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Feds Demand Texas Fix Racist Flood Funding: Texas has 10 days to fix its racist plan to direct flood mitigation funding to whiter, inland counties while disbursing zero dollars to Houston and Harris Counties. Those municipalities, which were practically submerged by Hurricane Harvey, sustained half the storm's damage, according to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. The state plan "disproportionately harmed Black and Hispanic residents," HUD said in a letter to the state. Texas land commissioner George P. Bush is currently just weeks away from a Republican primary for state attorney general. If the The General Land Office, which he heads, does not fix the problem in time, "[HUD] will then turn it over to the (U.S.) Department of Justice," Turner told ABC-13, "so we will see how that unfolds." (ABC13; Climate Signals background: Hurricane Harvey)

Drought Reveals 8,000 Year-Old Native Skull: Extreme drought has revealed human remains that harken back to the days when the mob ran the Vegas strip, but a drought depleted Minnesota River has revealed human remains about 8,000 years older. Two unnamed kayakers found a bone — determined to be part of a skull — near Sacred Heart in what is now Minnesota last year and turned it over to law enforcement thinking it may belong to a missing person. While not connected to an open criminal investigation, the young Native American man appears to have lived a violent life with a depression on the skull indicative of blunt force trauma according to Sheriff Scott Hable, though Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, told the New York Times the rounded edges of the wound could indicate he survived the injury. Severe drought hit Minnesota last year, fueling wildfires, and exposing parts of the Minnesota River previously underwater. The remains are expected to be returned to local Native American tribes. (Native American remains: MPR, New York Times $, Washington Post $; Organized crime: New York Times $; Climate Signals background: Drought)

DOE Sets First-Ever Mobile Home Energy Requirements: The Biden administration finalized energy efficiency rules for mobile homes last week. The DOE rule, the first of its kind, will require improved "thermal envelopes" protecting the inside of the home from the outside air and will, according to DOE, cut CO2 pollution by 80 million metric tons and save 17 million residents an average of $475 per year. The dangers of poorly-insulated mobile homes were on tragic display during Winter Storm Uri in Texas in February 2021. The rule was criticized by environmental and housing groups for not being strong enough and manufacturers for being too strong. (E&E $, Bloomberg Law, Inside EPA $)

ANALYSIS: Big Oil workers face pay cuts and layoffs while CEOs cash in (BailoutWatch), Big Oil's wartime bonus: An update on how it turns profits into wealth (BailoutWatch)

GOP v. ESG: GOP directs culture war fury toward green investing trend (AP), Lawmakers seek to curb voting power of BlackRock, vanguard and other big asset managers (Wall Street Journal $), BlackRock, JPMorgan, others tell Texas they don't boycott energy companies (Reuters)

PROXY SEASON: Schroders to oppose Amazon, Meta, Alphabet over worker, digital rights (Reuters)

PRIVATE EQUITY: Private equity’s power plants emit more CO2 than Argentina (E&E News)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: As agencies seek more environmental justice data, longtime residents are skeptical (Energy News Network), GAO urges feds to tackle Alaska Native villages' climate risk (E&E $)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: Europe has a plan to get off Russian gas. Energy experts say it is not enough. (Grist), Europe plots solar revival to replace Russian gas (Wall Street Journal $), Europe’s clean energy plan has a mining problem (E&E News), How Europe’s energy plan affects US gas, offshore wind (E&E News)

EACOP: Marsh McLennan to place coverage for oil pipeline 

Marsh revealed in oil pipeline project shunned by leading banks and insurers (FT $, Business Insurance, The Insurer)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: G7 to meet climate finance support goal next year - draft (Reuters), Slow progress on Great Green Wall prompts soul-searching at UN desertification summit (Climate Home), Restoring the Great Lakes: After 50 years of US-Canada joint efforts, some success and lots of unfinished business (The Conversation)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Backed by Greenpeace, farmer sues VW over climate change (AP), Twenty-one Democratic AGs file motion to intervene in California emissions lawsuit (The Hill)

SOUTH ASIA (HEAT): Scant hope for relief as repeated heat waves scorch Pakistan (The New Humanitarian), India's power grid creaks under hybrid work model, heatwave (Reuters), Why is India facing its worst power crisis in over six years? (Reuters, explainer), India asks regulator to allow utilities to import up to 30% of coal needs (Reuters)

