Hydrostor says federal loan guarantee at risk if state relaxes review schedule
Toronto-based project developer Hydrostor Inc. said agency employees assigned to the project have all the information they need to complete a preliminary staff assessment that is supposed to be done by Wednesday but which could take additional time if the commission allows it.
A representative of the company emphasized Wednesday in a filing with the agency that Hydrostor's recent efforts to avoid or minimize potential impacts of the Willow Rock Energy Storage Center are not to be taken as changes in the project's description.
"As a matter of good public policy, the review process should not result in applicants being placed in the position of 'expect a delay if you do not consider an avoidance measure or expect a delay if you do,'" wrote Jeffery D. Harris, a lawyer with the Climate Edge Law Group.
The 500-megawatt installation would provide California's power grid more than eight hours of backup electricity when renewable power sources are unavailable. It is expected to create hundreds of construction jobs and about 40 full-time positions.
Last week, a commission employee filed a motion blaming red tape, largely originating from other government agencies, for complications that have bogged down staff's review. It pointed to a series of issues such as wastewater discharge and preservation of archaeological resources.
The request came less than three hours after the committee told staff to file the project's preliminary assessment by no later than 5 p.m. Wednesday. Or, if it insists it lacks sufficient information to do so, then staff must identify what's missing, show the chronology of efforts to get the information and explain the impact of not having it.
This week's motion by Hydrostor, which is essentially a rebuttal asking the state to deny the staff request, said the stakes are high — not only the project's ability to meet an energy-storage procurement mandate by the California Public Utilities Commission, as well as federal tax credits available to ratepayers, but also the federal loan guarantee offered by the Biden administration in January.
Granting the deadline extensions, if the commission agrees to do so, would change the project's review schedule, potentially pushing back evidentiary hearings by a month and a half to mid-August. Expectations are that, regardless, approval could come by the end of this year, which is when Hydrostor proposes to start construction.
The company's motion said staff has had all the information it needs for more than 30 days before the deadline request was submitted. It said this holds true for an application for two incidental take permits, a request filed with the state Department of Water Resources' Division of Safety of Dams, a report related to the site's cultural resources and notice of the removal of an evaporation pond and reverse osmosis system.
Despite questions about whether the dam safety division has jurisdiction over part of the project, Harris' motion said the commission alone is the lead agency responsible for ensuring the project complies with the California Environmental Quality Act.
To address the division's seismic loading and foundation concerns with the project's compensation reservoir, Hydrostar is suggesting there be a post-approval condition of certification akin, Harris wrote, to the building code process.
As for the evaporation pond, Harris noted Hydrostor removed it in order to prevent schedule delays. Now, he wrote, most of the water from the operation will be reused immediately on-site or hauled away to a treatment facility.
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When used in this press release, the words 'plan to,' 'can,' 'will,' 'should,' 'future,' 'potential,' and variations of these words or similar expressions (or the negative versions of such words or expressions) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements, which include statements regarding the Super One MPV, Super EAI F.A.C.E., and EAI Embodied AI Agent 6x4 architecture, are not guarantees of future performance, conditions or results, and involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors, many of which are outside the Company's control, that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. 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CNBC
4 hours ago
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With another tariff deadline looming, these 10 things are going the right way for stocks
Conventional wisdom holds that as we get closer and closer to the coming deadline for tariff resolution, the market will become more treacherous, especially for highly valued stocks. I don't know who writes these stories. I always check the bylines and I have never worked with them or hired them. I will tell you this: their lack of knowledge of how the market works is painful. Their shoddy knowledge of market history would never be tolerated in any classroom. They are, what we used to call at The Harvard Crimson, "filler-up stories," meaning stories that had to be written because copy was needed. In truth, while the deadline looms, there is no relation between the highly valued stocks and the events at hand. I actually expect severe news about South Korea and Japan before Aug. 1 — the Trump administration's "hard deadline," in the words of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, for when new country-specific duty rates will come into effect. Korean car companies "make" vehicles here, but the White House would argue to you that all they do is assemble them here, while the more highly valued pieces of a car are made in the home country. Japan makes even less here but is defended, like Korea, by our soldiers, and I could see President Donald Trump invoking that fact to put on some capricious number — call it 35% tariffs on their imports — because that level is eye-grabbing. So, I doubt we're even going to get to the drop dead date of Aug. 1 without more drama. Does