FIRST LOOK:

The overlapping, mutually-exacerbating climate impacts below show, once again, that climate change is not a future threat but a clear and present danger. Check out Climate Signals for more information on how climate change is causing and worsening disasters like extreme heat, drought, wildfires, and hurricanes.

Arizona To Use Enslaved Incarcerated People To Fight Its Wildfires: As extreme heat, drought, and wildfires spread across the state, Arizona is allocating funding to pay incarcerated people fighting those wildfires $1.50 per hour. Incarcerated people clearing brush, in temperatures that hit 115°F in Phoenix for six days in a row last week, will make $1.00 per hour. The Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits slavery, "except as a punishment for [a] crime" for which the person has been convicted. Wildfires, fueled by heat and drought made worse by climate change, have raged across the state in recent weeks, forcing numerous evacuations. (Incarcerated firefighters: Tuscon.com, KJZZ, Democracy Now; Drought: Arizona Family; Heat: AP; Evacuations: AP, AP; Commentary: Washington Post, Michael Crimmins op-ed $)

Heat Dangers Exacerbated By Injustice: Extreme heatwaves disproportionately harm communities of color, poor communities, people experiencing homelessness, and the elderly. Those without access to air conditioning in their homes, and without means of transportation to cooling centers are particularly at risk, as are farmworkers, construction workers, and others unable to put food on the table without risking heat stroke working in the sun. (Washington Post $, AP)

Deadly Claudette Restrengthens, Targets Outer Banks: Tropical Storm Claudette caused at least 13 deaths in the Southeast over the weekend, as it left flooding and destruction across the region. The third named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, Claudette dumped up to 15 inches of rain on southeastern Louisiana on Saturday, southern Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle. The storm, which weakened into a tropical depression over land, regained Tropical Storm status as it bore down on North Carolina's Outer Banks. (Death Toll: USA TODAY; Flooding/destruction: (Washington Post $, Yale Climate Connections, New York Times $; Restrengthening: New York Times $, Washington Post $, Tallahassee Democrat, CNN)

Marathon Took Billions In Bailouts, Laid Off Workers: Marathon Petroleum laid off nearly 2,000 workers across the U.S. despite taking more than $2 billion in federal tax bailouts meant to soften the blow of the pandemic, a new report from BailoutWatch says. The company spent millions on lobbying, including on specific provisions in the Cares Act. “Executives receiving this bailout did nothing to address the [oil and gas] industry’s fundamental unsustainability. Instead, these companies decimated their workforce with layoffs while maximizing profits for executives and shareholders,” Jesse Coleman, a senior researcher at Documented Investigations, told the Guardian. (The Guardian)

Drought Likely To Shutdown Major California Hydro Plant: Water levels in California's Lake Oroville reservoir are expected to fall so low this summer that officials expect they will need to shut down its hydroelectric power plant for the first time in its 54-year history. The unrelenting drought and record-breaking heat, both fueled by climate change, have pushed the reservoir to what officials describe as "alarming levels." The plant generates enough electricity to power up to 800,000 homes. (CNN, SF Gate, CBS-Sacramento, Chico Enterprise-Record, The Hill, Wall Street Journal $, Newsweek)

UN Warns Drought Could Be 'the Next Pandemic': Drought and water scarcity are a looming crisis that could cause damage on the scale of the coronavirus pandemic, a new UN report says. “Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic and there is no vaccine to cure it," Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary general’s special representative for disaster risk reduction, told reporters. (Thomson Reuters Foundation, The Guardian, The Hill)

Heat, Broken Thermal Plants Stress Grid, Wind Performs 'As Expected': Amid extreme heat across the Southwest, electricity grids largely avoided blackouts over the weekend as emergency measures and demand reduction (both voluntary and involuntary) kept electricity needs within the amount available. The record-breaking heat sent demand skyrocketing as air conditioners strained to keep up and in some cases utilities remotely raised the temperature of customers' thermostats. The grid crunch in Texas was made worse when broken down gas- and coal-fired power plants in Texas took gigawatts of power offline. “If you ask a Republican if wind underperformed, of course they would say wind underperformed,” Katie Bays, an analyst at FiscalNote Markets told Bloomberg. Wind farms tend not to produce as much power in hot weather, but “compared to my expectations, wind performed as expected,” she said. (Heat: (Reuters, Washington Post $, NPR, Washington Post $, Washington Post $, Washington Post $; Heat, photos: (Axios, Washington Post $; Grid stress and Texas energy: Texas Tribune, Bloomberg $, Canary Media; Demand reduction: USA Today)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Bulldozed and bisected: Highway construction built a legacy of inequality (NBC), decades after Watts revolted, the Black neighborhood is being ‘revitalized’ — but the cost is steep (Grist), traffic deaths jump for Black Americans who couldn't afford to stay home during Covid (CNN)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) CISNORMATIVITY: The land is liminal (Atmos)

