House Invites Another Veto With Repeal Of Biden Solar Tariff Waiver: The U.S. House of Representatives voted Friday to reinstate tariffs on solar power imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, which supply most of the country’s supply of solar panels. 12 Democrats joined most Republicans to vote in favor of the Congressional Review Act measure to resume the tariff, though the White House has already promised to veto the move led by House Republicans, which can only be overcome by a two-thirds Senate majority vote. The White House had issued the tariff moratorium as a Commerce Department probe investigates whether solar companies have been getting around tariffs designed to raise prices on Chinese-made solar products. (CNBC, Reuters, Roll Call, Electrek, E&E, Axios, Politico $) 

Ear-SOREs No More! Lawn Mowers And Leaf Blowers Are Going Electric: Gas-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers may become ancient history as several cities and states across the U.S. are beginning to enact bans of the fossil-fueled powered devices to combat both noise and climate pollution. A commercial gas leaf blower can produce the emissions equivalent of driving from Denver to Los Angeles, according to USA Today. Lawn care, like nearly everything else, has become politicized, according to Emma Kriss of Green America, who told Axios that "the more conservative someone is, the more staunchly they hold the belief that they need to hold a perfectly manicured green lawn." California has taken the lead in banning the engines used in the lawn care industry, which are known as "small off road engines," or SOREs. Other cities and states, including New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts, are considering similar measures. (USA Today, Axios, Colorado Sun)

The Dangers Posed By Extreme Heat Driven By Climate Change Are Becoming More Common Across The U.S.: Situated in the Sonoran Desert where temperatures have already been hitting the high 90s in April, the greater Phoenix area is the epicenter of heat-associated deaths in the U.S. Extreme heat poses a special risk for older people of color, who are more likely to have complicating factors like diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure. A 2021 study estimated more than a third of U.S. heat deaths each year can be attributed to global warming, and more than 1,100 deaths were caused from climate change-caused heat in around 200 U.S. cities, especially those in the East and Midwest, where people often don’t have air conditioning or are not acclimated to hot weather. “Phoenix really is the model for what we’ll be seeing in other places,” researcher Jennifer Ailshire told the AP. “The world is changing rapidly and I fear we are not acting fast enough to teach people how harmful rising temperatures can be.” AP; Climate Signals: Extreme Heat)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: Expelled Tennessee Democrats spotted at climate change protest accusing Biden of 'ecocide' (Fox News), 8 black environmentalists working to protect and preserve the planet (BET)

WHITE HOUSE: Oil and gas critics escalate their gripes against Biden (Politico $)

THE HILL: Senate committee to question FERC commissioners (Politico $)

CITIES AND STATES: Wildfires in Anchorage? Climate change sparks disaster fears (AP), Nevada puts winter storm costs at $10.6M; FEMA help promised (AP), Amid fracking boom, Pennsylvania faces toxic wastewater reckoning (Grist), ​​Ambitious climate proposition face fossil fuel backlash in El Paso (Inside Climate News)

HEAT: These regions are the most at risk for extreme heat waves (The Hill)

DROUGHT: Climate change caused catastrophic east Africa drought, scientists say (Washington Post $)

IMPACTS: Record ocean heating spike may herald acceleration of global warming (Discover)

BUILDINGS: New York may become the first state to ban gas in new buildings (NY Magazine)

WATER: Mississippi River waters keep rising in Iowa and Illinois (AP), Why the world's oceans are suddenly getting hotter (The Week), Spiking sea surface temperatures are raising climate concerns (Axios)

LNG: World’s top LNG buyer sees risk of another price spike this year (Bloomberg $), LNG exports may spell trouble on horizon for U.S. consumers (IEEFA)

STORAGE: PGE announces major clean energy storage project in Portland (AP)

RENEWABLES: Solar and wind companies are coming to rural Texas. These residents are trying to keep them out. (Grist), As renewables become more prevalent, finding ways to recycle renewable waste becoming more urgent (CBS News)

ACTIVISM: Climate activists plan blockade of White House correspondents’ dinner (The Hill), Global Citizen NOW summit yields commitments, big and small (AP), President Macron: Global Citizen's 'Power Our Planet' aims to fill $16 billion climate funding gap (MSNBC) 

CHATGPT: Tech, AI driving job changes for nearly a quarter of all workers (Bloomberg $)

SPORT: The business case for green sports stadiums and arenas is growing (CNBC)

PHOTOS: Faces of climate change exhibition raises awareness of climate crisis (The Hoya)