SOUTH AFRICA FLOODING: South Africa flooding victims traumatized and homeless (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

AUSTRALIAN ELECTIONS: Economy, China, climate dominate as Australia set for polls (AP), Climate policies of Australia's major parties (Reuters, Factbox), Trauma of fires, floods hangs over Australian election (Wall Street Journal $), Australia's gas producers cash in on global energy security fears (Reuters), Australia’s greenhouse pollution from coal higher per person than any other developed country, data shows (The Guardian), Australian Greens hope election focus on climate will bring their biggest ever representation (The Guardian)

AGENCIES: Everyone is mad about the Commerce Department solar probe (Protocol), Feds subpoena troubled mine safety commission, chair says (E&E News), FTC asked to probe 'abuses' of utility industry (E&E $), Trump nominees still control a key mine safety agency well into Biden’s Second year (HuffPost)

DOE: DOE announces multibillion-dollar project to kickstart a carbon dioxide removal industry in US (CNN)

DOI: Haaland promises new 5-year offshore leasing plan by June (E&E News, Politico Pro $, Washington Examiner, Wall Street Journal $)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: SEC chair responds to Republican pushback on climate rule (E&E $)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden forest plan stirs dispute over what counts as 'old' (AP), Biden warns of 'another tough hurricane season' this year (Bloomberg $), White House looks to reassure lawmakers on solar probe (E&E $), White House official promises regulatory review updates (E&E $)

THE HILL: Clean energy tax package shows signs of life (E&E News), Congress OKs Ukraine package with energy, minerals money (E&E $), Nearly 200 Republicans vote against bill to ease baby formula shortage (Washington Post $)

• HOUSE: 85 House members add to Senate calls for an end to anti-circumvention solar investigation (Utility Dive), High gas prices are  oil companies' fault says Ro Khanna, and Democrats should go after them (TIME), House passes gasoline gouging bill that’s going nowhere in the Senate (Politico Pro $, E&E $, The Hill), The four Democrats who bucked party and voted against gas price gouging bill (The Hill), Top GOP lawmaker [Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.)] presses USDA on short-staffed wildfire crews (E&E $)
• SENATE: Dems stand back and watch Chuck and Joe show (Politico Pro $), Manchin blasts Biden energy policies at budget hearing (The Hill), 

ELECTIONS: The small, local election with potentially major climate change significance (TIME), Pennsylvania might really send an anti-fracking advocate to congress (Grist), Ryan Zinke makes his 'energy dominance' pitch to Montanans (Washington Post $)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Barr, Biden's pick for Fed regulation role, cruises through confirmation hearing (Reuters), Fed has 'important but quite limited' authority to police climate change risk, says nominee Barr (Reuters)

CITIES AND STATES: Lead poisonings of children in Baltimore are down, but lead contamination still poses a major threat, a new report says (Inside Climate News), NYC wants more rooftop solar. Its fire code is getting in the way. (Grist), DC could see hottest may weather in at least a decade on Saturday (Washington Post $)

• CALIFORNIA: Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit? (Grist and The Counter), California’s ‘affordability crisis’ attracts innovative ratemaking and regulatory proposals (Utility Dive)

FERC: FERC approves three natural gas projects as Democrats tee up policy changes (Politico Pro $)

IMPACTS: Capturing the climate crisis: the Evidence Project – in pictures (The Guardian), In Mexico, a decade of images shows Mennonites' traditions frozen in time (Reuters), Snowmobiles in slush: sports are on thin ice in the warming arctic (New York Times $), Studies show climate change is increasingly driving extreme weather risks (Axios), WHO looks to Indianapolis to study health, climate change (E&E $), Why climate change matters to Latinos (Yale Climate Connections), Grim 2022 drought outlook for Western US offers warnings for the future as climate change brings a hotter, thirstier atmosphere (The Conversation)

GRID: US at high risk of power emergencies this summer, say regulators (Gizmodo, E&E News, Utility Dive)

WILD(FIRE) WEATHER: From 90 degrees to snow: wild weather expected in Denver and Rockies (Washington Post $), Wild weather includes 'critical' fire risk, incoming Colorado snowstorm (Axios), Extreme heat and drought conditions fuel several Texas wildfires (New York Times $), High winds, heat boost fire threat as California faces long season (Washington Post $), With rakes and bulldozers, New Mexico battles 'beast' wildfire (Reuters), Gusty winds fan wildfires in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado (AP)

