FIRST LOOK: 

New research shows gas stoves leak toxic chemicals like carcinogenic benzene. Ready to #MakeTheSwitch to electric? Learn how here!

Wind Energy Transmission Bottleneck Undermines Municipal Benefits: Wind farms in southern Minnesota's wind belt are generating more electricity than transmission lines can handle, forcing some turbines offline and causing shortfalls in municipal budgets, the Star Tribune reports. "Fundamentally, there is [a] bottleneck," Public Utilities Commission member Joe Sullivan, said at a public meeting. "Southern Minnesota and our region does not have enough transmission capacity." Eighteen counties reported a 14% drop in wind tax revenue last year and a couple reported losses as high as 34%. Rural areas are major beneficiaries of wind energy production tax revenue, but cost and NIMBY objections often stand in the way of building the transmission lines necessary to get the power generated into the grid. "It will change our budget," Dennis Welgraven, a commissioner in Murray County where wind power is so prominent a wind turbine is featured in the county's logo. "It won't mean cutting services, but it could mean putting off projects." (Star Tribune $)

It's Very Hot: Extreme heat across the U.S. and Europe is threatening human health and, along with other geopolitical factors, straining electrical grids. Scorching heat in Western Europe, where air conditioning is scarce, is expected to rise as high as 113°F (45°C) in parts of France and Spain by the end of this week. “The current heatwave is a dangerous reminder of the accelerating impacts of global warming,” Michael Byrne, of the University of St Andrews, told the Guardian. In the U.S., methane-based gas prices jumped another 7% on Monday as air conditioners tried to keep pace with triple-digit temperatures. In Texas, "extreme" and "dangerously hot" conditions, per the National Weather Service, forced the state's grid operator to ask its customers to voluntarily reduce electricity consumption to maintain grid stability. The Texas grid has broken demand records multiple times this year already. Extreme heat and heatwaves are made worse and more frequent by climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, and often limit wind power generation, which can exacerbate power crunches. Also Monday, the Houston Chronicle reported David Desar, CEO of Texas utility CenterPoint Energy — whose compensation more than tripled while Texans burned furniture for warmth and froze to death — was the highest paid executive among public companies in Houston. (European heat: The Guardian; Texas grid: Washington Post $, Houston Chronicle, The Hill, Bloomberg $; Gas prices: Reuters; Texas demand records: KXAN; Lesar: Houston Chronicle; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves)

Denver Residents Try To Put The Fun Between Their Legs, En Masse, At 8:00 AM On A Monday: Overwhelming traffic shut down Denver’s website at 8:00 am Monday morning, but city residents weren't trying to buy Phish tickets, as one Twitter user joked, they were trying to submit applications for e-bike discount vouchers. The demand for e-bikes, which in urban and suburban settings can render cars unnecessary, was so high the first time vouchers were distributed the application window was shut in just weeks. This time, it overwhelmed the city's servers. ​​“These can take the place of your car. Going uphill is effortless; going long distances is effortless. You don't sweat so you can show up to work nice and fresh. So, people are starting to understand the benefits and the capabilities,” Kenny Fischer of FattEBikes in Denver told ABC-7. Denver's e-bike voucher program offers $1,200 vouchers for income-qualifying residents, $400 for others, and an additional $500 for cargo e-bikes purchased at certain local bike shops. At least half the vouchers will go to income-qualifying residents. (Denverite, ABC-7, KDVR, CBSColorado)

VALUE OF NATURE: Humans need to value nature as well as profits to survive, UN report finds (The Guardian), Market value alone is selling nature short, governments told (Reuters), What value on nature? Countries now have 1st guidelines (AP), Study: rising seas are weakening nature’s storm shields (Grist)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: A crucial Russian gas pipeline has been shut for repairs. Will it ever reopen? (CNN), What happens if Germany's Russian gas flows stop (Reuters explainer), Fearing Russian gas shut-off, France's industry turns to oil (Reuters), Germany due to connect coal power plants to grid to save gas - sources (Reuters), US says it backs Canadian move to help Germany import natural gas from Russia (The Hill)

WASHBURN FIRE: Yosemite wildfire doubles in size, threatens over 500 giant sequoias (Washington Post $, Gizmodo, CBS, NBC, Axios, ABC), California firefighters gain against Yosemite wildfire (AP, Reuters), Yosemite fire rekindles debate on saving sequoias (E&E $), Yosemite wildfire smoke chokes national park's views and air quality (Reuters)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: US-China tensions, Kiribati's shock withdrawal overshadow Pacific leaders meeting (Reuters)

