Energy Policy Now

For the month of August, we’re highlighting episodes from the 2025-2026 season of Energy Policy Now. We’ll be back with new content, and a new season, on September the 8th.
An economic sociologist discusses the growing heat dangers facing last-mile delivery drivers, and why federal protections remain stalled.
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E-commerce has transformed the way goods move through the American economy, driving unprecedented growth in parcel deliveries and intensifying competition among major carriers and the U.S. Postal Service. Yet this push for speed and volume now unfolds amid longer, more intense heat waves, exposing the nation’s roughly 1.5 million delivery drivers to climate-driven temperature extremes that pose growing risks on their routes.
In this episode, economic sociologist and Kleinman Center faculty fellow Steve Viscelli discusses how rising heat intersects with the structure of the delivery industry. He describes the job conditions that can leave drivers vulnerable, from demanding routes to the use of monitoring technologies that encourage workers to stay on pace even when temperatures climb.
Viscelli looks at the policy landscape that shapes these conditions, explains why federal heat protections for workers have been slow to materialize, and how this reality affects drivers’ day-to-day experience. He also points to steps some states are taking to set their own standards to address hotter and more demanding delivery seasons.
Steve Viscelli is an economic and political sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania and a faculty fellow with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.
Related Content:
Energy System Planning: New Models for Accelerating Decarbonization https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/energy-system-planning-new-models-for-accelerating-decarbonization/
Who Buys Down the Risk When Federal Funding Recedes? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/commentary/blog/who-buys-down-the-risk-when-federal-funding-recedes/
Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The modern agricultural system delivers an extraordinary abundance and variety of food at relatively low cost, thanks in part to abundant and affordable energy. Can those benefits be preserved without creating unacceptable exposure to disruption?
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Recent disruptions to food and energy markets have drawn renewed attention to the links between agriculture, energy, and global trade. Fertilizer production, transportation networks, and global supply chains all rely on abundant and affordable energy.
Bernhard Dalheimer, an expert on agricultural market shocks and an assistant professor of macroeconomics and trade in Purdue University’s Department of Agricultural Economics, explores how energy shapes modern agriculture through transportation, fertilizer, and biofuels, and how disruptions move through agricultural systems in different ways across regions and economies.
He also examines one of the central challenges facing modern agriculture: how to maintain the benefits of highly interconnected agricultural and energy systems while reducing their exposure to disruption. Dalheimer explores the role diversification can play in reducing risk while preserving the benefits that abundant energy and global trade have made possible.
Related Content
The Energy-Agriculture Nexus: A Multi-Year Research and Policy Agenda https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/the-energy-agriculture-nexus-a-multi-year-research-and-policy-agenda/
Climate Change and Migration in Central America: Evidence from New Environmental Event Data https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/climate-change-and-migration-in-central-america-evidence-from-new-environmental-event-data/
Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can the energy choices we make today influence affordability for decades to come?
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Affordability has become one of the defining issues in American politics. Rising costs for housing, healthcare, groceries, and energy continue to strain household budgets. But economist Heather Boushey argues that affordability runs much deeper than prices alone. It reflects how the economy is structured, the kinds of jobs and opportunities the economy creates, and how the benefits of economic growth are shared.
Boushey, a professor of practice with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and head of the EconClimate Lab, discusses the relationship between affordability, energy, and economic opportunity.
Drawing on decades of work at the intersection of economics and public policy, as well as her experience as chief economist for the White House Investing in America Cabinet during the Biden administration, she explains why energy plays a central role in economic growth and competitiveness, why she believes that “what we make here matters,” and how investments in domestic industries can shape long-term economic opportunity. Boushey also reflects on what the Inflation Reduction Act set in motion, what may endure from the law, and what its implementation reveals about the challenge of sustaining long-term economic strategies in a short-term political environment.
Related Content
Coping Under Strain: How Climate, Utility Disconnections, and LIHEAP Shaped Household Energy Strategies During the Pandemic https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/coping-under-strain-how-climate-utility-disconnections-and-liheap-shaped-household-energy-strategies-during-the-pandemic/
Breaking the Lock on Urban Climate Finance: A Proposal for a Green Cities Guarantee Fund to Support Climate Resilient Infrastructure in Cities https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/breaking-the-lock-on-urban-climate-finance-a-proposal-for-a-green-cities-guarantee-fund-to-support-climate-resilient-infrastructure-in-cities/
Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Southwest Power Pool’s expansion into the West marks a major step toward greater regional coordination of the electric grid.
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Earlier this year the Southwest Power Pool, the electric grid operator for much of the central United States, expanded into the Western Interconnection, becoming the first Regional Transmission Organization to operate in both the Eastern and Western grids. The move comes as Western utilities seek to address rising electricity demand, the integration of growing amounts of clean energy, and concerns about future grid reliability, challenges that broader regional coordination may help address.
SPP plans to build on that expansion with Markets+, a new regional market initiative scheduled to launch in 2027. Together, these efforts represent one of the most significant pushes yet toward greater electricity market coordination in the American West. They also come as California’s grid operator pursues its own effort to expand regional market participation through its Extended Day-Ahead Market, or EDAM, giving Western utilities multiple paths toward closer regional integration, each with different approaches to governance and market oversight.
On the podcast, SPP Chief Executive Officer Lanny Nickell discusses SPP’s expansion into the West and the development of Markets+. He explains why Western utilities are becoming more interested in regional coordination, the tradeoffs between independence and larger markets, and what these developments may mean for the future of the electric grid in the American West.
Lanny Nickell is the Chief Executive Officer of Southwest Power Pool.
Related Content
Mobile Energy Storage: Flexibility for the Energy Transition https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/mobile-energy-storage-flexibility-for-the-energy-transition/
Congestion in General Equilibrium: Nodal Electricity Pricing, Production, and Welfare https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/congestion-in-general-equilibrium-nodal-electricity-pricing-production-and-welfare/
Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For years, electricity prices broadly tracked inflation. New pressures may be changing that.
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Electricity prices have become a major political issue in the United States, with policymakers increasingly focused on rising utility bills and the costs of meeting growing electricity demand. At the same time, renewable energy has often been blamed for driving prices higher.
But what does the data actually show?
Ryan Hledik of The Brattle Group discusses research conducted with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on U.S. electricity price trends. The research finds that, nationally, electricity prices have largely tracked inflation, though significant regional differences tell a more complicated story. Hledik explains the factors that really drive electricity prices, the role of renewable energy, natural gas, and infrastructure investment, and why electricity costs vary so dramatically across the country.
Hledik also explores whether 2025, when electricity prices rose faster than inflation nationally, marks the beginning of a new era of rising electricity prices, or a temporary departure from a longer-term trend.
Ryan Hledik is an alumni policy advisor with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and a principal with The Brattle Group.
Related Content:
Congestion in General Equilibrium: Nodal Electricity Pricing, Production, and Welfare https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/congestion-in-general-equilibrium-nodal-electricity-pricing-production-and-welfare/
Boomtowns in the Battery Belt: Risks and Opportunities of Clean Energy Investments in Small Towns of America https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/boomtowns-in-the-battery-belt-risks-and-opportunities-of-clean-energy-investments-in-small-towns-of-america/
How PJM Is Grappling With Data Center Power Demand https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/commentary/podcast/how-pjm-is-grappling-with-data-center-power-demand/
Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.