IMPACTS' IMPACTS: Climate change is driving migration to US and making it more dangerous (Yale Climate Connections), Thousands of migrants have been waiting for months to enter US (New York Times $)

FOOD: French dijon mustard supply hit by climate and rising costs, say producers (The Guardian)

MAINE MOOSE: Winter ticks wiped out nearly 90% of the moose calves scientists tracked in part of Maine last year (Maine Public Radio, AP)

HEAT: Extreme heat linked to rise in US death rates: study (The Hill)

HURRICANES: Waters with high heat content expected in Gulf of Mexico this hurricane season (Yale Climate Connections)

ARE WE SURE THEIR UTERI CAN HANDLE IT, THOUGH?: Meet the courageous women storm chasers who are documenting increasingly devastating weather (Cosmopolitan)

RENEWABLES: Solar power at Pennsylvania schools doubled during the pandemic (Environmental Health News), Sweden gives go-ahead for offshore windpark to power 500,000 homes (Reuters)

"RENEWABLES": As biomass burning surges in Japan and South Korea, where will Asia get its wood? (Mongabay)

LNG: Spacex scrubs plan to build mini LNG plant at Texas launch site (Bloomberg $)

OIL & GAS: How gas interests slowed Chile’s clean energy transition (AP)

PLASTICS: US plastic recycling rates are even worse than we thought (TIME)

COAL: This CEO left coal miners penniless. Why did a West Virginia town give him a lucrative tax break to build a luxury hotel? (The Real News), In coal country, a new chance to clean up a toxic legacy (Washington Post $)

STEEL: Japan's Kobe Steel aims to sell 1 mln T of low-carbon steel in 2030 (Reuters)

UTILITIES: How AI chips could make smart meters smarter (Canary Media)

GRID: PJM sees need for thermal power plants to protect against blackout risks amid rising electrification (Utility Dive)

EVs: Elon Musk is furious Tesla got taken off the S&P 500 ESG list (Protocol, Reuters), A SpaceX flight attendant said Elon Musk exposed himself and propositioned her for sex, documents show. The company paid $250,000 for her silence. (Business Insider), Volkswagen, Mahindra explore partnership for electric vehicle components (Reuters)

DESPERATION: Suicides indicate wave of ‘doomerism’ over escalating climate crisis (The Guardian)

COLLABORATIONS: Bono and the Pope harmonize on climate change, girls' education (Reuters)

BUSINESS: Need a dose of climate optimism? Look to Charlottesville business collaborative (Energy News Network)

CARBON CAPTURE: BP plans Houston-area project that could capture up to 15 million metric tons of carbon per year (Houston Chronicle), Chevron to launch CCS project at Calif. power plant (E&E $), Chevron, Schlumberger withdraw request for California carbon-capture permit (Reuters)

FINANCE: Deutsche Bank links Henkel supply chain financing to ESG ratings (Reuters)

WILDLIFE: Whale sharks keep crashing into ships (Gizmodo)

INTERNATIONAL: Italian police raid climate activists over Gazprom protest (Politico Pro $), Japan lays out plan to issue $157 billion in 'green transition' bonds (Reuters)

• Recycling critical minerals is an underappreciated national security tool (The Hill, Adina Renee Adler op-ed)
• The electric-vehicle unicorn crash (Wall Street Journal, Allysia Finley op-ed $)
• Texas’ power grid is still broken, and officials would rather promote fossil fuels than fix it (Houston Chronicle, Chris Tomlinson column)
• Biden can boost energy production—and protect national parks (Wall Street Journal, Christopher Barnard op-ed $)
• Climate lessons from faltering Texas power grid (The Hill, Daniel Cohan op-ed)
• Catherine Coleman Flowers on America’s dirty Secret (Atmos, essay)
• The banks collapsed in 2008 – and our food system is about to do the same (The Guardian, George Monbiot op-ed)
• This election, are the teals ready to take on the fossil fuel lobby that’s captured the major parties? (The Guardian, Jeff Sparrow op-ed)
• Why your utility company sucks (New Republic, Kate Aronoff column)
• Soaring diesel prices spells bad news for America (The Hill, Rep. Byron Donalds op-ed)
• Electricity operators must wake up to climate change — or brace for summer outages (The Hill, Romany Webb op-ed)
• Republicans are to blame for the buffalo hate crime massacre (Black Wall Street Times, Tanesha Peeples op-ed)
• Beyond magical thinking: time to get real on climate change (Yale Environment 360, Vaclav Smil op-ed)
• The true cost of the climate stalemate in Congress (New York Times, David Wallace-Wells column $)
• Australia’s prime minister ignored the climate. Voters could make him pay. (New York Times, Van Badham op-ed $)