anyone who trades or invests think that the tariffs will influence the most highly valued stocks, none other than my newly minted cohort called PARC — Palantir , Applovin , Robinhood and Coinbase ? These all have room to run because if you are willing to pay 100 times earnings it means nothing to pay 200. That's the gospel. How can these writers not know that? Can Palantir be stopped by Canadian tariffs? Oh please, and if crypto gets knocked down, it will get up again. It's never going to keep that down. Let's flip this moment on its head and question what's buoying the near-record market as second-quarter earnings season picks up steam (we have five Club names reporting this week). I have 10 things on the list, some already happening and others more forward-looking. First, and most obvious: earnings have been terrific. Yes, there is an occasional Abbott Labs , which was brutalized by China, or Netflix , which was challenged by sky-high expectations. But the banks have set the tone, and the pastiche that closed out the week all came in very strong. I expect that to continue, with the only potential weak spot being the drugmakers. Just not enough blockbusters and some very weak pipelines. It's been a brutal year for health care overall, sitting last among all 11 sectors in the S & P 500 . Second, Trump's "big beautiful bill" contains so many provisions that will boost the economy that I think we need to rethink the possibility of a hobbled consumer. Consider these: An extension of the 2017 tax cuts that were set to expire at the end of this year, which could've resulted in an effective tax increase across income cohorts. This is particularly helpful for those who make less than $100,000. A tax deduction worth up to $25,000 for employees who earn tips, a huge win for the working class. Millions of U.S. workers stand to benefit from this. Increased standard deduction to $31,500 (from $30,000) for married joint filers and $15,750 (from $15,000) for single filers. That can make taxes easier to figure out and deliver a bigger benefit. Max child tax credit of $2,200 per child, up from $2,000, which impacts around 40 million families. Expanding 529 savings plans to cover workforce credentialing programs in areas like the trades. A new deduction on car loan interest for vehicles made in the U.S., capped at $10,000 a year. For higher earners, the size of the deduction is reduced. Tax-advantaged savings accounts for newborns, the so-called "Trump accounts." Some tax relief for seniors on Social Security benefits. These are huge benefits that will pump hundreds of billions in the U.S. economy and it's like no one ever cares. Tariffs are important. But these put money in the hands of spenders. Third, business get more tax relief on spending, building and research-and-development costs than anyone expected. Accelerated deductions and credit for building things will set off another boom. I talked about these in a previous piece . Every time I have ever seen this kind of relief, it generates far more spending and jobs than anyone expects. Fourth, we seem to be oblivious to how countries are signaling to Washington that they are going to make their companies build here in order to get some relief from the White House. There's also re-shoring to contend with. Sure, the White House may be circumspect about an Apple putting $500 billion into the U.S. economy in the next four years, but I'm not. Fifth, the amount of building that needs to be done for data centers and for the electric grid are so gigantic that they might be considered the equivalent of the biggest public works campaigns in history, and they include a huge labor component not often addressed. Don't forget that nuclear power overhauls are gigantic projects. Sixth, the Federal Reserve's new stress tests for banks will allow them to lend far more than they currently do. We forget how much heat there has been on the banks in the wake of the financial crisis to be incredibly conservative. That's over. Seventh, the opening of all sorts of land for drilling and the approval of a huge number of new pipelines will create a second renaissance of the U.S. energy sector. Eighth, two industries have so much business and are so important to the U.S. economy that they will be colossal sources of work: aerospace, where Boeing has to expand to meet new orders, and defense, where we are depleted by Ukraine. A heavy component in this sector is new kinds of weapons including drones. Ninth, the initial public offering market is primed and ready, and I think can create new jobs and new wealth for employees and sustained profits for the investment banks, which is why they are such great buys. We own Goldman Sachs for the Club. And finally No. 10, it's been so easy to bet against stocks for so long because the Biden administration had been so anti-business, particularly when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. That's over. Now short-sellers will be incredibly scared to lean on stocks. Witness the rally in the railroads last week that crushed shorts banking on weaker transport earnings. Now, again, Trump seems to do whatever is necessary to derail us in astounding fashion. But we need to think more creatively. When we hear talk of him firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, what you need to think is that no matter what, lower rates lie ahead. I don't think it will be because of a weaker economy because of what I just detailed, but because Trump wants to have a gross domestic product boom so he can say we are the fastest-growing, most-powerful country in the world. That's what Make American Great Again stands for. Even if you think it is a gigantic fraud, remember that Trump — through a gigantic hole in the budget and pro-business agencies — has created the circumstances that could lead to the opposite of what the "filler-up stories" say will happen. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long GS and ABT. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
