12th Atmospheric River Slams California: At least five people are dead and tens of thousands of people across California are under evacuation orders as yet another massive atmospheric river, the 12th since December, pummeled California. The so-called parade of storms has overwhelmed California's water management capacity, setting off widespread flooding. The massive, hurricane-like storm also brought winds as high as 70 mph with gusts in some places over 100 mph. The repeated, heavy precipitation this year has taken an especially heavy toll on farmworkers. The overwhelming majority of farmworkers are undocumented, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation by employers and unable to access social safety nets — vulnerabilities compounded by the lost work and housing threats caused by the storms. "There's these double whammies," Amy Liebman, chief program officer at the Migrant Clinicians Network, told Axios. "From being low-wage workers with fewer protections ... and then also when you look at housing, sometimes that's directly tied to your employer ... it's like your livelihood, your housing, all of this stuff becomes at risk" (ellipses original). (Atmospheric river: Reuters, Axios, Gizmodo, Reuters, CNN, LA Times $; hurricane resemblance: Washington Post $; Farmworkers: Axios; Climate Signals background: Extreme precipitation increase)

Private Equity Connected To Cop City: Private equity firms are connected to, and stand to benefit from, Atlanta's controversial "Cop City," a new report from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project reveals. The proposed police training center, construction of which would destroy 85 acres of forest in one of Atlanta’s largest remaining green spaces, was the site of the first known killing of an environmental activist in the U.S. earlier this year. Atlanta-based private equity firm Roark Capital owns Inspire Brands, the CEO of which sits on the Atlanta Police Foundation Board (itself is raising $60 million from corporate backers for Cop City). The former APF COO (now deputy CAO of the Atlanta police department) also sits on the board of Inspire Brands' philanthropic arm. According to LittleSis, police foundations work as a backdoor funding channel to allow corporate interests to increase police forces' already-large budgets with little public oversight or accountability. “When it comes to policing, which already faces severe accountability and transparency issues, private equity involvement adds an additional layer of opaqueness," PESP researcher and report author Amanda Mendoza told The Guardian. "This report is just scratching the surface in investigating how private equity has contributed to not only moving these dangerous projects forward but also supporting a devolving situation of violence in the city.” (The Guardian)

Warm Gulf Could Mean Heavy Tornado Season: Extraordinarily warm sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico are raising concerns of a potentially busy tornado season, the Washington Post reports. Tornados require a complicated mix of wind shear (changing winds at different altitudes), which helps clouds rotate, and energy (in the form of warm, humid air). While scientific linkages to tornadoes are still being developed, climate change is increasing sea surface temperatures. “Warm [sea surface temperatures] anomalies in the Gulf of Mexico may enhance the supply of warm and moist low-level air to the U.S., increasing the chance of developing tornado outbreaks in the South and Ohio Valley,” oceanographer Sang-Ki Lee told the Post (brackets original). (Washington Post $; Climate Signals background: Sea surface temperature increase)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: ‘Cancer alley’ residents say they are victims of environmental racism in new lawsuit (The Hill), 

• LEAD: The ground beneath their feet (Grist), Judge approves $600 million settlement over Flint water crisis (The Hill)

9:37 🚂 TO THE PETROCHEMICAL DYSTOPIA: Norfolk Southern CEO dodges question on support for railway reform bill (The Hill), Rail company sued for train derailment in Ohio (Gizmodo)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: New climate paper calls for charging big US oil firms with homicide (The Guardian)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Egypt to host new meeting on climate change (Prensa Latina), Nations fight to be called climate vulnerable in IPCC report (Climate Home), Swedish court says Greta Thunberg and other activists can sue their gov’t over climate inaction (Democracy Now), The UN wants Big Oil's help on climate. Good luck with that (Gizmodo)

DENIAL & GREENWASHING: EU takes its greenwashing fight to t-shirts, milk and airline travel (Bloomberg $), Weakened EU greenwashing rules under attack (FT $)

PROFIT OPPORTUNITIES: Wall Street is thirsty for its next big investment opportunity: The West’s vanishing water (CNN)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: Bank turmoil could undermine the effect of Biden’s clean energy bill (OilPrice), Made-in-us rules for EV batteries shift in fine print of climate law (Bloomberg $)

AGENCIES: White House unveils new climate tools for agencies (E&E $)

EPA: Regan defends EPA's ambitious budget plan (E&E $), The EPA wants to limit how much soot you breathe. Here’s what it means for Texas and one of its historic Black towns. (Texas Tribune)

DOE: DOE charts commercialization paths for long-duration storage, advanced nuclear, clean hydrogen (Utility Dive, E&E News), DOE opens $200M in hydropower funding (Politico Pro $)

DOI: Big Sky bison battles spell trouble for Haaland (E&E News)

TREASURY: Treasury guidance on electric vehicle tax credit due next week (Politico Pro $)

DOD: DOD looks to protect Marshall Islands from climate threats (E&E $), Memo: 2021 Navy fuel spill in Hawaii contaminated water with antifreeze (Axios)

