FIRST LOOK:

The world's 30 biggest listed financial institutions are undermining their net-zero goals by funding fossil fuel expansion and lobbying to weaken sustainable finance policy, according to a new analysis released today by InfluenceMap.

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US & EU Task Force Looks to Increase US Gas Supplies to Europe: The U.S. and EU announced, this morning, a joint Task Force to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels. Under the agreement, the U.S. will work with international partners and “strive to provide” at least an additional 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied methane gas for European consumption by the end of this year. The EU agreed to work toward the goal of ensuring, until at least 2030, demand for approximately 50 billion cubic meters per year of additional U.S. LNG. President Biden's push to displace Russian gas could undermine his administration's efforts to combat climate change. Already the world’s largest LNG exporter, the U.S. supplied the EU with 22 bcm of gas last year. The U.S. is already operating at near full export capacity, so exporting an additional 50 bcm of LNG to Europe each year would very likely require new LNG export facilities (taking roughly three to five years to build). Building new export terminals would lock in fossil fuel infrastructure for decades while the dire impacts of climate change are already wreaking destruction in the U.S., Europe, and around the world. In the short term, aggressively ramping up heat pump installation, improved building efficiency, plugging pipeline leaks, rapidly expanding renewable energy, would cut European gas demand by 12.5 bcm per year, and lowering thermostats 1°C in winter will save another 10 bcm. Longer-term, those measures could slash total EU gas demand by 243 bcm per year. The Biden administration is in the process of drafting an executive order, still in the "pre-decisional" phase, to invoke the Defense Production Act to enable the rapid build-out of clean energy, storage, and heat pump manufacturing capacity, according to reporting from the Intercept. (LNG announcement: AP, Bloomberg $, Reuters, CNN, BBC; Undermining climate action: Bloomberg $; Export capacity limits: New York Times $; Gas demand reductions: Washington Post $; DPA EO: The Intercept)

Air Pollution Got Worse For Native American Communities Over Last 20 Years: Air pollution in the U.S. has declined overall over the last two decades — except in Native American communities on tribal land who now actually breathe increasingly polluted air, according to a study in the American Journal of Public Health. The research, which found airborne concentrations of fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) pollution rose between 2000 and 2018, is consistent with a long list of environmental harms perpetrated on Indigenous people, including by extractive energy industries, in the U.S. and around the world. (Bloomberg $)

FERC Backs Off Climate, EJ Considerations For Gas Projects: FERC, under pressure from lawmakers and oil and gas groups, walked back its new framework for considering the climate and environmental justice impacts of gas projects on Thursday. The commission rescinded its assessment framework, which it announced last month, and instead will propose changes to how it reviews proposed gas projects — which it said will now only apply to future projects — and seek public feedback. The commission also approved three methane gas projects, pending for months, including a project in Louisiana that will connect to an LNG export terminal. (AP, Politico Pro $; Lawmaker pressure: Reuters, E&E $)

Much, Much, More Bang for their Bucks: The world's wealthiest 1% — those making more than $109,000 per year — are the biggest source of climate pollution by a substantial margin, according to a new report from the World Inequality Lab. The analysis, led by the Paris School of Economics and UC-Berkeley, finds recent decades' wildly unequally distributed benefits of globalization have made personal wealth a better predictor of emissions than national wealth. The sources of growing emissions are different, however. In the developing world, growing middle classes' increasingly meat-heavy diets account for a large part of emissions increases, while superyachts and private jets (and joyrides that barely make it to space) account for disproportionate amounts of climate pollution among the individually superrich. (Bloomberg $)

UTILITY SHUTOFFS: House committee investigates shut-off rates for Dominion, DTE, Duke, Exelon, NextEra and Southern (Utility Dive)

FED: Powell says Fed could raise rates more quickly to tame inflation (New York Times $)

BANKS: Dutch bank ING ends financing for new oil and gas projects (Reuters, Axios)

$HAREHOLDER PROFIT: Oil executives: Wall Street is holding us back (Axios)

SEC: The SEC climate rule: 7 things investors need to know (CNBC), Why the climate disclosure fight is so intense (Axios), Who stands to make and lose money if the SEC climate rule becomes law (CNBC)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: These rural organizers have found an answer to dog-whistle politics: Multi-racial, working-class solidarity (The Real News), Environmental justice is an abortion rights issue (Ms. Magazine)