Facebook Won't Confront Disinfo Playbook Because It's Using The Disinfo Playbook

Once upon a time, we believed that maybe if Facebook staff was aware of how the platform was being exploited as a key cog of industrial disinformation campaigns, then perhaps they would take action against the front groups using Facebook to spread disinformation. But it turns out Facebook already knows all about how front groups use Facebook to spread disinformation about regulations, because Facebook used a front group to spread disinformation about regulations.

On Tuesday, Cat Zakrzewski and Elizabeth Dwoskin at the Washington Post reported on documents from the Tech Transparency Project revealing how Facebook launched a front group called American Edge for "a full-throated campaign to combat antitrust legislation in Washington, placing op-eds in regional papers throughout the country, commissioning studies, and collaborating with a surprising array of partners, including minority business associations, conservative think tanks, and former national security officials." 

If that sounds familiar to those of you who have read posts here over the years about the Union of Concerned Scientists' report on the disinformation playbook (now peer-reviewed!) or how Dr. David Michaels told Congress companies using the disinformation playbook "caused the sickness and deaths of millions through its use defending tobacco, opioids, asbestos, lead, stain-resistant chemicals, and many more toxic products." 

Well, now we know for sure that Facebook is another such toxic product that's turned to the disinfo playbook instead of improving its business practices, running TV ads, local state efforts, defense trade publications, conservative propaganda "news" and websites, the whole magilla. 

American Edge, the Post reported, spent "nearly $2 million in ads on Facebook," roughly half of the initial $4 million Facebook spent to found the group. By comparison, Facebook's big grant to fact checkers that it trots out in response to every criticism about its failure to protect users from climate disinformation could only scrounge up $800,000.

"It’s a political playbook more common to other industries, including pharmaceuticals, tobacco and telecommunications," Zakrzewski and Dwoskin note, "but tech companies, under heightened scrutiny from federal regulators, are seizing on these methods." 

Someone who spoke to the Washington Post on the condition of anonymity admitted that “Facebook can’t be the messenger. If we are out there saying it, people won’t believe it as much, so the conversation is how can you set up a proxy.” (Just like how ExxonMobil's former exec bragged in a sting about how they used "shadow groups to work against" policy!) 

While Facebook itself is advertising about how it's totally pro-regulation, just like how tobacco and fossil fuel company ads claim they're part of the solution, Meta's front group American Edge is tapping Sinophobia to argue that if Silicon Valley is regulated, they'd lose out to China (where more-downloaded-than-Facebook social media app TikTok is from.) 

Ahead of the 2020 elections, they "decided to seed a think tank, identifying a network of partner organizations that could emphasize how the public, and particularly vulnerable minorities, might be hurt by antitrust laws." Just like how woke-washing is the hip new disinfo tactic, Facebook tapped the longstanding business front pretending to be a Black public interest group, polluter-funded National Black U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

And this was hardly their first foray into disinfo, the Post reports. "Meta also paid a GOP consulting firm to malign TikTok, The Post reported in March… Facebook’s history of using surrogates dates at least to 2011, when the company hired a PR firm to push stories critical of rival Google’s privacy practices. In 2018, the company faced widespread criticism after news articles exposed it was paying a crisis public relations firm, Definers Public Affairs, to place articles attacking billionaire George Soros, who had funded groups that were critical of Facebook. Facebook said in a 2018 blog post that it hired Definers to 'diversify our DC advisers' after the 2016 election, in the face of regulatory threats." 

Definers would certainly have helped them get into the Trump administration, as it was also the Republican firm tapped by Trump's EPA to investigate and harass critics of the Trump administration's pro-polluter EPA agenda. 

Clearly Meta executives like election-stealing climate denier Joel Kaplan know all about the disinformation on Facebook, and now it makes sense why they wouldn't create content policies that forbid disinformation on the platform. 

If they did, then they couldn't use it to spread their own disinformation! 

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