EU's 'Irrational' LNG Buildout Could Lock In Pollution, Upstream Injustice: Europe's frantic race to build LNG infrastructure will lock in massive climate pollution for decades, leave billions of euros and dollars in stranded assets, or both, a new Greenpeace report warns. The "irrational" buildout includes a total of 40 new LNG import terminals that have been approved or are in the pipeline across the EU since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 — corresponding to 950 million tons of carbon pollution annually, about a third of EU climate pollution in 2019. Much of that methane gas would come from the U.S., where mounting research shows federal regulators are drastically underestimating methane pollution from oil and gas operations, and where LNG operations and connected industries inflict disproportionate pollution on communities of color or displace whole communities altogether, like in the historically segregated, predominantly Black, East End neighborhood of Freeport, Texas, where residents have been forced out to make way for the anticipated increase of oil and gas shipping in the region. (LNG buildout: Bloomberg $, Courthouse News Service, Common Dreams; Freeport: Texas Observer)

Heat Stresses Loom For Northern Hemisphere Grids: Record heat across Europe and Asia augurs peril for electrical grids across the Northern Hemisphere. Portugal, Spain, and Morocco all broke April heat records on Thursday, with Córdoba, in south-central Spain, breaking the European April record with a high of 101.8°F (38.8°C). Drought in the region is forcing 80,000 people in Córdoba province to rely on trucked deliveries of drinking water, and French authorities have mobilized wildfire-fighting operations a month earlier than usual. Meanwhile, “endless record heat in south-east Asia, with weeks of records falling every day,” as described to The Guardian by climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, is pushing electricity consumption to new heights as people try to keep cool. Meanwhile, in Texas, the state legislature has found time to further ostracize trans people and cut them off from obtaining medical care and debate even more ways to restrict abortion access, but with just one month left in this year's legislative session has done nothing to address the persistent inadequacy of the state's coal- and gas-fired electricity capacity. (Power grids: Bloomberg $; European heat: Washington Post $, The Guardian; Trucked water: Reuters; French firefighters: Reuters; Asian heat: The Guardian; Texas: Forbes $)

Texas Sinkholes Raise Questions Over Oil And Gas Operations: Old questions are rising as the ground around oil and gas operations is sinking in Texas oil and gas country, E&E reports. Four sinkholes have developed in the 1.48 square-mile town of Daisetta in the last month — all on a property that formerly housed an oil field service company and where a 500-foot wide sinkhole opened up in 2008. The connection between oil and gas operations and sinkhole formation is not as well-documented as between oil and gas operations and earthquakes, but researchers — and nearby communities — are concerned. “Sinkhole formation is very common,” said Zhong Lu, a professor of earth sciences at Southern Methodist University. “Critically, we disturb [the earth] with hydrocarbon activities.” Sinkholes are especially common around older wells where pipes may have degraded or operators used more aggressive drilling techniques — this also means finding out what causes them is especially difficult because the responsible parties may have disappeared or gone bankrupt and, according to Jeff Paine, a senior research scientist with UT-Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology, “any evidence is buried in the depths of the sinkhole and are not accessible for people to find out.” (E&E News)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Goodbye to a neighborhood (Texas Observer)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Russia’s gas exports are expected to slide in 2023 (New York Times $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Europe moves toward cutting a last source of Russian energy (Wall Street Journal $), Europe should pass its own danged climate law (Heatmap $), What is the global stocktake of climate action and why does it matter? (Climate Home)

DENIAL & GREENWASHING: What are the US Green Guides and can they stamp out 'greenwashing'? (Reuters Factbox)

WOOD PRODUCT POLLUTION: Papertown and the Dirty Bird (Daily Yonder, Grist), West Virginians fear log plant’s potential health risks (AP)

AGM SZN: Climate protesters disrupt BP’s shareholder meeting in London (The Guardian)

CREATIVE ADAPTATION: Meet the climate hackers of Malawi (New York Times $)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT / DEBT CEILING: Democrats say GOP debt ceiling plan is a gift to China (Axios), Debt ceiling bill passed by House Republicans has 'zero chance' in Senate. What's next? (WBUR), House Republicans pass debt-ceiling hike, hoping to spur Biden to talks (Reuters), Solar, EV firms say Republicans' debt limit a 'stunt' that could cost jobs (Reuters), The GOP wonks trying to get their party not to detonate the debt limit bomb (Washington Post $)

