Latest news with #ScottPeters
New York Times
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Inside the Bengals' offensive line reset: Scott Peters ‘brings a breath of fresh air'
Even during the May OTA malaise, few drills draw the eye more than the athleticism and advanced drill work of the Bengals' skill players. Joe Burrow slips and slides through tackling dummies before leaping to uncork off-platform throws. Ja'Marr Chase goes airborne and casually snags a one-handed pass over his head. Tee Higgins accelerates, then toe-taps on the sideline with the same ease as he did catching the game-winning touchdown against the Broncos in December. Advertisement Off in the distance, however, away from the star spotlight, you can see the offensive line group. The action looks, well, different. In the early portions of practice, they can be seen merely standing, each with an arm extending into a partner's chest, seemingly holding each other up and keeping that pose for extended stretches. Not exactly advanced athleticism theater. Yet, that's 100 percent the point for this group under new offensive line coach Scott Peters. He's tasked with installing a new set of techniques designed to improve consistency across one of the most inconsistent units in football last season. For now, that has Peters dedicating valuable time and resources to the most foundational details. Sometimes it's as simple as recalibrating the expected body positioning of a Bengals offensive lineman. 'It's a drill we'll use to test someone's posture because if you have a bad posture, you won't be able to sustain that,' Peters said. 'You won't be able to hold them up. If your arm gets broken down, you shouldn't fall forward. If someone is leaning on them, I should be able to stop you with one arm and just breathe and relax. If you knock my hand down, I shouldn't fall.' Center Ted Karras calls Peters' approach a 'huge refresh' that finally formalizes what he's been trying to explain to young linemen for years regarding his hand technique and the importance of posture. But even he's still learning rather than teaching these days. 'A lot of it is brand new for me,' he said, 'so, Year 10, that's pretty unique.' Unique, indeed. The entire process achieves a rare accomplishment during the non-contact portion of the NFL schedule in making the Bengals' offensive line one of the most interesting position groups on the field. 'It gives a chance to build the fundamentals, then we talk about when and where you apply those things,' Peters said. 'You are building a toolbox.' Peters arrives in Cincinnati with a background in jujutsu, but his philosophy fills with baseball and boxing metaphors. He talks about throwing strikes, changeups, counter-punches and approaches. Embracing the sweet science and cerebral nature in this battle of the big boys is the essence of his coaching style. Advertisement When fans or even trained eyes watch the Bengals' offensive line this fall, there won't be a noticeable difference in what pass protection looks like. 'Maybe to the nuanced eye,' Karras said. 'Hopefully, it translates to more one-on-one wins.' That's the bottom line here. Peters wants to increase the Bengals' batting average in protecting Burrow. That doesn't mean winning with dominating blocks. It means not whiffing. 'We have to bat a thousand,' Peters said. 'We are not trying to hit home runs. We are trying to get base hits and high averages.' The Bengals ranked dead last in the NFL in ESPN's Pass Block Win Rate last season, winning just 50 percent of the time. The Broncos led the NFL at 74 percent. The league average was 60 percent. The team's offensive line posted an average finish of 27th in PFF's offensive line rankings over the last five years and never above 20th. Out of 143 qualifying NFL offensive linemen last season, only Karras (6th) finished higher than 79th for the Bengals in blocking efficiency on true pass sets. How effectively the Bengals' linemen adapt, implement and self-correct Peters' more aggressive techniques can change those numbers. At least, that's the theory those charged with protecting the franchise quarterback are buying. That's why conversations about how the early days of this recalibration are going quickly go deep into the weeds. The specificity and detail with which these new tools are taught is 100 percent what makes them effective. 'It's not easy to start from zero,' Peters said. 