climate change

January 13, 2025

EPA boasts of clean energy advances as reversal threat looms

By Shannon Kelleher

In the final week before Donald Trump takes office, federal regulators announced today that the Biden administration has awarded nearly $69 billion through two historic pieces of legislation designed to slash greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy costs, support the clean energy transition and help communities address pollution.

“In just three years, [the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)] has funded thousands of incredibly popular projects in every part of the country, from electrifying school buses in rural Texas to replacing lead pipes in Pittsburgh,” Zealan Hoover, senior advisor to the EPA administrator, said on a press call Friday.

As of Jan. 6, the EPA had awarded 93% of grant funding made available by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), according to the new report. Biden signed the IRA in August 2022, with the administration calling it “the largest investment in clean energy and climate action ever.” The agency has awarded 82% of funding through the so-called Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which passed in November 2021.

The report comes amid concerns that a Republican budget reconciliation bill could seek to reverse the IRA. A list of “spending reform options” reportedly distributed among House Republicans includes reversing $468 billion in Biden climate policies, which would entail repealing, among other measures, IRA green energy grants.

But while it may be easier to repeal the IRA under a Republican-controlled federal government, Republican lawmakers may hesitate to get rid of funding that benefits their constituents, according to the Brookings Institute, an independent, non-partisan think tank.

Almost 60% of announced IRA projects are in Republican congressional districts, according to a two-year review of the IRA released in August. That month, 18 Republican House Representatives signed a letter calling for attempts to repeal the IRA to leave the legislation’s energy tax credits in place.

January 10, 2025

As Los Angeles fires rage, states battle over effort to make oil and gas industry accountable for climate change harms

By Dana Drugmand

As fires rage through southern California, the costs of extreme weather events linked to climate change are forecast to keep climbing – adding fuel to growing efforts by some US states to make the oil and gas industry liable for helping foot the bill despite looming legal challenges.

Vermont fired the first shot against the industry last year when it enacted a novel “climate superfund” law aimed at recovering state costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions that drive harmful climate change. New York passed similar legislation last month.

Similar legislation has been introduced in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California, as well as at the federal level. While the federal bill is not expected to make headway in a Republican-controlled Congress, climate activists are pushing Democrat-led states to embrace the legislation as a way to show climate leadership amidst a second Trump administration that has promised to promote the interests of the oil and gas industry and roll back environmental regulations.

Supporters of the legislative moves held a Jan 7 press conference highlighting the actions. Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, told reporters at that press conference that she is “extremely optimistic” that California will enact its version of the climate superfund policy this year.
Experts have said the devastating wildfires raging through the Los Angeles area and surrounding communities in early January are directly tied to climate change as prolonged drought and higher temperatures have left vegetation highly flammable. The costs of the disaster have been estimated at more than $20 billion.

December 19, 2024

Boosting LNG exports would harm people and the planet, DOE report concludes

By Shannon Kelleher

The US Department of Energy (DOE) this week released a report that concludes a rise in exports from the booming natural gas industry would lead to greater global fossil fuel emissions, expose already-vulnerable communities to more pollution and raise gas prices for consumers.

The publication “reinforces that a business as-usual approach is neither sustainable nor advisable,” said US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm in a statement.

“Unfettered” liquified natural gas (LNG) exports would increase the price of wholesale natural gas in the US by over 30%, said Granholm, impacting households, farmers and industry. The study also concluded that current US LNG exports are “already more than enough to meet global demand,” she said, and that while LNG has been suggested as an alternative to coal for some countries, the study “shows a world in which additional US LNG exports displace more renewables than coal globally.”

The report, published Dec. 17, comes after the Biden administration last January announced a pause on pending applications for facilities that export liquified natural gas (LNG) while the DOE reviewed the approval process, citing climate change considerations. In September, more than 125 scientists signed a letter addressed to Granholm and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, warning that the increase in natural gas production threatens to worsen climate change and jeopardize public health and the environment.

“Our hope is that we can now assess the future of natural gas exports based on the facts and ensure authorizations are reviewed in a manner that truly advances the public interest of all the American people,” said Granholm. “Special scrutiny needs to be applied toward very large LNG projects,” she added, noting that a project that exports 4 billion cubic feet of LNG per day would singlehandedly emit more climate-warming greenhouse gases than almost three-quarters of the world’s countries each did in 2023.

December 18, 2024

Montana Supreme Court upholds historic youth climate lawsuit win

By Dana Drugmand

The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a trial court ruling in a youth-led case against the Montana state government, affirming that the sixteen young plaintiffs have a right to a “stable climate system.” The decision marks what legal observers say is a landmark achievement in US climate litigation that is likely to inspire more lawsuits seeking to hold governments accountable for climate change harms in the US and around the world.