AGENCIES: Forest Service chief caught in spending crossfire (E&E $)

EPA: EPA watchdog outlines oversight for infrastructure funding (E&E $), EPA: Machine gun range could harm Cape Cod drinking water (AP)

DOE: Oil industry vented to DOE about gasoline price 'blame game' (E&E $)

DOI: BOEM explores offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine, where deeper waters pose added challenges (Utility Dive)

DOT: DOT offers $848M for transportation resilience projects (E&E $)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: SEC climate rules could decide whether US firms face tough EU law (Wall Street Journal $)

WHITE HOUSE: White House calls censure of Montana transgender lawmaker ‘undemocratic’ (The Hill)

THE HILL: Congress used money slated for clean water as earmarks (Route Fifty), Offshore wind language back in Coast Guard bill (E&E $), Resolutions against Biden agenda gain momentum on Hill (E&E $)

HOUSE: What's in the US House Republicans' debt-ceiling spending-cut bill? (Reuters Factbox), Rep. Casten, ex-FERC chairs eye DERs, more power sector competition to achieve net zero goals (Utility Dive), Republicans grill BOEM chief on offshore wind, oil and gas (E&E $)

SENATE: Fetterman: Agriculture can’t ‘cannibalize’ climate change funding (The Hill), Permitting hearing finds senators in agreement — to an extent (E&E $), Ron Johnson: Climate change is bad in Africa, but US in ‘good shape’ (Politico), Senate GOP blocks Equal Rights Amendment (The Hill)

POLITICS: GOP’s climate counter punch: Pushing more fossil fuels (Politico)

ELECTIONS: Republican West Virginia Governor Jim Justice aims to take on Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (Reuters, E&E $, Politico Pro $, Wall Street Journal $, The Hill), Manchin: ‘I will win any race I enter’ (The Hill), Pesticides and picket lines: Meet Biden’s campaign boss (E&E $), Solar to gas stoves: What to know about DeSantis and energy (E&E News)

TRIBES: Will a new national park mend tribal ties? (E&E News)

CITIES AND STATES: What can Ohio regulators do to prevent future utility corruption scandals? (Energy News Network), Connecticut adopts performance-based regulation as Eversource raps investor environment (Utility Dive), New Jersey eyes transmission blueprint for offshore wind (E&E $), NRG to cancel Texas natural gas plant plans if certain bills pass (Houston Chronicle), Philadelphia residents have planted more than 1,000 trees in eight years in the Hunting Park neighborhood (Yale Climate Connections)

• CALIFORNIA: California enters ‘uncharted territory’ after cutting payments to rooftop solar owners by 75 percent (Inside Climate News), California passes 1st-in-nation emission rules for trains (AP), California is set to ban diesel truck sales by 2036 (Washington Post $)

FERC: GOP presses FERC on grid reliability (Politico Pro $)

IMPACTS: From ER visits to homelessness, here are 4 ways climate change is expected to affect children (CBS), Earth in hot water? Worries over sudden ocean warming spike (AP), California’s Big Melt kicks off, likely to cause floods (Yale Climate Connections), Arctic sea ice loss and fierce storms leave Kivalina’s volunteer search and rescue fighting to protect their island from climate disasters (The Conversation), Historic flooding in Fort Lauderdale was a sign of things to come – a look at who is most at risk and how to prepare (The Conversation), Yes, the climate crisis is raising your grocery bills (The Guardian), Yosemite National Park will be closed for days due to flooding from melting snow (NPR, AP), What to know about tick, Lyme season following a mild winter (AP)

HEAT: The places at greatest risk from extreme heat (E&E News)

WILDFIRES: Dispatcher frustration over stress and pay risks US wildfire chaos (Context)

HURRICANES: Weather service report details communication gaps during deadly Hurricane Ida (Washington Post $)

DROUGHT: Human remains found at Lake Mead identified as man who disappeared in 1998 (NBC, CBS, AP, New York Times $)

WATER: Mexico City's thirst for water lays bare inequalities, changing climate (Reuters), In Arizona, fresh scrutiny of Saudi-owned farm’s water use (AP)