BIG GREENS: Defenders’ board backs leaders after toxic workplace claims (E&E News)

SCOTUS: 5 things to know about the Supreme Court’s recent climate ruling (Canary Media), Biggest CCS failure clouds Supreme Court ruling (E&E News), What will happen if Obergefell is overturned? Queer legal experts are scrambling (The 19th* News), What’s next after Supreme Court’s climate ruling? (Yale Climate Connections), The courts won’t save us (Atmos)

AGENCIES: NOAA broke law by not protecting right whales, judge rules (E&E News)

EPA: EPA needs a Senate-confirmed enforcement chief, groups say (Washington Post, The Hill)

DOI: Biden plan could advance massive Arctic oil project (E&E News), Haaland back on the Hill to defend budget, drilling plans (E&E News)

THE HILL: Three-week sprint: Dems eye deal on clean energy package (E&E News), Congress juggles China bill, Democrats’ climate and drug-pricing ambitions (Wall Street Journal $)

HOUSE: Committee schedules markup on mining, resource bills (E&E $), Lawmakers push NDAA climate, mining, chemical amendments (E&E $)

SENATE: Schumer making last-ditch bid to pass reconciliation bill this summer (The Hill), Senate panel sets hearing on lowering energy prices (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: After blocking gas bans in red states, fossil fuel industry eyes New Jersey (HuffPost), Vermont students grade schools' sustainability (E&E $), California lawmakers are ready to decarbonize the shipping industry. The technology isn’t there yet. (Grist)

FERC: Court says FERC can consider gas exports for some pipelines (E&E News), CAISO urges FERC to dismiss Vistra concerns over ‘emergency’ interconnection plan (Utility Dive), Farm to FERC: $40M needed to restore damage done by pipeline (E&E $)

IMPACTS: Rate of Arctic warming faster than previously thought (E&E News)

2021 EURO FLOODS: A year after devastating floods, Belgian victims still in trauma (Reuters), Floods haunt Belgian town as rebuild seeks to stop repeat disaster (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

HEAT: Most US cities underprepared for rising heat, study finds (The Hill)

DROUGHT: Hydropower worries grow as Colorado River reservoirs keep dropping (KUNC), Drought tightens grip on northern Italy (New York Times $)

WILDFIRES: Portugal on high alert as temperatures soar (Reuters), Rain helps slow Alaska wildfire that prompted evacuations (AP)

HURRICANES: Hurricane Darby grows into Cat 4 storm; no threat to land (AP)

WATER: Calif. water users see 'deep cuts' along San Joaquin River (E&E $)

(DE)FORESTATION: US leads in number of trees gained — and lost (The Hill)

RENEWABLES: A grassroots coalition turns to solar and batteries to help New Orleans cope with disasters (Canary Media), Mid-Atlantic shared solar advocates see progress in D.C. but setback in Virginia (Energy News Network), Why hydropower’s human rights problem may be insurmountable (Energy Monitor)

BATTERIES: Battery prices to rise for first time since 2010, slowing EV adoption: BNEF (Utility Dive), Premier African Minerals plans lithium shipments to China by March 2023 (Reuters)

METHANE: Discovery of methane leaks in California community is just ‘the tip of the iceberg,’ advocates worry (PBS NewsHour)

PIPELINES: Michigan commission calls Enbridge Line 5 tunnel application deficient, requests more evidence (S&P Global)

COAL: India's coal imports hit record high in June (Reuters)

UTILITIES: ComEd pitches $300M electrification plan (E&E $), Is burying power lines fire-prevention magic, or magical thinking? (Inside Climate News)

GRID: Midcontinent ISO defends plan to wait until 2030 for distributed energy aggregations (Utility Dive)

EVs: Meet the woman electrifying her Jeep Wrangler (Yale Climate Connections), Texas energy retailer Octopus Energy launches electric vehicle leasing business (Utility Dive)

HEALTH CARE: Hospitals take on healing the planet (E&E News)

AGRICULTURE: Vertical farming provides alternative way to grow produce (NBC)

SHIPPING: Ships get older and slower as emissions rules bite (Reuters)

FINANCE: European Central Bank says climate could cost lenders $71B (E&E $), The startups predicting climate risk for bond investors (Wall Street Journal $)

WILDLIFE: Beavers emerge as 'climate-solving hero' (E&E $)