In the 6-1 decision, the court ruled against the state in its appeal of the August 2023 verdict in Held et al. v. State of Montana, which went to trial in June 2023. Seeley found that a pair of state laws effectively shielding fossil fuel projects from public scrutiny over their climate impacts, and from judicial review of those impacts under the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), violate the state’s constitution, including the right to a clean and healthful environment. That environmental right includes the climate system, the court determined, and every additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted from fossil fuels – including from projects like coal mine expansion authorized by Montana regulatory agencies – exacerbates climate change damages and harms to Montana’s environment and the youth plaintiffs.

“This is a monumental moment for Montana, our youth, and the future of our planet,” Nate Bellinger, lead counsel for plaintiffs and a senior attorney with the nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement. “Today, the Montana Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutional rights of youth to a safe and livable climate, confirming that the future of our children cannot be sacrificed for fossil fuel interests.”

“This ruling is a victory not just for us, but for every young person whose future is threatened by climate change,” said lead plaintiff Rikki Held.

Maine Photo by Stephen Crane on Unsplash

November 26, 2024

Citing “catastrophic climate effects,” Maine joins in litigation against oil companies

By Dana Drugmand

Maine on Tuesday became the latest government entity to bring legal claims against several major oil and gas companies, alleging the companies and their chief trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, have deliberately misled the public about the climate consequences of burning fossil fuels.

Maine is the ninth US state to take legal action against the industry over climate concerns, joining other states that include New Jersey and California in similar lawsuits. In all, more than two dozen climate deception lawsuits have been brought against fossil fuel companies by cities, counties, states, and Tribal governments over the last seven years.

“For decades, big oil companies have made record profits, taking billions out of the pockets of Maine people while deliberately deceiving them about the harmful impacts of fossil fuels – impacts that Maine people see and feel every day,” Maine Governor Janet Mills said in a statement.

The lawsuit details the costly climate change impacts the state is already experiencing, such as more frequent flooding and warming ocean waters. These impacts have become more costly and severe, according to the state, due to the “successful climate deception campaign” orchestrated by the industry as a strategy to delay the transition away from their products and protect their profits.

November 20, 2024

A call for EPA action on climate risks to hazardous waste facilities

By Dana Drugmand

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be doing more to help address potential climate change-related risks to hundreds of hazardous waste facilities across the country, according to a recent government watchdog report.

The Nov. 14 report, issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), examined the risks to hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs) from flooding, storm surge, sea level rise, and wildfires, events expected to intensify and/or become more frequent with climate change.

More than 700 out of 1,091 federally regulated facilities, or about 68%, are located in areas vulnerable to these weather-related events, the report found. Roughly half of these facilities could be at risk of flooding and more than one-third are in areas vulnerable to wildfire, while almost 200, or 17%, , are in coastal areas at risk of inundation from storm surge.

Chemical waste drums, petroleum storage tanks, toxic landfills and other facilities that treat, store, or dispose of hazardous waste are regulated by EPA under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976. While EPA sets national standards, states implement the regulations and provide enforcement. But, according to the GAO, states currently lack clear direction from EPA on how to assess or manage climate-related risks to hazardous waste facilities, particularly during inspections.

“People at EPA know about the risks, but there has not been real forward-leadership on this,” said Judith Enck, who served as a regional administrator for EPA during the Obama administration. “I can’t tell you how many times I would flag something and was told, ‘well we don’t have the resources and we really can’t do that until headquarters tells us to do something.’”

The EPA has started to take steps to address climate change risks at hazardous waste facilities. In June, for example, it issued guidance on how states can require management of these risks when facilities are permitted. But the GAO said the agency should take additional actions to clarify requirements for climate risk management and to improve and help states implement the guidance.

GAO made nine recommendations to the EPA, including offering training and technical assistance to states to help them understand and manage climate-related risks at hazardous waste facilities.

But as the agency prepares to transition to new leadership under the incoming Trump administration, there are questions around whether it will ultimately act upon the GAO recommendations, or if it will even have the resources to do so. The GAO report identified resource constraints as one of several challenges for addressing climate change risks to hazardous waste facilities.

November 4, 2024

Postcard from California: Climate change is fueling faster-spreading, more extreme wildfires

By Bill Walker

This summer, the Park Fire burned more than 425,000 acres near Chico, Calif. – the fourth-largest wildfire in the state’s history. It started when an arsonist pushed a flaming car into a grassy, brush-strewn gully, sparking California’s largest-ever deliberately set wildfire. But what set the Park Fire apart from the 7,194 wildfires that have burned more than 1 million acres in California this year was how fast it grew.