'Some of the techniques are new, it's not just go out there and throw your hands out there. It's how you do it, from what platform, from what foundation your body operates from so your strikes are impactful and you are doing it without having to compromise posture. Guys will throw heavy hands and get beat and wiped and stuff. It is teaching them a foundation of how you throw a proper strike. You throw a proper strike and do it with good mechanics and ramp up the speed it looks like you have more pop in your hands, you have more length, you can play with better posture so if they did wipe your hands or knock you hands down you wont' be staggering forward and get beat.' Guard Cordell Volson perks up when the conversation turns to posture. Volson, too often over the last three years, would be doing just what Peters described and falling forward if his hands were wiped away. The same can be said for Cody Ford and seemingly everyone who played guard. There's a belief that merely mastering a posture that keeps the battle alive, even if the defender successfully wipes the hand away while simultaneously bringing more power to the punches that do connect, can shift those win-rate averages from league worst to something more manageable. Advertisement Half of that battle lives in the confidence to take the fight to the opponent and add different tools so the lineman isn't doing the same thing every snap. 'You want to be able to confidently throw hands,' Peters said. 'Some guys don't throw hands because they are nervous about getting wiped. It's like a boxer going into the ring and not throwing a punch because he doesn't want to get hit. You are going to have to throw. We know what they are going to try to do. We want to try to build them a way to respond as part of an automatic response.' Former offensive line coach Frank Pollack was in Cincinnati for four seasons after replacing Jim Turner, head coach Zac Taylor's first offensive line coach. Pollack is 57 and played with Jerry Rice. Turner is 59 and came from a military background. Peters, 46, retired after seven seasons in the NFL in 2009. His hands-on style, approachable mentality and new-school tactics have resonated. 'Scott is a really open guy,' said Volson, who accepted a pay cut rather than a release because he says he believed in what Peters could do for his career after being benched last season. 'You can bounce ideas off him and ask him questions. We can play more toward our skill set. He instills a lot of confidence in us. I think he brings a good energy. We enjoy talking to him. We enjoy going into meetings with him. I think that's really cool. It definitely makes my day way more enjoyable, that's for sure.' Left tackle Orlando Brown enters his eighth season on his third NFL team. As a captain last year, he saw the toll of the season and the battles many of his linemates faced wear on them as the season progressed. The difference, even at this point, has stood out. 'It's good for a lot of guys,' Brown said. 'Especially those that maybe struggled recently. He brings a breath of fresh air.' Advertisement Fresh air and resetting expectations are why they are easing through the motions. The 32-year-old Karras said he was anxious to view tape of the first Phase 2 practice because he was purposely slowing down to work on applying the new styles, even as the oldest player on the entire roster. This might not make the summer sizzle reel on Instagram, but those days will come. 'The first thing is making the guys aware that the things are possible that we do,' Peters said. 'And teaching them how to move and the mechanics, because you are not going full speed. You have to teach them the mechanics of how to move, the tools and all the components. Then, as we go forward, you just apply this particular technique.' Offensive line junkies love this stuff. They could debate all day the value of two-hand punches versus one-hand, reactionary versus aggressive, vertical sets versus jump sets. Those details are everything for Peters' crew. To everyone else just wanting Burrow upright, it's much more basic in the endgame. 'What he is teaching is all we are trying to do is increase our win-percentage chances on a one-on-one block because we are going to have more one-on-ones than anyone else in the league,' Karras said. 'Whatever increases that threshold of percentage chance to win.' (Top photo of center Ted Karras and guard Dylan Fairchild practicing at OTAs: Albert Cesare / Imagn Images)
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tax credit cuts could spoil an even more important clean energy goal
As budget negotiations grip the US Congress, some lawmakers are already looking ahead to the next big energy fight, one with even higher stakes for clean energy and the AI power race: Permitting reform. Bipartisan discussions 'are being seeded now' on the scope of a bill that could speed up approvals for new grid lines and pipelines, and restrict the use of litigation to block such projects, Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) told Semafor, and could lead to draft legislation 'pretty quickly' once the budget talks conclude. But the appetite for compromise on permitting will depend on the outcome of the budget: Democrats may feel burned by tax credit cuts, and Republicans may be able to score some permitting wins without a separate compromise bill. So far, preliminary hearings on the subject this year have shown 'the consensus around developing bipartisan permitting reform legislation,' Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.), who chairs the upper chamber's Environment and Public Works Committee, told Semafor. 