AIR POLLUTION: Where air pollution is improving — and where it's worsening (Axios)

RENEWABLES: China’s dominance over US solar market grows despite efforts to stem it (Wall Street Journal $), Why resuming tariffs on Chinese solar firms threatens US climate goals (Washington Post $), Vattenfall CEO sees offshore wind risks from rising costs, regulations (Reuters)

BUILDINGS: ‘It’s not sexy’: The hunt to find a better name for the humble heat pump (Washington Post), Why induction stoves might be the best option for your kitchen (NBC 4 Washington)

STORAGE: Peregrine Energy Solutions, Ascend Analytics plan auction for nearly 900 MW of energy storage (Utility Dive), PGE announces major clean energy storage project in Portland (AP)

LNG: NextDecade CEO says Rio Grande LNG will soon be financed (Natural Gas Intel)

OIL & GAS: Exxon scrambles to save investments before Colombia bans fracking (Climate Home), Iran seizes Texas-bound oil tanker, Navy says (The Hill), No causal link found between natural gas cooking and childhood asthma, says AGA (Natural Gas Intel), Oil deals decline — but a big rebound may loom (Axios)

NUKES: New nuclear power could help US climate fight but faces hurdles-report (Reuters), With decarbonization, advocates see a bright future for nuclear after decades of dormancy (Minnesota Reformer)

FUSION: Avalanche raises $40M to pursue vision of tiny nuclear fusion reactor (Canary Media)

UTILITIES: CenterPoint Energy beats profit estimates on lower operating costs (Reuters), Utilities seize control of the coming boom in transmission lines (Inside Climate News)

GRID: Farewell transmission (Slate), Invenergy Transmission enters deal for up to 12,500 miles of advanced cable for transmission projects (Utility Dive), Maine transmission line is stalled despite court victories (E&E News)

EVs: California considers using EVs to help power electric grid (E&E $), EV sales set to jump 35%, but battery barriers loom — report (E&E $), Tesla’s carbon footprint is finally coming into focus, and it’s bigger than the company let on in the past (The Verge), Is your electric car worth the extinction of a species? (TIME), On frontier of new ‘gold rush,’ quest for coveted EV metals yields misery (Washington Post $), The underbelly of electric vehicles (Washington Post $)

ACTIVISM: The 'Tennessee three' inspires young activism (NPR), The new era of social media is shaking up climate activism. Here’s how. (Atmos)

WORKERS: The ‘open secret’ in most workplaces: Discrimination against moms is still rampant (The 19th* News)

BUSINESSES: Why investing in climate action during a recession is a smart business move (TIME)

CARBON CAPTURE: Midwest CCS developer inks first deal on carbon credits (E&E $)

FINANCE: Global Citizen’s next campaign: Reform climate financing (AP)

PFAS: Is PFAS pollution a human rights violation? These activists say yes. (Grist), Former federal officials slam WHO for misleading guidance on ‘forever chemicals’ (The Hill)

WILDLIFE: Invasive spotted lanternflies are hatching soon. Kill them. Kill them all. (Gizmodo), Hippos are in trouble. Will an endangered listing save them? (Yale Environment 360)

INTERNATIONAL: In Peru's Amazon, anti-Indigenous bill targets uncontacted people (Context), UK investment in clean energy transition falls 10%, bucking global trend (The Guardian), Australia eyes a fraught pivot from coal power to renewables (New York Times $), Austrians flock to take advantage of repair subsidy (AP), German capital sees 10th day of provocative climate protests (AP)

• Ali died days before he could challenge BP’s CEO on the dangers of gas flaring. Don’t let his death be in vain (The Guardian, Jess Kelly op-ed)
• Poland's pushback on EU climate goals no surprise, but a worry (Reuters, Gavin Maguire column)
• Why I don’t worry about nuclear waste (New York Times, Madison Hilly op-ed $)
• You’re probably thinking about your carbon footprint all wrong (Bloomberg, Mark Gongloff column $)

Polluter Apologists Attack Regulations Like They're A Bad Thing (And Not Protections Against Bad Businesses)

When you're a kid, rules are just about the worst thing in the world. Bedtimes? Whack. Chores? A bore. Homework? For nerds! 

