Ecuador Rejects Oil Drilling In Amazon National Park: Ecuadorians resoundingly supported referendums to block oil drilling in a biodiverse rainforest and gold mining in the Chocó Andino on Sunday. With more than 90% of ballots counted, 58% of Ecuadorians voted to ban new oil drilling in Yasuní national park in the Amazon rainforest. The national park, one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, is home to the Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples, among the world's last "uncontacted" indigenous communities living voluntarily separate from the outside world. The ban on new drilling will keep approximately 726 million barrels of oil in the ground. Quito residents also voted to prohibit gold mining in the sensitive Chocó Andino biosphere near the city by a margin of 68% to 31%. “Today is a historic day! As a Waorani woman and mother, I feel overjoyed with Ecuadorians’ resounding decision to stop oil drilling in my people’s sacred homeland," Nemonte Nenquimo, an Indigenous Waorani leader and winner of the Goldman prize for the environment, told The Guardian. “Finally, we are going to kick oil companies out of our territory! This is a major victory for all Indigenous peoples, for the animals, the plants, the spirits of the forest and our climate!” (The Guardian, AP, Bloomberg $, Quartz, Reuters, AFP, CNN, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, Grist, Al Jazeera, Climate Home, Axios, CNN, The Hill, HuffPost, Common Dreams)

Maui Fire Devastation Spirals: President Biden, speaking in Maui on Monday, pledged the federal government will assist recovery from the Maui fires "for as long as it takes," and all indications are that it will take quite a while. The death toll of what is already the deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history is expected to grow with114 people confirmed dead and another 850 still unaccounted for. Water on the island of Maui is so contaminated that county officials told residents not to even try to filter their water because there is no "way to make it safe." Even the most robust whole-whome filtration systems "will remove some of [the contamination], but levels that will be acutely and immediately toxic will get through," Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University expert on urban fire water contamination, told the AP. The fires are also expected to have "downward, spiral-like impacts" on local agriculture and food production, Ohio State University agricultural economist Seungki Lee told Axios. The destruction of the fires is also particularly devastating for the island's immigrant communities, some of whom died, are missing, or — like Philliones-born Freddy Tomas whose safe was popped open by the wind-fueled fires — lost everything they own. “A lot of those folks are nervous about applying for any kind of help,” Immigration attorney Kevin Block told the AP. “When FEMA rolls into town or when there’s government agencies around or even medical help, they’re very scared to get it because they’re scared of getting deported. … They are working as first responders, providing food, delivering supplies,” Block added. “They are right there with everybody else checking to see who needs help. It’s become more apparent than ever how vital they are to the community.” FEMA says anyone affected by the fires may be eligible for assistance. “The map looks like a civilization video game right before game over,” Kaniela Ing, head of the Green New Deal network, a former Hawai'i state representative, and a seventh-generation Indigenous Hawaiian, told E&E News. “If there was ever a time to call a climate emergency, it’s now. In real life, not just practically.” (Biden visit: Washington Post $, AP, The Messenger, NPR, The Hill, BBC; Dead/missing: AP, The Hill, HuffPost, Gizmodo; Toxic water: AP; Food: Axios; Immigrants: AP; Wind: Reuters; Emergency declaration: E&E News; Climate Signals background: Wildfires)

Hilary Breaks 'Virtually All Rainfall Daily Records': The storm formerly known as Hurricane Hilary broke "virtually all rainfall daily records," the National Weather Service said Monday. The now post-tropical storm forced more than 1,000 canceled flights, set off destructive landslides, and blocked some streets with downed trees while turning others into rivers. Climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, is making extreme precipitation events worse and more frequent because warmer air holds (and can thus release) more moisture. “Warmer oceans are hurricane fuel,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain told The Guardian. The debris flow bearing down on Jane and Hayden O'Donnell's apple orchard in Oak Glen sounded "like a train was coming through … It was a rumbling, a groaning. It sounded wicked.” Jane told the LA Times. “We got out right in time. The roar was coming and I said, ‘We got to go.’” (Rainfall records/storm generally: The Hill, AP, Washington Post $, AP, AP, LA Times $, LA Times $, AP, WBUR, LA Times $, Democracy Now, NPR, Axios; Flights: The Hill; Oak Glen: LA Times $; Climate: E&E News, The Guardian explainer, Grist; Photos: NewsOne, Washington Post $, Axios, Heatmap $; Lake Mead: The Hill; Looking ahead: Heatmap $, The Hill, Heatmap $, The Verge; Climate Signals background: Extreme precipitation increase; Hurricanes)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Europe’s gas-guzzling days are fading (Wall Street Journal $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Biden urged to embrace climate lawsuits during Maui visit (E&E $)