After first igniting on July 24, it spread an estimated 5,000 acres an hour – about one football field a second. In 24 hours it burned 150,000 acres, and in 72 hours incinerated an area larger than San Francisco. Fire experts said it was among the fastest-growing wildfires in history.

As it burned, Zeke Lunder, director of Deer Creek Resources, a wildfire management consulting firm in Chico, told The Washington Post that in 25 years of mapping large fires throughout the Western US, he couldn’t recall another blaze that spread so far so fast. He said the Park Fire “was moving in ways we aren’t used to seeing.”

It’s settled science that the climate crisis is increasing the number and frequency of wildfires. A 2016 study estimated that from 1984 to 2015, human-caused climate change contributed to the burning of almost twice the acreage in 11 Western states than might have burned in its absence.

Now, new research confirms that Western wildfires are also spreading faster.

In a study published Oct. 24 in the journal Science, a team of researchers analyzed images from NASA satellites to track the day-by-day spread of more than 60,000 fires in the continental US from 2001 to 2020.

They found that in that period, the average peak daily growth rate of wildfires in the West more than doubled. In California, wildfires spread almost four times as fast in 2020 as in 2001. They cited other research predicting that if global warming continues at its current pace, the frequency of the fastest-spreading fires in the West could double in 30 years.

“The modern era of megafires is often defined based on wildfire size, but it should be defined based on how fast fires grow,” the researchers wrote. “Speed fundamentally dictates the deadly and destructive impact of megafires… [F]ire speed matters more for infrastructure risk and evacuation planning.”

October 31, 2024

High levels of hazardous heavy metals found in products used to fight wildfires

By Douglas Main

A new study shows that sprays and retardants used to fight wildfires contain surprisingly high levels of toxic heavy metals, a “disturbing” finding at a time when wildfires are generally getting worse.

The paper, published October 30 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, found that each of 14 fire suppression products examined contained at least eight of the ten heavy metals tested for, including chromium, cadmium, lead, and arsenic. Most of these metals or their derivatives are highly toxic, and known to cause a long list of diseases, including cancer.

All have been approved for use by the US Forest Service, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The findings raise questions about the ecological and human health impact of spraying large quantities of these materials over huge tracts of land in the western United States, according to study lead author Daniel McCurry, an environmental chemist at the University of Southern California.

McCurry and colleagues became interested in investigating these products’ chemistry as wildfire severity has increased in recent years and news reports showed these being used widely throughout California and other western states.

Wildfires have generally become more intense and widespread in recent years and decades, an expected outcome of human-caused climate change and land management practices. A total of just under 8 million acres have burned so far this year in the United States, a 24% increase over the 10 year average. Research suggests wildfires will get more severe and burn more acres in coming decades.

October 17, 2024

Algae bloom kills hundreds of sea lions off California

Hundreds of sea lions off the coast of California have been poisoned this year amid a “highly unusual” algae bloom that has persisted in southern and central parts of the state into October.

Experts believe the blooms, which are becoming more common, may be linked to warming and changing ocean conditions. They harm sea life when algae produce a neurotoxic chemical that can be taken up by fish and crustaceans and absorbed by the larger animals that eat them.

Off the US west coast, the proliferations of algae, sometimes called “red tides”, usually peak in the late spring. For the last three years, however, harmful blooms have come on strong in the summer and, this year, lasted into autumn before mostly petering out.

That is “highly unusual,” according to Clarissa Anderson, a researcher with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who is also the director of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System, which tracks harmful algal blooms.

“It’s catching us all off guard,” Anderson said.

October 17, 2024

Progress seen on overall industry emissions, even as oil and gas emissions rise, EPA finds

By Shannon Kelleher

US power plants, the largest stationary sources of greenhouse gases in the nation, continue to show reduced emissions but the good news from that sector comes as oil and gas emissions rise, according to new regulatory data.

Power plant emissions totaled about 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide last year, down 7% from 2022, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported. The agency collects data from over 8,000 industrial facilities for its Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, accounting for about half of total US emissions.

However, greenhouse gas emissions from petroleum and natural gas plants increased 1.4% in 2023 over 2022, and the 2023 tally was up 16.4% from 2016, the EPA said.

Nine coal-fired power plants were among the top ten greenhouse gas-emitting industrial facilities for 2023, along with a Texas-based ExxonMobil refinery.

The worst emitter – for the ninth year in a row – was the James H Miller power plant outside Birmingham, Alabama.

Altogether, large industrial facilities’ greenhouse gas emissions, the chemicals that are driving human-caused climate change, dropped by 4% last year, the EPA reported.

“The progress is largely driven by the power sector, [which] has seen steadily declining emissions,” Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis at the National Resources Defense Council, said in an email, noting that the change reflects a shift away from coal over time. “The power sector can, and must, continue to decarbonize,” she said.