Then you grow up, and realize oh hey, sleep is important for growth and brain development, cleaning is important to keep your nice things nice, and homework's still for nerds, but it's probably better to be a nerd than an ignorant, immature slob, right? 

Government regulations are the same way. Sure, it's easy to complain about 'red tape' and blame 'those bureaucrats in Washington' for your troubles, but when a train derails and pollutes your town, all of a sudden that red tape seems like it might've served a purpose. 

But unlike bedtimes, government regulations mostly aren't to keep you safe from your own stupidity and childishness, they're to protect you from becoming collateral damage in the corporate pursuit of profits. So, less like when your parents wouldn't let you drop out of 6th grade to join the circus, even though they were promising to hire you at the top pay bracket for entry-level clowning, and more like when your parents wouldn't let you spend your savings on a combo pack of x-ray spectacles and a clock that stopped time … or whatever nonsense is being peddled in pop-up ads or by influencers nowadays instead of in the back pages of comic books. 

Anyway, that trip down memory lane is an introduction to the latest little PR push from the free market fundamentalists employed by industry to spread anti-regulatory propaganda. In response to President Biden's Earth Day Executive Order on environmental justice and another move to update the regulatory process, the fundies have trotted out a report from last year making the most laughably rudimentary argument against regulations. 

A Forbes post on April 24 was the first example. Clyde Wanye Crews Jr., of the tobacco, fossil fuel, and other industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, warned that Biden's regulatory reform is bad and called on a (Republican) Congress to step in and fix it. Crews points to a report he puts out for CEI every year, last October's "Ten Thousand Commandments," which claims to be "an annual snapshot of the federal regulatory state" but is really little more than a lengthy complaint about all the work the government has to do to protect Americans from unscrupulous businesses polluting and exploiting consumers. If you're a tobacco company or other maker of a product that kills people, then you, too, would bristle at the government's attempts to make that a little harder.  

So the next day, David McGarry of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (could more accurately be called the Koch Profit Protection Alliance) published an op-ed in The Daily Caller complaining about Biden's equity-focused executive order and regulatory reforms as well. McGarry uses the Ten Thousand Commandments report for its intended purpose as a prop, noting that "if it were a country," the cost of regulations in the US "would be the world's eighth-largest economy (not counting the United States itself), ranking behind France and ahead of Italy." 

Wow, is that actually the cost of regulations? Oh right, it's the amount of money that companies could be making in profits, if nothing prevented them from screwing over Americans as much as they wanted with even more pollution and economic exploitation. 

McGarry also cites a CEI blog post from February, claiming that the federal government "issued 59 final regulations last week, after 65 the previous week… the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 51 minutes." At that pace, the regulations in 2023 "will exceed 79,000 pages," McGarry says, and "in the past three decades, agencies have tallied more than 114,000 final rules." 

…Okay? The government is very busy protecting Americans from grifters and polluters and discriminators and tax dodgers, and that's supposed to be a bad thing? Public servants had to make 114,000 different rules to keep businesses from ripping people off, making them sick, polluting their water, air, land, lungs, skin, brain, babies, and everything else, and somehow government is supposed to be the villain, not the bullies polluting communities of color or the grifters selling subprime mortgages or NFTs?! 

And make no mistake: While CEI's list of reasons why companies can't be trusted may be exactly backwards, it's not unintentional. The energy industry has spent decades spreading pro-business, anti-regulation propaganda, as documented in The Big Myth. And this particular approach, known as "public choice theory," is exposed in Democracy in Chains, for being little more than a billionaire-backed vehicle for fighting government regulations — beginning with desegregating schools, and then becoming the bedrock for industry-funded groups like CEI to mask their defense of industry against the public good as exactly the opposite. 

Unfortunately, CEI’s not alone in this effort, as evidenced by the deliberate echoes of this push. On Wednesday, the Washington Examiner's columnist Paul Bedard picked up Crews' Forbes post, which is notable only in that it makes for a third example of a report from October 2022 suddenly being "news," six months later in April of 2023. Bedard adds nothing original, instead excerpting the Forbes post for his own column instead of writing one himself. 

Bedard didn't even try to hide the fact that he copied Crews' column instead of doing his own homework. At least nobody ever accused him of being a nerd!

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