ENCYCLICALS: Pope Francis to update landmark document on world environmental crisis (Reuters)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Rich countries ‘trap’ poor nations into relying on fossil fuels (The Guardian)

ACTION & ACTIVISM: Anger is most powerful emotion by far for spurring climate action, study finds (The Guardian), Europe's climate activists face 'repressive tide,' rights watchdogs warn (E&E $), Indian police stop a conference of activists and academics discussing G20 issues ahead of summit (AP)

SEEMS NOT GREAT:  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau slams Facebook for blocking Canada wildfire news (AP)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: Video: How the Inflation Reduction Act has transformed US clean energy (Canary Media)

EPA: EPA rebukes Louisiana attack on civil rights program (E&E $), EPA starts over on smog standards, garnering pushback from environmentalists over delay (The Hill), Gas industry blasts Biden pipeline methane proposal (E&E $), PFAS Superfund listing backs Dems into a corner (Politico Pro $)

DOE: DOE doles out $30M to pull critical minerals from coal, waste (E&E $)

DOI: Interior touts spending boost in areas around national parks (E&E $)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Feds determine five Chinese solar panel companies have been skirting US tariffs (CNN), The military advantage of a climate emergency declaration (Heatmap $)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden taps new top labor adviser (Politico Pro $)

THE HILL: Bipartisan bill aims to streamline fusion deployment (E&E $)

HOUSE: Freedom Caucus makes demands for stopgap funding bill (E&E $)

SENATE: Bennet bill would add drought mitigation to flood program (E&E $), Ted Cruz falls for hoax photo of shark swimming in flooded la waters (HuffPost, The Hill)

CITIES AND STATES: Colorado targets big buildings with new climate rules (E&E $), Va. environmentalists sue to block Youngkin from exiting carbon market (Washington Post $, The Hill), Frustrated by a lack of details, communities await federal decision on protecting New York from coastal storm surges (Inside Climate News), New York City’s energy grid faces a power shortfall. Here’s why. (Politico Pro $), Paved paradise: Maps show how much of US cities are parking lots (The Hill)

• TEXAS: Texas grid weathers steamy week, 2 calls for conservation, as experts urge more efficiency investment (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: This summer's extreme weather may be just a preview (Axios), ‘Ecological emergency’ grips Florida coral reef (E&E News, Inside Climate News), Islands have a disaster-response problem (The Atlantic), Swiss glaciers under threat again as heat wave drives zero-temperature level to record high (AP), The Great Salt Lake and its web of life face an uncertain future (Yale Environment 360), Zero-degree line at record height above Switzerland as heat and fire hit Europe (The Guardian)

HEAT: Record central US heat wave delivers ‘life-threatening’ conditions (Washington Post $)

WILDFIRES: 2nd person found dead in eastern Washington wildfires, hundreds of structures burned (AP), California’s big bloom aids seed collectors as climate change and wildfires threaten desert species (AP), Gale-force winds are fanning dozens of wildfires across Greece, leaving 2 dead, 2 injured (AP), Lightning starts new wildfires but moist air aids crews battling blazes in rural Northern California (AP), Wildfire spreads on Spain's Tenerife, forcing thousands from homes (Reuters)

• CANADA: Wildfire-hit British Columbia blanketed with hazardous smoke pollution (Reuters, AP, Democracy Now, Truthout), Canadian firefighters prevent more wildfire losses and step up defense of territorial capital (AP, Reuters), Cooler conditions bring some hope as Canada wildfires rage on (Reuters)

HURRICANES: 5 tropical systems line up as Atlantic hurricane season springs to life (Washington Post $, Yale Climate Connections), After Hilary, three tropical storms form in the Atlantic (The Hill), Chemical safety board warns of hurricane threats (E&E $), Haiti and Dominican Republic warn of floods and landslides as Tropical Storm Franklin nears (AP)

SHIPPING: Historic drought, hot seas slow Panama Canal shipping (Reuters), Wind power with a high-tech twist could help ships burn less fuel (Canary Media)

RENEWABLES: Renewables companies hit brakes on Alberta projects after govt delays approvals (Reuters), Southeast US solar capacity to double by 2026 — report (E&E $) 

"RENEWABLES": The new ethanol? biogas producers are pushing livestock poop as renewable. (Grist and Popular Science)

BATTERIES: New York is reeling from its hot battery summer (Canary Media)

BUILDINGS: 10 damaged homes remain uninhabitable, a week after Pennsylvania explosion that killed 6 (AP)

ROBOTS: What are the environmental costs of AI? (Context, explainer)

METHANE: Methane leaks are the low-hanging fruit of the climate crisis (Bloomberg $)