'I continue to work with my colleagues across both chambers to make our permitting and environmental review processes more efficient, predictable, and transparent, so that we can complete projects of all types.' As much as clean energy companies would like to keep their current tax benefits, slow permitting bureaucracy and legal entanglements are still the biggest bottlenecks for the industry and its fossil fuel competitors: The existence of hypothetical tax credits is no use if projects can't get built to tap them. The budget reconciliation bill that passed the House of Representatives last week included provisions for fossil projects to pay a fee to jump ahead of the permitting queue, but stricter rules in the Senate about what exactly can be included in a budget bill mean those provisions are likely to get dropped, analysts say. Budget reconciliation was never going to be an effective forum for permitting reform; a bipartisan bill is still the only way to make the necessary changes, and make them stick. 'Everything the Trump administration can do or has done on permitting is prone to reversal,' said Xan Fishman, senior managing director of the energy program at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank. 'After reconciliation, everyone will look around and say, 'We still need permitting reform'.' Conditions are favorable for a deal that builds on the one advanced last year by Sens. Joe Manchin (now retired) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). Key committee leaders, including Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) in the House and Sens. Capito and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) in the Senate, have expressed interest in prioritizing a permitting deal. The center of gravity has shifted from the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources committee, where Manchin sat, to Capito's Environment and Public Works committee, where issues around environmental impact statements and judicial rules can be more readily addressed. While some Republicans are pushing to break off chunks of permitting in smaller bills, such as a 'permit-by-rule' bill passed by the House Oversight committee last week, a spokesperson for Peters said that the goal is still 'a bigger more comprehensive product' that can address the full laundry list of permitting issues. Even if the permitting measures that Democrats oppose are struck from the budget bill, later negotiations could still get dragged down by the tax credit cuts. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told Politico that the Inflation Reduction Act and permitting reform were always meant to be linked, and that it's a 'fantasy' to suppose one could proceed without the other. 'If all the IRA tax credits are gutted,' Fishman said, 'there's a risk Democrats will question why they should work on permitting at all, if this stuff isn't going to get built anyway.' Meanwhile, he said, the fact that components of permitting reform remain spread across the jurisdictions of numerous committees is 'the major structural challenge for a deal.' The fate of IRA tax credits now hangs with a few key senators. Ones to watch, Heatmap reported, include Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and John Curtis (R-Utah).
E&E News
16-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
Reconciliation bill could hobble bipartisan permitting talks
The Republicans' massive party-line tax and spending bill could upend protracted talks to overhaul the nation's permitting system. Not only is the GOP looking to enact their own language to accelerate project approvals and limit ligation, but they are also repealing broad swaths of the Democrats' 2022 climate law. Democrats had been increasingly willing to make concessions on the environment in order to accelerate renewable energy projects and get them onto the grid. Permitting reform was supposed to complement the Inflation Reduction Act. But those dynamics are changing. Advertisement 'The idea that we're going to go on and do permitting reform is fantasy,' said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), pointing to the GOP's drive to roll back the climate law. 'They need to not trash the IRA,' said Schatz. Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) — who has positioned himself as a dealmaker on permitting and willing to make big changes to the National Environmental Policy Act — said the Republicans' budget reconciliation package could indeed further imperil a bipartisan deal. 'But I don't know what else to do about the problem, though, because the problem will still be the same the day before and the day after [Republicans] go for that awful reconciliation bill,' he said. Part of the problem, as Peters sees it, is too much red tape and litigation. That's where he coincides with the likes of House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), who doesn't think the GOP bill should hurt bipartisan talks. 'No, I don't think so because I think everybody understands reconciliation is a partisan process and you can't fix permitting in reconciliation,' Westerman said. 