't really understand thepermitting requirements here and

(53:24):
the group like sovereignCitizens Alliance, I mean, we're
definitely technical people.
We're, we have a couple oflawyers on staff, we have policy
people, we are practitioners ofgovernment, environmental
regulatory structure. And so Imean, I think that I think that,
um, you know, kind of given theresults that our organization

(53:44):
has, it would probably behoovefolks to kind of like, at least
consider the fact that we arehere, and that our knowledge of
the history, the locations, thesituations, the facilities,
comes into play. And so near thedesert rock, guys, when they

(54:07):
were like, there's no, you know,environmental opposition, I just
think that they didn't reallyunderstand but given kind of our
track record, on numerous coalfired power plants on oil and
gas issues, that, you know, Ithink that we are a credible,
participatory organization inthe Four Corners area. And so

(54:29):
you got to have that technicalsavvy, and you got to have the
knowledge. And also I think thata lot of the big environment
organizations they parachutepeople in and there's rapid
turnover. But in an organizationlike ours, I mean, we we've had
three or four staffers who arearound for 15 years, and I don't

(54:51):
want to work for like a bigenvironmental organization,
where people are telling me whatto do. mean, I get to sort of
craft the strategy on theseprojects. So the enchant
project, it was like might getyour project, you know,
crashing. And so we would justsay in our staff meetings,
crashing chant,

Dina Rasor (55:14):
Oh, that's great. I also want to put this in as the
climate money watchdog. When westarted looking at stuff a year
ago, the the funding wasn't eventhrough. So we but we knew that
there was going on any kind offunding goes through with that
match your money, and especiallyin the area of environmental
which is hasn't had that levelof money, that there would be a

(55:37):
problem. So that's where westarted money, climate money
watchdog. And so what we didfirst was kind of just say, have
people on that said, you know,this is what's going to happen
based on the fact you have a lotof federal money, it didn't have
to be specifically on onclimate. And then we've gotten a
climate activists and scientistsand other people on, but what we

(55:59):
really are shooting for and, andI'll make the appeal to you, but
everybody else that's out thereis we, Greg and is one of my Our
expertise is working withwhistleblowers. And we've never
had anyone caught and fired. Andsometime if you think you're
gonna go up against a big oilcompany, or you're, you know,
your employer, you're anemployee, or you're you know, or

(56:20):
you know, somebody or this andthat and you want to do
something, it's usually muchbetter if you do that with
somebody who's already seen allthe things, they try to do
whistleblowers, and you know,you really mean you have that
kind of whether you'recompletely anonymous, or whether
you're, you're either in or outof the closet, as we call it,
this whistleblower. So I wouldencourage you and everybody else

(56:43):
that if you would like to get tobe the situation where because
we know that the media remedies,you know, the talking to
government officials, remedies,and also the courts and all the
different kinds of laws onfederal waste, that they contact
climate money watchdog.org,which is on our website, we have

(57:05):
an info thing. And we would behappy to review people's cases
and look at them, because in thelong run, we're sort of in that
time now where they're spendingthe money, but they're probably
not spending it long enough forthe fraud to prop up. They what
happens is, after a while, theysort of have to start, like for

(57:25):
example, the you know, thefailure with the enchant, stuff
like that, it starts to pop up.
And if you've if you there arepeople who are ex employees, or
you know, even local officialsof somebody else who wants to be
a whistleblower, or wants to getthe information out without
being caught, fired, I've neverhad anyone gotten fired, is to
contact us. And we're going toalso keep working with activist

(57:46):
groups like yours and like, likeKaylee shoop, and other people,
too, so that you guys, when yourun up against this, can you you
know, if you have awhistleblower or somebody comes
to you, we can, we would behappy to partner with you to

(58:06):
look at that, that stuff andcheck that whistleblower out and
then tell you guys and thewhistleblower what the remedies
are. So we're, we're workingtowards oversight, but we're
also working towards the thingthat we think is probably the
most successful, and that'ssomebody blowing the whistle,
whether it's anonymously, or inpublicly. And we'd like to

(58:30):
encourage that because you canuse, I always tell people, when
they say you want to go after abig company, I always say, you
know, being such good activismand good. Getting that getting
an investigation and gettingthese people it's Oh, it's like

(58:50):
a bank robbery. And so it'sbetter if it's an inside job.
somebody's telling you where thevault is, where's this or that?
Because you you're letting theoutside looking in. But if you
have somebody anonymouslytelling you where to go and
where to look, it also freaksout the companies because they
don't know who's talking.

Mike Eisenfeld (59:09):
Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. I mean, for us,
it's like we're a publicinterest, environmental
organizations. So for example,and Chan said, you know, we're
gonna have, we're gonna get $1.4billion in investors for this
project. And so then, you know,we would track their reporting,
and we were to look at on SECfilings and be like, how much

(59:29):
did they get? And in terms ofinvestors, and so they get
$100,000. And then they said,Well, we're gonna apply for that
money in a grant. And we'relike, well, where's your
application? Where's your filedapplication? Oh, we haven't
filed it yet. And we're like,Okay, sounds like you don't
really have much of a project.
And then if they don't havescoping, and they don't have

(59:50):
environmental impact statements,and they don't go after permits,
then we're pre decisional. Wecan't even go after him. Until
I'll get to a juncture. So thinkabout that in terms of like, you
know, these companies that cometo town and go, we partnered
with the city of Farmington,everything's going hunky dory.
And so they haven't doneanything in five years. And so

(01:00:11):
then, you know, for a place likeFarmington are we going to see
things that are for real? Orwe're gonna see this, like,
continuation of these kind ofsnake oil projects that are
fraudulent, that are corrupt?
And, you know, frequently we dohear things in the community.

(01:00:34):
We're all we're all yours.

Dina Rasor (01:00:37):
Okay, well, we weren't gonna keep following
you. And, and you, you let usknow when you're going to next
step. And we'll just keepemailing back and forth tips.
And that's I want the public toknow who listens to this and the
activists and listen to this.
This is what we're going to do.
And we're now gearing up to workwith whistle blowers.

Mike Eisenfeld (01:00:57):
Um, thank you so much. I'm Greg and Dina and
really appreciate climate moneywatchdog and the opportunity to
kind of tell our, our storyabout some of the projects
around here, but um, I thinkwe're hopefully headed to a real
transition, and we'll keepworking for that.

Gregory A. Williams (01:01:16):
All right.
Well, thanks for being with us.
And more importantly, thanks fordoing the work that you do.