• IRONTON, LA: After hurricane Ida, a historic Black community races to save its future (Yes Magazine)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: Energy consumers pledge ‘radical’ cutbacks in Russian imports (Bloomberg $), Ukraine war could extend bump in US coal use, but utilities remain confident in decarbonization path (Utility Dive)

• CYBER: Russia is considering selling its oil and gas for bitcoin as sanctions intensify from the west (CNBC), US charges Russian government hackers with campaign of global energy cyberattacks (Wall Street Journal $), US indictment details Russian efforts to hack worldwide energy sector (HuffPost), DC court unseals indictment of Russian in hack of US energy company (Politico Pro $)
• ENERGY RESPONSE: No Russian gas, please: this may be first LNG tender to specifically ban outcast state (Bloomberg $), German chancellor rejects calls for immediate halt to Russian fossil fuel imports (Democracy Now), German utilities call for gas market early warning system (Reuters), Nations ‘united’ in seeking to cut Russian oil, gas imports (AP), Germany's multi-billion euro package to cushion energy costs (Reuters, Factbox), Germany vows to end dependence on Russian gas by 2024 as US offers extra shipments (FT $), Uzbekistan will pump more gas but keep most of it at home (Bloomberg $)
• SANCTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES: Putin is demanding gas importers pay Russia in rubles, twisting the west’s sanctions regime against itself (Fortune), Germany’s Scholz rejects Putin’s rubles-for-gas demand (Politico Pro $), Russian and Ukrainian activists call for European embargo on Russian fossil fuels (The Guardian), Russian sustainability official leaves country over Ukraine (E&E News), The enabler of Russia’s war? Ukraine’s top climate scientist lays the blame on fossil fuels (CNBC)
• DIESEL: Gas prices may be bad now, but three leading CEOs warn there’s a bigger looming fuel crisis that would be a real nightmare (Fortune, OilPrice)

EAST AFRICA: Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate: 'Not all climate action is climate justice' (France24), Global insurance firms steer clear of Total Energies’ embattled East African crude oil pipeline project (Inclusive Development), Uganda, Tanzania sign oil pipeline project agreement (AA Energy), Russia's TMK denied TotalEnergies' mega-contract for Uganda-Tanzania pipeline (Africa Intelligence), Climate activists appeal to Pope over oil pipeline in East Africa (Crux, All Africa), Funding shortages thwart Ethiopia drought response as crises multiply (The New Humanitarian)

RULE OF LAW: Virginia Thomas urged White House chief to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 election, texts show (Washington Post $, AP, New York Times $, Salon, The Independent, NY Mag, CBS, CNN, Daily Beast, USA Today, Esquire, Newsweek, MarketWatch, Forbes, Deadline, CNBC)

CLIMATE-FUELED MIGRATION: As climate fears mount, some in US are deciding to relocate (Yale Environment 360), FEMA is giving homeowners money to prepare for floods — or move away (Grist)

LIFE, LIBERTY, AND CARS: Drivers top off their tanks as US shuns energy conservation (E&E News), Gas prices may be rising but you’re still not paying for the true cost of driving (TIME), Newsom’s gas price relief would send $400 payments to California vehicle owners (LA Times $, Politico Pro $)

MEDIA: How broadcast TV networks covered climate change in 2021 (Media Matters)

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?: Judge: Environmental nonprofit violated labor law (AP)

SCOTUS: 6 takeaways from Jackson’s week of hearings (E&E News), Jackson questioned on key doctrine in climate litigation (E&E News), Ketanji Brown Jackson's tearful moment captures the joy and pain of being first (The Root, Black Wall Street Times, The Grio)

EPA: EPA updates enforcement tool to boost transparency, equity (E&E $), EPA revokes Trump-era ‘sue and settle’ memo (E&E News), Inside Scott Pruitt’s chaotic last days at EPA (E&E News), Regan says Supreme Court climate ruling is 'a tough call' (Politico Pro $), The EPA plans to sunset its online archive (The Verge)

DOE: DOE launches energy efficiency experiment at public housing (E&E $)

