(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: New data show Houston-area communities are being flooded with chemicals (Grist), Historic redlining has enduring impact on power plant siting (Axios)
IS THIS … QUIET QUITTING?: Signed, sealed, delivered: Idaho officials copy-pasted a fossil fuel industry letter (HuffPost) [See the Denier Roundup below for more — Ed.]
WATER: Starving the Mekong (Reuters), Drought emergency declared for all of Southern California by nation's largest water supplier (CBS)(The Hill), Upper Colorado River states announce voluntary cutback program (The Hill)
FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: EU methane law gets renewed attention as energy security saviour (Energy Monitor), France’s restart of nuclear reactors eases Blackout fears (Wall Street Journal $), Germany's half-a-trillion dollar energy bazooka may not be enough (Reuters)
CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: How Pruitt nudged Trump to dump the Paris climate deal (E&E News)
- COP15: COP15 nature summit snag on money matters, 30% conservation goal (Reuters), Are Indigenous protected areas the key to COP15's '30 by 30' goal? (Context)
GOP vs. ESG: Financial executives and Texas Republicans spar over climate actions (Reuters)
YEAR AHEAD: Fossil fuels, fairness, finance: Climate fights to watch in 2023 (Context)
MEDIA: Semafor hired a climate writer. Then Chevron ran ads on his stories. (Washington Post $)
INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: How to hand out billions in climate subsidies? Very carefully. (New York Times $), New clean energy investments have topped $40B since the IRA passed, report says (Utility Dive)
- SIDE DEALS: Biden endorses Manchin's revised permitting bill (Houston Chronicle)(E&E $), Transmission keys Dems’ last-gasp push on climate agenda (E&E News), Senate rejects Manchin’s energy permitting amendment to defense bill (The Hill)(AP)
AGENCIES: Alex Padilla prepares to battle Biden admin for new drought funding (Politico Pro $), US farm agency to spend $600 million on rural clean energy projects (Reuters), Why the government fails to limit many dangerous chemicals in the workplace (NPR), Biden wants ‘green’ economy, but talks fail to revive key aluminum plant (Washington Post $)
EPA: EPA revokes Trump-era air permitting policy (E&E News), EPA to finalize truck rule next week that disappoints some advocates (Washington Post $)(E&E News), US biofuels proposal would lift near-term greenhouse gas emissions, EPA says (Reuters)
WHITE HOUSE: Biden announces US support for African Union joining G20 (Reuters)
THE HILL: How Democrats got climate spending in everything from NASA's budget to the CHIPS Act (TIME), Democrats press Amazon on ‘failure to improve safety’ of tornado-struck warehouse (The Hill), Bills would set national building performance standards (E&E $)
HOUSE: 'Climate smart' grants in House Republican crosshairs (E&E $), Race for top House Oversight Democrat hits home stretch (E&E $)
SENATE: Markey probes Keystone operator over major spill (E&E $), Western senators seek more USDA help on drought (E&E $)
POLITICS: Poll: Americans want compromise, but have no confidence Congress will work together (NPR)
ELECTIONS: Virginia could elect Black Woman to congress for first time as candidates line up to fill Rep. McEachin’s seat (NewsOne)
NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Why women are rallying behind stalled Interior nominee (E&E News)
CITIES AND STATES: Maine Public Utilities Commission approves lower rates for heat pumps and EVs (Maine Public Radio), Texas has an obvious, affordable fix for its electricity problem (Wall Street Journal $), Eight states, 30 cities team up to reduce flooding threat along the Mississippi River (Yale Climate Connections), Fla. lawmakers force homeowners to buy flood insurance (E&E News), How states and utilities can lower consumer bills and accelerate the clean energy transition (Utility Dive)
FERC: FERC climate reviews in limbo as Glick departs (E&E News), FERC Chair Glick says he'll exit at end of the year (Politico Pro $), FERC floats new transmission authorities, cracks down on pipeline affiliates (Politico Pro $)
IMPACTS: The Arctic is heating up, disrupting the planet and local communities, NOAA report shows (TIME)(Wall Street Journal $), Storm lumbering into Northeast after unleashing a blizzard and tornadoes (Washington Post $)(Axios)
WILDFIRES: Restoring watersheds, and hope, after New Mexico’s record-breaking wildfires (Inside Climate News), Canadian town struggles with climate ambitions as it rebuilds after fire (Washington Post $)
RENEWABLES: ‘Firmageddon’: Oregon conifers suffer record die-off as climate crisis hits hard (The Guardian), Bill Gates-backed startup plans large solar power component plant (Wall Street Journal $), Utility-scale solar installations forecasted to decline 40% in 2022 as supply chain challenges persist (Utility Dive)
"RENEWABLES": Electricity generated by burning native Australian timber no longer classified as renewable energy (The Guardian)
BATTERIES: American Battery Factory to open first in planned series of gigafactories (Utility Dive), $3.5B EV battery-recycling plant is coming to South Carolina (E&E $)
BUILDINGS: High-rise buildings are not the future of housing. Low-rises are. (Atmos) The 4 best induction cooktops, with recommendations from chefs (Insider) LA mandates all new buildings be all-electric in major milestone (Archinect) (EC&M)
LNG: Freeport LNG still aims for year-end restart despite new FERC hurdles (Houston Chronicle)
OIL & GAS: Rising natural gas prices offer new incentive for methane capture (Houston Chronicle)(E&E $)
PLASTICS: Exxon launches new recycling facility in Baytown as it aims to recycle 1B pounds of plastic per year (Houston Chronicle)
PIPELINES: TC Energy restarts part of Keystone pipeline after spill (Politico Pro $)
FUSION: Nuclear fusion energy: What to know about the latest scientific breakthrough (Wall Street Journal $), What in the world is nuclear fusion — and when will we harness it? (The Verge)
COAL: Australia’s coal exporters made windfall gain of $45bn last year, report estimates (The Guardian)
UTILITIES: Eversource continues pitch for gas pipeline during public hearing despite unrelenting community pushback (MassLive)
GRID: EVs and crypto mining seen as emerging risks for US power reliability (Reuters)
EVs: US reaches 140k public EV charging ports as key federal official says $90B infrastructure investment needed (Utility Dive)
CARBON CAPTURE: Coming soon: Public shares of natural gas CCS company (E&E $)
TRASH: Green, clean and hated by locals: Inside Brazil's biggest landfill (Context)
WILDLIFE: How Arizona’s border wall could stop animals escaping from climate change (TIME), Want to save the planet? Saving whales could help, scientists say. (Washington Post $)