WHITE HOUSE: Climate change could spur severe economic losses, Biden administration says (Grist), Biden admin advances Ariz. mine over tribal outcry (E&E $), Biden advisers: Feds must play 'essential' role in adaptation (E&E $), Biden plans to spur biological production of fuels, chemicals, plastics (Bloomberg $)

THE HILL: Grijalva, Duckworth to revive landmark EJ bill (E&E $)

HOUSE: Texas Republican talks 'Small Oil,' working with Dems (E&E, Rep. August Pfluger interview $), House Republicans probe Biden’s climate bill spending (Bloomberg $, Politico Pro $), Panel sets vote to repeal IRA energy efficiency programs (E&E $)

SENATE: How a Senate aide and her guide dog made Capitol Hill more accessible for all (The 19th* News)

CITIES AND STATES: Does your community have lead in its soil? Here’s what to do. (Grist), Hudson Yards calls itself a model neighborhood for energy efficiency. City data paints a different picture. (City Limits (NYC)), Nebraska filibuster over trans rights echoes Wendy Davis’ 2013 abortion standoff (The 19th* News)

WILDFIRES: Wildfires in northern forests broke carbon emissions records in 2021 (Inside Climate News)

WATER: Colorado River: The Navajo Nation’s ‘forever home’ is in crisis (Atmos), What is water scarcity? (Context, explainer), Global water crisis could ‘spiral out of control’ due to overconsumption and climate change, UN report warns (CNN), UN warns 'vampiric overconsumption' is draining world's water (Reuters)

DEFORESTATION: Brazil evicts gold miners from Amazon rainforest (Climate Home)

METEOROLOGY: Forecasters missed the wildly wet winter. We asked NOAA why. (E&E $)

IPCC AR6 SYR: ‘It can be done. It must be done’: IPCC delivers definitive report on climate change, and where to now (The Conversation), The one UN climate report graphic you need to see (Axios), IPCC report: Climate solutions exist, but humanity has to break from the status quo and embrace innovation (The Conversation)

RENEWABLES: Dolphin deaths spur calls for wind power halt in New Jersey (Bloomberg $), Global renewable growth broke records in 2022, adding almost 295 GW: IRENA (Utility Dive), RWE says US ban on imports from Xinjiang threatens solar ambitions (FT $)

BATTERIES: Chile pushes new lithium extraction method in risk to future supply (Bloomberg $)

BUILDINGS: When it comes to heat pumps, bigger is not always better (Canary Media)

STORAGE: Spearmint Energy acquires 900 MW/2,000 MWh battery storage portfolio in Texas (Utility Dive)

EFFICIENCY: Record-high electricity prices fail to boost residential energy management programs: JD Power (Utility Dive)

METHANE: Chubb to insure oil, gas projects only if they cut methane emissions (Reuters)

OIL & GAS: Offshore oil is about to surge (E&E News)

COAL: Australia’s 116 new coal, oil and gas projects equate to 215 new coal power stations (The Conversation)

OOPS: Troubled Illinois coal plant never received an operating permit, ran ‘illegally’ for over a decade, lawsuit says (Energy News Network)

HYDROGEN: UK urged to approve hydrogen blending in domestic gas network (FT $)

NUKES: 'We don't want it.' Great Lake lawmakers reject Canada's nuclear waste proposal (Politico Pro $)

UTILITIES: La. utility pursues elevenfold renewable power increase (E&E $)

GRID: Colo. office taps Western official to aid grid expansion (E&E $)

EVs: EV-maker Nio surges; ‘Very confident’ of hitting sales goal (Bloomberg $), Tesla prepares its latest page-turner proxy with eyes on Elon Musk (Bloomberg $), Wisconsin schools adopt electric buses (Yale Climate Connections), Women are less likely to buy electric vehicles than men. Here’s what’s holding them back. (The 19th* News), Ford says EV unit losing billions, should be seen as startup (AP)

BOOZE: In Scotland, making whisky with energy from wind, wood chips and tides (Washington Post $), A wine vintage takes a break from climate change (New York Times $)

MINDSETS: We need the right kind of climate optimism (Vox)

ART: Vienna 'few degrees' exhibit tilts paintings to call for climate action (Reuters)

ACTIVISM: Senior climate activists protest big banks, cut up credit cards, for financing fossil fuel industry (Democracy Now), Welcome to Utah, where pipeline protests could now get you at least five years in prison (Grist)

AVIATION: Etihad accused of misleading customers with greenwashing in ‘net zero’ ads (The Guardian), EU plans to give parts of aviation industry a green label (Bloomberg $)

CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE TV: ‘Extrapolations’ is the climate TV show we’re finally ready for (Grist)

SHIPPING: Amogy lands $139M to scale ammonia tech for zero-emissions cargo ships (Canary Media)