INTERNATIONAL: Campaigners take legal action over failings of England’s food strategy (The Guardian), Coalition allowed emissions from Queensland coalmine to more than double without penalty (The Guardian), Oil companies oppose a windfall tax in Britain despite record profits (New York Times $), Small minority of UK parliamentarians attend emergency climate briefing (The Guardian), Spain pledges $1.9 billion to IMF new sustainability trust (Reuters)

• New climate promises, same old global warming (New York Times, Agnes Walton and Kristopher Knight video op-ed $)
• Climate change denial and me (Environmental Health News, Peter Dykstra column)
• It’s time to decouple wildlife conservation from the gun lobby’s agenda (Truthout, Kevin Bixby op-ed)
• The Red Hill leak: How the US Navy has poisoned Hawai'i's waters for decades (Teen Vogue, Bronson “Kainoa” Azama op-ed)
• What an honest British prime minister would say (Reuters, Hugo Dixon commentary)
• The unintended consequences (and benefits) of high energy costs (The Hill, Sheldon Jacobson op-ed)
• No more deference to the administrative state (Wall Street Journal, David B. Rivkin Jr. and Mark Wendell DeLaquil op-ed $)

Given an Inch by SCOTUS, Deniers Take a Mile to Use West Virginia v. EPA  to Deconstruct Administrative State

It's been a week, and we're still not done being mad about the minoritarian justices on the Supreme Court giving polluters a free pass in the West Virginia v. EPA case. 

Though there was some relief in that it doesn't directly say the EPA can't do anything about climate change, the reality is that by bringing the "major questions doctrine" out of polluter wishlists and into to the Court's majority opinions, it may be even more underhandedly devastating than what a straight reading of the supposedly "narrow" ruling would suggest. But EPA authority on carbon pollution isn't dead…yet. 

SCOTUS has just handed polluters the argument they need to strike down wide swaths of federal regulations. The only exception would be regulations Congress specifically calls for, but even then courts can, and likely will, use the "major questions" excuse to say that whatever the Executive branch did wasn't actually what Congress delineated. And that's assuming that Congress is ever capable of passing real legislation addressing climate pollution — hard to envision currently given that polluters have used campaign contributions to purchase the GOP and Supreme Court. [Are we sure 'purchase' is the right word, given that we still don't know the financial instrument used to pay off Brett Kavanaugh's credit card debt? – Ed.] 

Pollution profiteers know they've won. You can see it in their reactions. At the Koch-funded Daily Caller, coal/tobacco lawyer Steve Milloy crowed that "it’s hard to see how any EPA regulation of greenhouse gases is legal since Congress never authorized such regulation." 

Normally, Steve Milloy is the type of person that you should believe the exact opposite of what he says, given that his career has been to defend tobacco and fossil fuels. In years prior, if he said a SCOTUS ruling meant no more EPA regulations, smart money would be on the opposite. 

So we include that quote not because we think Milloy has abandoned polluter propaganda and is suddenly telling the truth. Instead, we draw your attention to it because while it is polluter propaganda, unfortunately we now have a Supreme Court that turns polluter propaganda into precedent. But when the Supreme Court lies about "major questions" in the same way polluters have funded lawyers to cook up over the years, it's not a lie, it's a doctrine.  

On the Wall Street Journal's opinion page, long home to polluter propaganda, two lawyers representing people who profit off of a product that's destroying the planet's ability to sustain human civilization lay out the game plan going forward: no more deference to the administrative state. 

"West Virginia and the major questions doctrine are certain to surface again soon," write David Rivkin and Mark DeLaquil, pointing to "the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed climate-change disclosure regulations" the FTC's anti-monopoly moves and Title IX regulations for public education. (See this WSJ editorial for another example of using this ruling to attack anything they don't like, in this case "Pete Buttigeig's Climate Toll Road.") 

"Going forward," Rivkin and DeLaquil conclude, "the first question in any important case concerning agency power is whether Congress actually intended for the agency to be regulating at all, not whether agency attorneys were clever enough to find a vague statute to justify a new rule." 

In other words, the first thing lawyers for polluters and profiteers are going to do when regulated is claim that Congress didn't intend for this, and whether they're right won't matter, because they'll already have purchased sufficient votes on the Hill to prevent legislation. 

This Supreme Court has now been captured by the same far-right patriarchal white supremacist polluters that have thoroughly corrupted the Republican party. They're even using the same lawyers! A couple weeks before the Journal published David Rivkin's celebration gutting the administrative state, it published David Rivkin celebration the overturning of Roe, with a piece headlined "Supreme Court Reclaims Its Legitimacy." 

Let's hope one day that actually becomes true.

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