DOI: Many BLM grazing permits renewed without NEPA review, group says (E&E News), There are millions of acres of ‘failing’ rangelands, data shows (Grist)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden sends mixed signals to oil industry (The Hill), Gina McCarthy outlines new playbook to sell holdouts on 'BBB' (E&E $), Gina McCarthy says Russian invasion won't distract Biden from clean energy agenda (Politico Pro $)

THE HILL: Democrats eye ‘Build Back Slimmer’ on reconciliation (E&E News)

HOUSE: Grijalva restarts EJ tour, looks to boost sweeping bill (E&E $)

SENATE: Manchin outlines energy policy objectives (The Hill), Sen. Jon Tester, one of the Senate's only farmers, is an unlikely champion for climate action (Washington Post $), Senate nears deal on Russia trade, energy imports bill (E&E $), Sen. Manchin launches new push for ‘all of the above’ energy bill (Washington Post $)

CITIES AND STATES: Illinois renewable energy plan details extensive equity measures for future solar, energy projects (Utility Dive), Minnesota cities want permission to move faster than state on energy codes (Energy News Network), California set off a biofuel boom — but can it manage the fallout? (LA Times $), California moves to regulate 'Erin Brockovich chemical,' but she says it's not enough (The Hill)

FERC: ‘Drill, buddy, drill!!!!’ Inside FERC’s $40M Rover fine (E&E News)

IMPACTS: Alaska air pollution holds clues for other Arctic climates (AP), China faces worst crop conditions ever due to climate change (Bloomberg $), What climate change will mean for your home (Washington Post $)

FLOODING: How can 'sponge cities' use nature to tackle climate-fuelled floods? (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

FORESTS: Forests’ climate-cooling effect is greater than previously known (Bloomberg $), Tropical forests turn down the planet's heat by 1C, scientists find (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

TICK TOCK: 2021 emissions surge leaves less than 10 years to avoid 1.5 degree warming: study (The Hill)

AIR POLLUTION: Study: every single country is failing the who’s new air quality standards (Grist)

CLIMATE-INFORMED CARE: The next frontier in medicine: doctors with climate training (Grist)

RENEWABLES: 'Like a nuclear bomb going off:' Solar panel petition decision could upend industry, Biden climate goals (Politico Pro $), Solar tariff request sparks conflict before Commerce decision (E&E News), Here are the people who break solar panels to learn how to make them stronger (Inside Climate News), Is 'mesh' the answer to offshore wind's grid troubles? (E&E $), These next-gen solar cells could make single-use batteries obsolete (Canary Media), Why a St. Louis church went solar (Yale Climate Connections)

BATTERIES: Billionaire Koch brothers are betting big on an electric future (OilPrice)

STORAGE: New York adjusts standby, buyback rate methodologies, sweetening value proposition for NYC storage (Utility Dive)

METHANE: Methane leaks in new Mexico far exceed current estimates, study suggests (New York Times $), Total vows to slash methane as investors demand Big Oil do more (Bloomberg $)

OIL & GAS: Canada says it can boost oil, gas exports by up to 300,000 bpd in 2022 (Reuters), How chronic oil pollution at sea goes unpunished (Deutsche Welle)

PLASTICS: Surge into plastic recycling by chemicals and oil groups meets pushback (FT $)

PIPELINES: Organizing across state lines to stop a pipeline (Yes Magazine)

HYDROGEN: Is hydrogen a climate savior or a disaster? Cutting through the hype (LA Times $), New York signs pact to pursue hydrogen hub plan in climate push (Bloomberg $)

UTILITIES: Gas utilities join fight against Oregon climate program (Portland Business Journal $), Pepco is accused of undermining D.C. clean energy goals (E&E $)

(ALLEGED) UTILITY CORRUPTION: Former FirstEnergy CEO Jones, vice president Dowling paid bribes in scheme, affidavit says (Akron Beacon Journal)

EVs: High gas prices = time for an electric car? It could be hard to find one (Gizmodo)

BITCOIN: Exxon weighs taking gas-to-Bitcoin pilot to four countries (Bloomberg $)

AGRICULTURE: ‘Climate smart’ policies could increase southern Africa’s crops by up to 500% (The Guardian)

CARBON CAPTURE: Occidental says direct air capture project may cost $1B (E&E $)