CARBON CAPTURE: Carbon-sucking tech could need more energy than all homes use (Bloomberg $), An Arizona plant will pull CO2 from the air and trap it in concrete (Canary Media), Century-old GE joins carbon-removal race featuring startups (E&E $), Cheapest way to capture CO2? Turn it into methanol, DOE says. (E&E $)

SHIPPING: Pressure grows on shipping industry to accept carbon levy (The Guardian)

LAUNDRY: Climate solution: Downsize laundry jugs to cut emissions (AP)

FINANCE: UBS is buying Credit Suisse’s emissions burden, too (Bloomberg $), How the anti-ESG movement is failing to gain a foothold in corporate America (Energy Monitor)

CARS: What are e-fuels, and can they help make cars CO2-free? (Reuters, explainer)

WILDLIFE: 8 dolphins dead after washing ashore in New Jersey (New York Times $), Decline of more than 500 species of marine life in Australian reefs ‘the tip of the iceberg’, study finds (The Guardian), Seabirds that swallow ocean plastic waste have scarring in their stomachs – scientists have named this disease ‘plasticosis’ (The Conversation)

INTERNATIONAL: ECB to publish first detailed carbon footprint (Reuters), Geothermal power, cheap and clean, could help run Japan. So why doesn’t it? (New York Times $), Germany pushes for exception in law banning combustion engines (New York Times $), India's capital bets on more e-buses, solar energy to curb pollution (Reuters)

• Water's moment: Advancing the human right to water in the United States (Common Dreams, Monica Lewis-Patrick and Susana De Anda op-ed)
• What if climate change meant not doom — but abundance? (Washington Post, Rebecca Solnit op-ed $)
• The EPA’s hydrogen push is a federal endorsement of greenwashing (Utility Dive, Abbe Ramanan op-ed)
• Somalis are dying because of a climate crisis they didn’t cause. More aid isn’t the answer (The Guardian, Abdirahman Abdishakur op-ed)
• 2024 budget: It’s past time for Congress to appropriately fund the EPA (The Hill, David Coursen op-ed)
• In drought-stricken Kenya, dead livestock tell of livelihoods lost (FT, David Pilling column $)
• How realistic is a hydrogen-powered economy? (Reuters, Gavin Maguire column)
• Addressing the ‘right to mine’ crypto (The Hill, Liz Moran op-ed)
• New investment in climate action can be a game changer for Latinos (The Hill, Michael Méndez op-ed)

For The GOP, 'Freedom' Means You're Free To Pay More For Their Donors' Dirty Energy

When you think of "freedom," do you think of paying more for a worse product? No? Well good, you shouldn't. No one does. Except, perhaps, House Republicans, whose new HR 1 bill, the "Lower Energy Costs Act," would increase energy costs, and includes a section labeled "Homeowner Energy Freedom" that would leave homeowners 'free' to continue using old, inefficient, and wasteful appliances. 

How would a legislative package named for lowering costs actually increase them? Well, Republicans want to boost methane (née natural) gas exports, because they don't care that it hurts low-income communities and people of color on the frontline of fossil fuel pollution in Texas and Louisiana. And they don't care that gas exports result in Americans paying more when competing on the global market, where prices can be five times as high. 

Even worse is the Homeowner Energy Freedom section, which you know is bad because it's dressed up with such a name. Other sections are named plainly to describe the intention: for example, the "Natural Gas Tax Repeal" section would repeal the section of the Clean Air Act that provides an incentive for oil companies to reduce methane emissions. 

Some conservatives love to claim that putting a price on pollution is a market-based solution that Republicans could support. However, when Republicans actually have policymaking power, they use it to try and repeal such efforts, even though a price on methane could reduce the climate-warming pollution by 40-80% at no net cost to producers, and despite the fact that reducing methane pollution is critical to protecting the 17 million people living close enough to be subjected to other types of pollution from these facilities. 

But the GOP didn't even try to hide those facts with a fancy name for that section, probably because repealing a tax is always going to sound good enough on its own to them. 

On the other hand, people like free money for upgrading their home appliances to more efficient new models that would reduce energy consumption and save on their power bills, so Republicans had to disguise their attempt to repeal those measures. 

By calling it the "Homeowner Energy Freedom" section, they're clearly hoping to confuse people about why they're repealing measures that would help people save hundreds of dollars per year on their energy bills by switching to electric appliances, programs that were designed to help low- and moderate-income households make upgrades to cleaner, better products. 

Why? Because for Republicans (and the decades of disinformation underpinning modern conservatism), "freedom" isn't about being able to openly embrace your gender identity or sexuality or being free to watch a drag show. It's not the freedom to choose whatever book you want from the library. It's not a life free from someone else's pollution, to be free to choose what to do with your body, or to be free from racial discrimination while working at supposedly-too-'woke'-Wall Street businesses. 

Instead, it's the freedom to keep paying higher power bills because you're stuck with a crappy old appliance. It's the freedom to discriminate, to disinform, and, most importantly, to donate millions of dollars to the political party that will sell out Americans and fight for your freedom to continue ripping them off. 

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