COP26: UN climate talks slowed by COVID woes and technical squabbles (InsideClimate News)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Belgium’s climate failures violate human rights, court rules (The Guardian)

JUNETEENTH: Make Juneteenth great again: the Caucasians' guide to celebrating Juneteenth (The Root), Sierra Club calls for reparations for Black people (Politico Pro $)

AMERICA'S CLIMATE PRESENT: Three hurricanes. A deep freeze. A biblical flood: Lake Charles is America’s climate future (Buzzfeed)

REQUIEM FOR A PIPELINE: Keystone XL transformed the environmental movement and shifted the debate over energy and climate (InsideClimate News)

MEDIA: This bot clicking ads on climate articles shows the news is broken (Earther)

TEXAS GAS EXPLOSION: One person killed in natural gas explosion (KZTV), Port of Corpus Christi Police investigating natural gas explosion at Energy Generation Plant (KIII-TV)

AGENCIES: Disaster victims now can use FEMA funds to fortify homes (E&E $)

EPA: EPA announces new clean air advisors after firing Trump appointees (The Hill, Axios, AP, E&E $, Politico Pro $), with eye on soot rule, EPA revives panel fired under Trump (E&E $), EPA orders more emissions monitoring at St. Croix refinery (E&E $), EPA releases list of top cities with Energy Star-certified buildings (Axios)

DOI: 4 takeaways from Deb Haaland's Senate appearance (E&E $), Biden advances another offshore wind farm — this one in N.Y. (E&E $, Politico Pro $), BLM, Forest Service support conservation, well-plugging bills (E&E $), sources: Interior fossil fuel report now at White House (E&E $)

THE HILL: Democrats facing tough reelections back bipartisan infrastructure deal (The Hill)

HOUSE: House sets vote to undo Trump methane rule rollback (E&E $, Politico Pro $), House passes bill requiring companies to disclose range of new information to SEC (Politico Pro $), Democrats call for secure mineral supplies, faster permits (E&E $), disclosure bill passes as GOP decries 'liberal fascism' (E&E $), GOP to Haaland: 'Resist activist pressure' on sage grouse (E&E $)

SENATE: Senators haggle over funding of $1 trillion infrastructure compromise (Reuters, Bloomberg $, Politico Pro $), Senate’s bipartisan climate ag bill held up (Politico Pro $), bipartisan duo floats offshore revenue for infrastructure (E&E $), Whitehouse, Schatz introduce new carbon tax bill (E&E $), Manchin floats big energy proposals as talks ramp up (E&E $)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): Democrats float $6 trillion plan amid talks on narrower infrastructure deal (New York Times $), bipartisan group unveils $579 billion 'core' projects deal (E&E $), House bill pitches 70% renewable mandate by 2030 (E&E $), Sanders says he wants an infrastructure package with a larger price tag (CNN), Sanders won't back infrastructure deal with more gas taxes, electric vehicle fees (Politico Pro $), what to watch as infrastructure talks heat up (Axios), White House reiterates opposition to raising gas tax amid infrastructure debate (The Hill), White House tries to privately calm Democratic fears on infrastructure deal (Politico), eyeing one big economic bill, Democrats face myriad challenges (New York Times $)

POLITICS: Doubt grows over Biden's climate strategy (E&E $), Four possible pain points as Democrats mount climate push (Politico Pro $), eyeing one big economic bill, Democrats face myriad challenges (New York Times $), bipartisan infrastructure talks collide with Democrats’ goal to tax the rich (New York Times $)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Biden taps ex-New Mexico lawmaker for USDA post (The Hill), Voice of reason': GOP pins hopes on Tommy Beaudreau (E&E $, Politico Pro $, E&E $), Republicans press nominees on WOTUS, transparency (E&E $), Rick Spinrad confirmed by Senate as new head of NOAA (Washington Post $), Senate approves NOAA, Interior, cyber picks (E&E $, Politico Pro $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: UN blasts world leaders for failing to seal £72bn-a-year deal on climate (The Guardian)