• CAN'T BLAME THAT ON THE DOG…: Bezos’ Blue Origin methane emissions were spotted by the space station (Bloomberg $)

OIL & GAS: D.C. Circuit rejects NEPA review for Western oil rail line (E&E $), Gas prices rise on fears of strikes in Australia (BBC), US natgas prices up 3% as sweltering heat persists (Reuters)

PIPELINES: More hearings begin soon for Summit’s proposed CO2 pipeline. Where does the project stand? (AP)

COAL: Indonesia chokes on smog as coal plant transition hits snags (E&E $)

HYDROGEN: Critics question how climate-friendly an Appalachian ‘blue’ hydrogen hub will be (Energy News Network), White House launches task force to boost 'clean' hydrogen (E&E $)

GRID: Fixing our failing electric grid ... on a budget (NPR)

EVs: How EV trends turned this town into a ‘phenomenal little hub’ (E&E News)

AGRICULTURE: Investor pressure group urges G20 to reform agricultural subsidies (Reuters), This french-fry boomtown is a climate change winner. But for how long? (Washington Post $)

THEY'RE JUST LIKE US: The ‘no jet’ set: actors back campaign to cut climate impact of ‘celebrity riders’ (The Guardian)

MOVIES: Can a new genre of eco-thrillers inspire climate action? (New York Times $)

CARBON REMOVAL: Ebb Carbon wants to pull CO2 from the sky with electricity and seawater (Canary Media)

RUBBER, ROAD, ETC.: Rolling car tires into the global circular economy (Mongabay)

REAL ESTATE: Moody’s: Commercial property owners squeezed by climate, inflation (E&E $)

WILDLIFE: This video from a humpback 'whale spa' shows skin care is serious — and social (NPR), A tiny Hawaiian bird was nearing extinction. then the Maui fires came. (Washington Post $)

INTERNATIONAL: ‘It’s a zeitgeist-capturer’: Climate crisis and trans rights are talk of Edinburgh festival (The Guardian)

• Did Texans freeze because of greed? Abbott must probe Enron-style in Uri blackouts. (Houston Chronicle, Editorial Board)
• The climate kids are all right — at least in Montana, following a constitutional victory (The Messenger, Durwood Zaelke and Trina Chiemi op-ed)
• Buried treasure: Building the business case for undergrounding (Utility Dive, Chris Watts op-ed)
• Greeks yearn for an Aegean Islands escape, but even before this hellish summer we were being priced out (The Guardian, Elias Maglinis op-ed)
• World Bank’s green overhaul is slowly taking shape (Reuters, Rebecca Christie op-ed)
• The US and China must unite to fight the climate crisis, not each other (The Guardian, Sen. Bernie Sanders op-ed)
• Wendy Davis on her 2013 Texas abortion filibuster, the Dobbs decision, and more (Teen Vogue, interview)

Edison Electric Institute Indicates Dedication To Denial With New CEO Paid By Your Power Bills

For at least the last seven years, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) has tried to shed its image as a disinfo-spreading fossil fuel lobby shop by another name (utility industry trade group), but all that's probably for naught given its new CEO. 

That’s not to say that EEI has been particularly successful at greenwashing the industry lately anyway. Last July, the trade group was namechecked in a New York Times op-ed about how utility customers are paying to block clean energy, in part through groups like EEI. Then earlier this month, HEATED dedicated a whole column to EEI's duplicity, reporting on Leah Stokes' findings that EEI touted carbon capture — right up until the latest EPA regulations require it, at which point the trade group suddenly decided that it's not ready for prime time. It’s the same story for hydrogen as a replacement for methane-fired power plants, something EEI's claiming isn't ready, even as its own members begin making investments that indicate otherwise. 

And sure enough, the utility lobby submitted comments to the EPA staunchly opposing the latest climate regulations, trotting out the tried-and-(un)true classics of anti-regulatory rhetoric. While we could get into the details, there's really no need. 

Because EEI's longtime CEO Tom Kuhn is stepping down this year. And his replacement is the most obvious indication yet that EEI isn't working in good faith to advance the clean energy transition, and is instead a fossil fuel industry lobby shop. 

The new CEO is not a clean power executive, or an uninteresting energy wonk, or anyone who will be even remotely credible when trying to pretend that EEI isn't an energy disinfo operation. It’s climate denier Dan Brouillette, who is the president of methane gas company Sempra (the company that ghost wrote itself letters of support on behalf of Louisiana officials), a former Ford VP and auto industry lobbyist, and the Secretary of the Energy Department under President Donald Trump.  

"Any shred of credibility EEI had is now gone," Evergreen Action responded. "Find your utility company here and urge them to publicly distance themselves from [EEI] and its anti-climate leadership." 

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