'You can nibble around the edges on things that have a definite budget impact. But I think there's still a lot of interest and willingness on both sides of the aisle to do a more comprehensive permitting reform package.' Permitting in reconciliation A heat exchanger and transfer pipes at a Maryland liquefied natural gas terminal. LNG projects would benefit from the Republicans' party-line tax, energy and security spending bill. | Cliff Owen/AP Republicans have long said they didn't expect many permitting provisions in their megabill because of the strict fiscal rules in the reconciliation process. Still, the changes the GOP is considering go too far for many Democrats. The Natural Resources portion of the package would allow companies to pay a fee that's 125 percent the cost of an environmental impact statement. That would accelerate reviews and shield companies from certain litigation. The Energy and Commerce portion of the budget reconciliation bill would let natural gas export companies pay $1 million to receive a positive Department of Energy national interest determination. Another provision would allow gas project developers to get expedited permitting from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under the Natural Gas Act if they pay $10 million or 1 percent of the project's projected cost. The bill envisions permitting being completed within one year and would exempt projects from certain legal challenges. A similar timeline and fee structure would apply to carbon dioxide, oil and hydrogen pipeline approvals. The fees give Republicans the fiscal nexus they need to comply with budget reconciliation rules policed by the Senate parliamentarian. They also open the GOP to Democratic scorn. 'I think many Democrats will fairly mistrust Republicans even more on permitting if the permitting reforms in reconciliation go through,' said one House Democratic aide close to the permitting talks granted anonymity to speak freely. 'Similarly, I can imagine some Republicans will not see much of a point in further bipartisan talks if they get all their pay-to-play provisions.' 'They don't pay me to sit on my ass' Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a staunch advocate of climate change, wasn't sure whether the Republican party-line bill would keep him from bipartisan permitting talks: 'I have not yet reached that conclusion.' Whitehouse said he's meeting with EPW Chair Shelley Moore Capito ( Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) and ENR ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). 'Yes, the four corners are still setting up the general legislative outline we're hoping to fill in,' he said. 'This is so far just trying to get our two key committees talking.' Whitehouse also wondered what House GOP provisions would survive the 'Byrd rule' — the reconciliation guidelines tied to former Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Reconciliation allows the congressional majority to bypass the Senate filibuster on fiscal matters. Peters said it's been hard to meet with Republicans on bipartisan issues because of their focus on the reconciliation bill. 'So when reconciliation is over, we can hit the ground running,' he said. 'They don't pay me to sit on my ass and not do anything until only Democrats are in control, right? That's not why I'm here,' Peters said, pointing to the lingering need to address energy demand and climate change. 'Well, that didn't change. Physics and nature and chemistry didn't change, so this is less of a problem. So of course, I'm gonna try to work on it.' Reporters Nico Portuondo and Garrett Downs contributed.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Democrats focus on energy costs in US tax credit fight
Congressional Democrats plan to focus on the risk of rising US consumer energy prices in their pitch to Republicans to walk back proposed deep cuts to clean energy programs. Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) told Semafor he was 'frustrated' with draft budget legislation approved this week in two House committees that would give fossil fuel projects express access to permit approvals, scrap billions of dollars in clean energy grants and loans, and significantly scale back tax credits for renewables, nuclear power, and other technologies. Peters said he plans to keep reminding their more conservative colleagues that removing tax credits for clean energy amounts to a higher tax on all energy. A study shared today exclusively with Semafor by the Clean Energy Buyers Association, an industry group, found that states nationwide would lose an average of $336 in annual household income if the tax credit cuts proceed as planned, thanks to higher energy costs and reduced job opportunities. 'Everyone agrees we need all this energy. The quicker we do it, and the more we get, the cheaper it will be. The stuff that's in line, literally hundreds of gigawatts, is mostly solar and wind. If you just cut [the tax credits] off, all those projects die,' Peters said. 