CITIES AND STATES AND DISENFRANCHISED TERRITORIES: As it looks to solar, Los Angeles targets an inclusive green shift (Thomson Reuters Foundation), lighter pavement really does cool cities when it’s done right (The Conversation), power outage hits 337K in Puerto Rico amid growing outrage (AP), solar project planned in River Rouge [Mich.] to increase access to renewable energy (News Herald), will Illinois finally manage to pass this massive clean energy bill? (Canary Media)

TEXAS: Texas loses to Oklahoma on electric vehicle company Canoo’s ‘mega-factory.’ The power grid cited as one reason (Dallas Morning News), threat of more blackouts may erode reliability claims for fossil energy (Texas Climate News), Texas said inland counties had lower disaster risk, yet awarded them huge share of $1B in Harvey aid (Houston Chronicle), what is wrong with the Texas grid? (Texas Monthly)

NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina weighs joining RGGI, closing all Duke's coal plants (E&E $) North Carolina energy bill pits clean energy advocates against Duke Energy's plans for new gas plants (Canary Media)

NEW MEXICO: New Mexicans weigh in on methane as EPA considers new rules (New Mexico Political Report), [New Mexico Natural Resources Department] launches interactive climate change map (New Mexico Political Report)

CALIFORNIA: How much fracking is there in California? Newsom, state regulators can’t tell (Politico Pro $), California groups clash over gas in 11.5 GW procurement proposal as CAISO calls for conservation (Utility Dive)

FERC: FERC commissioners tussle over effects of Minimum Offer Price Rule (Politico Pro $), FERC pauses ruling preventing states from blocking demand response under Order 2222 (Utility Dive), FERC and states team up on transmission task force (Politico Pro $)

IMPACTS: Drought, record heat wave in West tied to climate change (Axios)

HEAT: What’s behind the heat wave in the American West? (AP explainer), after blistering heat wave, June gloom set to return to Southern California (LA Times $), California’s Blackout threat ends, but long summer lies ahead (Bloomberg $, AP), next heat wave coming soon, centering on Northern California (San Francisco Chronicle)

DROUGHT: Brazil, besieged by COVID, now faces a severe drought (New York Times $), a ranch is running out of water in the West's historic drought. 'In 85 years, it's not been this bad.' (CNN), Lake Mead's decline points to scary water future in West (The Hill)

WATER RESOURCES: Will history repeat in a dry Klamath Basin this summer? (High Country News), drought-stricken communities push back against data centers (NBC), starved for water, farm groups seek more funding (E&E $)

WILDFIRES: Drought leads to skyrocketing wildfires in North Dakota (AP), interactive map: See 30 years of California wildfire history (Sacramento Bee $), ‘if you move out here, you make a deal with nature’: life in a fire-prone canyon (New York Times $), ‘forever war’ with fire has California battling forests instead (Bloomberg $), is your California home in a hazardous wildfire zone? Check this map (Sacramento Bee)

WEATHER COMMUNICATIONS: How the Weather Service cleared the air about Southwest monsoon season (Washington Post $)

IMPACTS' IMPACTS: UN: Millions driven from homes in 2020 despite COVID crisis (AP)

RENEWABLES: EU law could be “showstopper” for offshore wind in North Sea (Energy Monitor), Lightsource BP to invest $566 million in Spanish solar projects (Reuters), Namibia seeks developers for 25 megawatt solar PV plant (Bloomberg $), Siemens Gamesa to supply ‘typhoon-proof turbines’ for major Japanese wind project (CNBC), Total is said to vie with Enel, RWE for French wind assets (Bloomberg $), with sale, feds push wind energy (East Hampton [NY] Star)

OIL & GAS: Life in the drill zone (Reveal), Big Oil takes a beating, but its investors are riding high (New York Times $), oil majors are getting out of oil. It might spike emissions (E&E $), Shell gets greener, even as climate advocates say, ‘go faster’ (New York Times $), sale of Permian rigs would test Shell's green ambitions (E&E $)

PLASTICS: California consumers sue over plastic bottles’ ‘deceptive’ recycling labels (Reuters, E&E $)

PIPELINES: ‘We will not stop’: pipeline opponents ready for America’s biggest environmental fight (The Guardian), Memphis activists take pressure to Nashville as city council’s cease-fire with Byhalia Pipeline nears its end (MLK50)

COAL: Lawsuit: [Iowa] regulator failed to consider closing 2 coal plants (E&E $)