HEAT PUMPS: Heat pumps are having a breakthrough. But they’ve got a problem: the wrong name (Washington Post $)

FINANCE: Exxon, Chevron profits are robust even as oil prices drop (Wall Street Journal $)

LITHIUM: Chile’s leftist president moves to nationalize reserves of clean energy ‘white gold’ (HuffPost), What would happen if South America formed an OPEC for lithium (TIME)

AVIATION: 22% jump in airfares expected as airlines tackle climate change (Forbes)

INTERNATIONAL: Europe's green-energy push struggles to match U.S. momentum (Wall Street Journal $)

• How to move beyond climate disinformation in the N.H. State House (Boston Globe, Matt Stein and John Gage op-ed $)

• Better bus systems could slow climate change (Scientific American, Kendra Pierre-Louis column) 

• Peak oil spells trouble for consumers (Bloomberg, Brooke Sample column $)

• I back saboteurs who have acted with courage and coherence, but I won’t blow up a pipeline. Here’s why (The Guardian, George Monbiot column)

• The oil industry’s unhappy marriage is starting to face facts (Bloomberg, David Fickling column $)

• King Charles should double down on climate change (Washington Post, Sally Quinn op-ed $)

• President Biden is providing bold leadership to combat climate change (PennLive, State Sen. Sharif Street op-ed)

• Climate change makes farming a bigger gamble (News-Gazette, Tom Kacich op-ed)

• Biden is still not doing nearly enough about the climate crisis (The Guardian, Steven Donziger op-ed)

Politico Apparently Puzzled By Fossil-Fueled Republicans Sticking To Loser Pro-Fossil Message

Politico does a lot of great reporting. But like any brand or organization, it has also done dumb stuff that invites criticism, even before it was bought by someone who thinks climate change is good.

For example, last week, normally great Zack Colman and Washington Examiner alum Josh Siegel co-bylined a story headlined originally "Why Republicans see electoral gold in talking up energy," later changed to "GOP’s climate counter punch: pushing more fossil fuels." The second definitely makes more sense, as the former seems to suggest their fossil fuel fealty is popular. (Reminder: headlines are generally written by editors not reporters.) 

It's not! And that's what Colman and Siegel report! The GOP's reheated "all of the above" climate denial 2.0 messaging "fell flat for Republicans in the 2022 midterms," (just as it did in 2020 and 2018) "and new polling shared with POLITICO shows that the GOP’s legislative achievements aren’t energizing voters in some key states on the 2024 map, threatening their ambitions once again to win the Senate and White House." 

Oh! So it's been a loser message, and looks to still be one. "Republicans, however, have faith in the message," according to Politico, "even as they acknowledge the difficulty in translating energy permitting into campaign trail slogans." 

Over the next 1,300 words, Coleman and Seigel quote Republicans flailing to justify their "faith" in oil and gas messaging, and then counter it with realities, like the fact that nearly 60% of Americans believe we "should place a priority on alternative energy instead of oil and gas." 

Sadly they don't ever point out the obvious reason behind Republican pro-fossil fuel messaging. They get close though! "It’s not hard to see why Republicans would want to focus on energy," they write, and we can practically see where editors struck the end of the sentence that must've said something like 'because of campaign donations.' But alas, the next sentence instead claims it's because the GOP is united on the issue, "in contrast to other flashpoints like abortion." Why is the GOP united? Not explained! 

Later, though, they do mention that "outside groups aligned with Republicans are pouring money into efforts to turn energy policy into a national campaign liability for Democrats." 

But what they apparently could not find space to mention, in the very very lengthy piece, was how much each one of those ardently pro-fossil fuel Republicans is getting in campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry! 

For example, it took us all of about three minutes to tally up how much each of the four named Republicans in the image illustrating Politico’s story got from the Energy and Natural Resources industry over the course of their careers. Between them, Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers ($2.2m), Bruce Westerman ($655k), Steve Scalise ($3.3m), and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ($4.8m) have gotten over $10 million from the energy industry. 

That's 10 million reasons for them to have "faith" in fossil fuel-friendly messaging!

So no, it's not at all hard to see why the GOP wants to talk about energy. What's hard to see is why Politico didn't want to talk about everything except that financial information. 

That's why we put together this handy custom Google search for reporters everywhere. Just put in a politician's name, or a climate disinformation think tank or even one of their talking points, and be directed straight to OpenSecrets for their campaign finance donors, or DeSmog for front group funders, or Skeptical Science, Politifact, or ClimateFeedback for fact checks of their disinfo! 

No more excuses for taking claims of "faith" on faith!

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