'We have a choice between higher energy bills and astronomically higher energy bills.' While the tax credit proposal passed out of committee this week was less extreme than it might have been — dozens of House Republicans are cheering for the credits to be killed immediately — it would still be a major setback for the US clean energy industry, and for the effort to make energy cheaper and more abundant. But it's just a starting point for negotiations. More than two dozen House and Senate Republicans have championed keeping them intact or adopting a more prolonged phaseout; on Wednesday, Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) called the tax proposal 'pretty bad,' and Ways and Means Committee vice chair Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) promised 'there's gonna be a lot of changes.' A few things will be on the table. First, which credits should get targeted for an early phaseout. A bill Garbarino and other Republicans introduced last week, which analysts see as a likely landing zone for a final compromise, shaves a few years off the wind and solar credits but wouldn't touch those for nuclear, hydrogen, and other advanced low-carbon tech. It also preserves credit 'transferability,' which allows project developers to access a much larger pool of potential investors. And it is more lenient on foreign sourcing restrictions that in the current proposal 'make it pretty difficult for anyone to use these credits,' said Jeremy Harrell, CEO of the conservative advocacy group ClearPath Action. Whatever sunset years they agree to, lawmakers will also need to negotiate whether qualifying projects merely need to break ground by that year, which the current law provides for, or be fully in service, which would mean the very technologies that are farthest down the road and most in need of support would get the least tax benefit. Based on data in a separate Rhodium Group study this week, the proposed credit cuts would increase total spending on energy by US households by $109-339 billion by 2035. Figures like those — which don't even count the myriad economic costs of living in on a hotter planet — are even more politically salient now than they were a few years ago when the Inflation Reduction Act passed, as the Trump administration has so stridently presented itself as the savior of energy security and affordability. And what House Republicans have on the table now, Harrell said, is a plan that 'jeopardizes President Trump's energy dominance agenda.' Peters, meanwhile, is already looking past the budget reconciliation debate. He was unhappy with the permitting changes outlined there by the Energy and Commerce Committee, on which he sits. The proposal, which would speed up fossil fuel infrastructure but do little to help the electric grid, is a step backward from the Senate compromise bill on permitting reform led last year by Joe Manchin, which never made it over the line. Some issues, like reforms to environmental impact statements and rules for lawsuits, can't be addressed in a budget bill; Peters said a separate new permitting bill covering those issues is in the works and 'could happen pretty quickly after reconciliation.' Lee Zeldin, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, faced a combative grilling from senators in both parties over planned cuts to billions of dollars in agency funding for clean energy. Zeldin's strategy, complained Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is 'indiscriminate' and 'problematic.'
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
GOP lawmakers move to roll back Biden-era energy programs
Lawmakers on Tuesday approved portions of a bill that would massively roll back Biden-era energy programs. The House Energy and Commerce Committee met to discuss the Republican-backed legislation that would initiate billions of dollars in spending cuts. The money would come from unspent funds from the Democrats' 2022 climate law, Politico reported. Northern Highlights: Alaska's Energy, Security Policies Are The Guide Feds Needs Amid Transition, Group Says Democrats pushed back on provisions they said would raise energy prices by repealing Inflation Reduction Act programs and allow heavy polluting industries to skip portions of the federal permitting process, the news outlet reported. "We're considering a reconciliation bill that picks winners and losers and elevates expensive, outdated and inefficient sources like coal over cheap, American-made energy like solar, wind and storage," said Democratic California Rep. Scott Peters. Read On The Fox News App Biden Green Energy Project Halted By Trump Admin Relied On Rushed, Bad Science, Study Finds On Sunday, House lawmakers laid out plans to phase out key clean energy tax credits, slashing billions in spending related to electric vehicles and renewable energy and fast-track gas exports as part of a GOP push to pass a multitrillion-dollar budget to carry out President Donald Trump's agenda, Reuters reported. The bill would repeal Environmental Protection Agency rules, including one that would slash allowed emissions for light- and medium-duty vehicles starting with 2027 models. Also included are measures to speed permitting for liquified natural gas exports and directing $2 billion for the Energy Department to refill the Strategic Petroleum article source: GOP lawmakers move to roll back Biden-era energy programs