HYDROGEN: Hydrogen hopeful Italy seeks up to 1.5 bln euros for giant electrolyser plant (Reuters), Why hydrogen is the hottest thing in green energy (Bloomberg $)

UTILITIES: Bipartisan Maine lawmakers push to create first statewide, publicly owned utility in US (Utility Dive), FPL is done with coal in Florida. But can it get to 100% clean energy by 2035? (Miami Herald)

EVs: GM bets big on EVs with $8B surge, battery factories (E&E $)

METHANE: Huge methane leak spotted by satellite came from Gazprom pipeline (Bloomberg $), methane menace: Aerial survey spots 'super-emitter' landfills (Reuters)

CYBER SECURITY: Ransomware is disrupting energy. It might get worse (E&E $)

ACTIVISM: ‘Human swan’ to make 3,000-mile UK flight to raise climate awareness (The Guardian)

AVIATION: [UK] airport expansion plans grounded by Covid and climate change (FT $)

SHIPPING: UN adopts new measures to cut ship emissions, critics call for more (Reuters), inflatable sails to give cargo ships a greener push (Axios)

BUSINESS: Alcoa details plans to cut carbon emissions from making alumina (Reuters), Chanel leaves runways for farm fields to fight warming (E&E $)

CARBON PRICING: High greenhouse gas emitters should pay for carbon they produce, says IMF (The Guardian, Reuters), 1st carbon border tax is coming. What it means for the U.S. (E&E $)

FINANCE: Calstrs’s crucial phone call eased path for activists’ Exxon win (Bloomberg $), how central banks are responding to climate change (Reuters Factbox), ECB makes good progress on new strategy, Lagarde says (Reuters), traders beef up US renewable fuel teams as demand soars (Reuters), why has Andy Karsner frightened the mighty ExxonMobil? (Washington Post $)

BITCOIN: China steps up crackdown on bitcoin mining industry (FT $)

WILDLIFE: New oilfield in African wilderness threatens lives of 130,000 elephants (The Guardian), as climate warms, a rearrangement of world’s plant life looms (Yale Environment 360), salamanders have a secret to surviving climate change (Vox), zookeepers on keeping animals safe through western US heat wave (NPR)

INTERNATIONAL: [EU] drafts death sentence for the internal combustion engine car (Politico Pro $), Croatian island eyes green energy self-sufficiency in this decade (Reuters), Swiss gov't proposes making new renewable energy targets binding (Reuters), UN office says Sri Lanka ship fire causes significant damage (AP, The Hill), wind turbine clash adds to UK-EU post-Brexit tensions (The Guardian)

• The American West is drying out. Things will get ugly (CNN, Zachary Wolf analysis)
• Juneteenth highlights the gap between rhetoric and reality about who’s actually ‘free’ in America (Prism Reports, Ashton Lattimore op-ed)
• This Juneteenth, let’s look at race and the environmental movement (NJ.com, Ed Potosnak op-ed)
• Schools can’t address racism until they acknowledge they how they got to this point (Prism Reports, Frank Gettridge op-ed)
• California keeps putting wildfire victims in danger. Stop rebuilding in fire-prone areas (Sacramento Bee, Yousef Baig op-ed $)
• The US oil patch is the Wild West. We need regulation to control the sector’s methane emissions (Canary Media, Sarah Smith op-ed)
• Our climate is beyond hot (The Hill, Andrew Pershing and Bernadette Woods Placky op-ed)
• I hate recycling (Earther, Molly Taft commentary)
• Oil bulls are dancing in the dark (FT, David Sheppard op-ed $)
• Climate policy by judicial decree (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)
• Our democracy needs a bipartisan win. Biden can help the Senate get one on infrastructure. (Washington Post, Editorial Board $)
• Rep. Stansbury on how climate helped her win (E&E, interview $)
• California and Texas fail the power test together (Bloomberg, Liam Denning column $)
• We can’t solve the climate crisis without getting out of our cars and onto buses and trains (MarketWatch, Michael Mann and Matt Casale op-ed)
• The climate culture shock is coming (Bloomberg, Nathaniel Bullard op-ed $)
• When climate catastrophes spark religious turmoil (Washington Post, Randall Stephens commentary $)
• The day that delighted progressives (CNN, Richard Galant op-ed)
• Small business should embrace this climate solution (Casper Star-Tribune, Tarek Mango op-ed)

The Denier Roundup will return tomorrow.

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