FINANCE: Citigroup faces vote on financing fossil fuel projects (E&E $), Companies must venture into 'jungle' of approaches to ESG ratings (Utility Dive)

WILDLIFE: Biodiversity loss poses global financial threat, report says (Reuters), Many bird species nesting and laying eggs nearly a month early, study says (The Guardian)

• Destroy demand or boost supply? Australia shows natural gas dilemma: Russell (Reuters, Clyde Russell column)
• Don’t demonise decarbonisation (Energy Monitor, Seb Kennedy op-ed)
• Oil tax cuts help the Kremlin and punish Ukraine (Bloomberg, Javier Blas column $)
• The SEC wants to stop activism (Bloomberg, Matt Levine column $)
• Uganda, Tanzania to become oil economies (Zambian Observer, Giza Mdoe analysis)

Just Two Funders, Koch and BP, Have Spent Nearly $1,000,000,000 To Buy Credibility Through Universities- UnKoch My Campus Helps You Stop Them. 

Yesterday when talking about the $50 million going to climate denial organizations, we mentioned it was just a drop in the bucket compared to things like fossil fuel advertising budgets. But it’s also just a tenth of what the Koch network alone has spent on supporting climate and economic disinformation at Colleges and Universities. 

Today, that’s our focus, thanks to the work of UnKoch My Campus, which works to expose and oppose the undue influence of Koch spending on colleges. And there’s plenty to cover. For example, they have a petition calling on Koch-funded schools and politicians to divest, and another calling on George Mason University to rename Buchanan Hall. 

UnKoch is also doing plenty of real-world activism, for example, an April 4th event in DC to call on President Biden to cancel student debt, and as it turns out, Koch has long fought against public schools and was an early champion for the concept of student debt. 

And for the students out there, UnKoch has a fellowship you can apply for and some great resources to help you become your own anti-Koch activist. Specifically, they recently published a Model Policy report, and it’s basically everything you need to find out if Koch’s on your campus, and if so, kick them out. 

Because as UnKoch head Jasmine Banks wrote in a recent op-ed, “College students have been some of Charles Koch’s fiercest opponents,” and with the success of the divestment movement, “it’s student activists who are scaring the fossil fuel industry. And it should stay scared.”

What should they be scared about? As the report describes, “Charles Koch’s foundations have overseen over $458 million in grants to over 550 universities and higher ed adjacent non-profits from 2005-2019.” 

And he’s not doing it out of the goodness of his heart. It’s part of their strategy. The report describes how “in 2014 the Charles Koch Foundation described the motivations of its university investments to other wealthy donors as a means to ‘building state-based capabilities and election capabilities’ by developing an ‘integrated’ ‘talent pipeline’ to achieve widespread support for, and adoption of, favorable policies at the state and federal levels. To this end, Koch has advised businessmen to support ‘only those programs, departments or schools that contribute in some way to [their] individual companies or to the general welfare of [the] free enterprise system.’” 

And as you would be foolish not to expect, there are serious strings attached to Koch funding to universities. Once exposed, as UnKoch does, these relationships are self-evidently corrupt and often change once people realize, as the report details, that funders are getting say over hiring, curriculum, research targets, and other serious conflicts of interest. 

It’s not just Koch, either. BP’s $500 million spend on UC Berkeley Energy Biosciences Institute “gave BP the power to determine which research proposals deserved funding” while Big Tobacco’s Phillip Morris had a “ $1.3 million contract with Virginia Commonwealth University” that “barred researchers from discussing or publishing research results without first consulting Philip Morris.” 

If you’re a worried student (or parent), then fortunately, there are some steps you can take. First off, if it’s a public school, you can submit a Freedom of Information Act request for documents about who’s funding what at the school. The report then has various suggestions, based on what you find. 

For example, if funding is referred to as gifts, not grants, UnKoch has a model policy for that. If you do find a Koch grant, then you might want to consult the guide for “Disaffiliation with the Charles Koch Foundation Model Motion” to see how you might get your school to divest. And if it’s more than just Koch, you might need the more comprehensive “Institutional Conflicts of Interest Model Motions.” 

These model policies are based on ones that have been adopted, so they’re essentially built for you to drop your school’s name in and then run with!

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