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First Heat Protection Standards for Workers Proposed by Biden Administration
President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled its long-awaited proposal to protect workers from extreme heat at what might appear to be an appropriate time—amid a record-hot summer with millions of Americans sweltering under heat advisories. But the Occupational Health and Safety Administration proposed the nation’s first heat injury and...
As Climate Change Dries Out the West, Fourth of July Fireworks Spark Increased Wildfire Risk
In two days, fireworks will blast skyward in states across the U.S., painting the night with vibrant blue, red and gold sparks to celebrate Independence Day. Part of what makes these dazzling displays beautiful is also what makes them dangerous: Just one errant spark can ignite an inferno if it has enough kindling. Each year, fireworks trigger tens of thousands of accidental fires across the country, and unsurprisingly, the majority of them happen on July 4.
In New York’s Finger Lakes Region, Long-Haul Garbage Trucks Trigger Town Resolutions Against Landfill Expansion
INTERLAKEN, N.Y.—Long-haul garbage trucks, a noisy nuisance in towns and villages across the Finger Lakes, have prompted several local boards to pass resolutions opposing a bid to expand the state’s largest landfill, Seneca Meadows Inc. “Routes 41 and 41A suffer from heavy traffic by southbound trash trucks returning...
US Prisons and Jails Exposed to an Increasing Number of Hazardous Heat Days, Study Says
Marci Simmons thinks back to her days in a Texas state prison as a cruel game of psychological planning for the summer. “In April, you start preparing yourself for the heat,” she said. “Towards the end of May, when it starts to get hot, you start telling yourself, ‘OK, it’s only four months of this really bad heat.’ And then you kind of count down in your mind. It’s a mental game of survival.”
California Communities Celebrate ‘Massive’ Victory as Oil Industry Drops Unpopular Referendum
Environmental justice communities across California rejoiced last week when the oil industry, at the eleventh hour, withdrew its controversial effort to overturn a historic law aimed at curbing the deadly effects of neighborhood oil drilling. Now, nearly two years after community activists and their allies watched Gov. Gavin Newsom sign...
Former Pioneer CEO and Son Make Significant Political Contributions to Trump, Abbott and Christi Craddick
Former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield and his son Bryan have ramped up political contributions since 2020, according to the non-profit Public Citizen. ExxonMobil announced its purchase of Pioneer—the top oil producer in Texas—in October 2023. Scott Sheffield is slated to receive a $30 million payout and his Pioneer stock will roll-over to Exxon. But when the deal was finalized this May, the Federal Trade Commission banned Sheffield from joining Exxon’s board.
Louisville Finally Takes Stock of Abandoned Waste Dump Inside a Preserved Forest
LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Environmental consultants this summer will be digging trenches and taking soil samples in this city’s Jefferson Memorial Forest, looking to document new evidence of toxic waste dumped there decades ago. Louisville Metro Council on June 20 approved a $68,000 contract with Shield Environmental Associates for the work....
Widespread Flooding in Upper Midwest Decimates Farm Towns
Bob Hilt was in the fourth grade when his family’s farm, perched along the Big Sioux River in southeastern South Dakota, flooded in 1969. “I remember the National Guard trucks in the yard hauling furniture out of the house, and we just opened the gates and let the livestock go, and the whole farm was covered with water,” said Hilt, a retired police officer who only ended up farming part-time as an adult. “We had to take a boat in the road ditch to the school bus.”
To Save the Amazon, What if We Listened to Those Living Within It?
RURRENABAQUE, Bolivia—Beneath a setting sun, marchers clad in feathered headdresses and hand woven clothing streamed across the Alto Beni River bridge on a muggy June evening, calling out:. “Agua si! Minería no!”. “Viva Amazonia!”. The march marked the opening of a four-day gathering known as the Pan-Amazon Social...
How To Survive a Heat Wave on a Fixed Income
This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. Mone Choy is 68 and lives in the New York City neighborhood of Inwood, at the northern tip of Manhattan, on a fixed disability income of $1,901 per month. Her rent is frozen at $1,928. She lives with chronic health issues that render her unable to work. In addition to a few other intermittent gigs, Choy covers the rest of her expenses by collecting bottles from her building’s recycling and taking them to a nearby redemption center.
Financing of Meat and Dairy Giants Grows Thanks to Big American Banks and Investors
The world’s biggest banks and investors are continuing to funnel billions of dollars to carbon-intensive industrial livestock companies, undermining their own pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions and fueling an ongoing boom in meat and milk production that threatens global climate goals. New research finds that the world’s biggest...
Texas Opens More Coastal Waters for Carbon Dioxide Injection Wells
Texas has opened more than a million acres of offshore, state-owned waters for proposals from companies to inject greenhouse gas underground for permanent disposal as a means to mitigate climate change. The request for proposals issued in June by Texas’ General Land Office was its fourth since 2021 and its...
Q&A: The First Presidential Debate Hardly Mentioned Environmental Issues, Despite Stark Differences Between the Candidate’s Records
From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by producer Aynsley O’Neill and managing producer Jenni Doering with Phil McKenna, a staff writer at Inside Climate News, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On June 27th President Joe Biden and former President...
Midwest Floods, Widespread Heat Waves Are Undermining U.S. Transportation Systems
The severe floods sweeping through the Midwest are a potent example of how extreme weather damages the transportation arteries we all rely on. On Sunday, water levels rose so high in the Big Sioux River between South Dakota and Iowa that the current overtook a railroad bridge, severing a crucial connection between the two states.
Supreme Court Overturns Chevron Doctrine: What it Means for Climate Change Policy
Just as federal regulators move forward with a climate change policy rooted in dozens of complex provisions of law, the Supreme Court on Friday overturned the principle that has guided U.S. regulatory law for the past 40 years. That principle held that a federal agency’s interpretation of the law should...
In North Carolina, a Legal Fight Over Wetlands Protections
A U.S. district court judge has denied a landowner’s attempt to prevent federal regulators from enforcing the Clean Water Act against him, the latest ruling in a set of cases involving wetlands protections in North Carolina. Earlier this month, Robert D. White, of Elizabeth City, sat quietly in a...
Flouting Biden Pause, Agency OK’s Largest LNG Terminal in US
This story was originally published by Floodlight. Despite a much publicized pause on the approval of liquefied natural gas terminals in the United States, a federal regulatory agency Thursday approved the construction of the nation’s largest LNG terminal, months before that pause is set to end. The 2-1 vote...
NTSB Says Norfolk Southern Threatened Staff as They Investigated the East Palestine Derailment
The chair of the National Transportation Safety Board called Norfolk Southern’s conduct during the board’s investigation of the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine “unconscionable” at a meeting this week to finalize the NTSB’s findings. Jennifer Homendy, the NTSB chair, said at the close of...
Ongoing Spending on Gas Infrastructure Can Worsen Energy Poverty, Impede Energy Transition, Maryland Utility Advocate Says
Maryland utilities are averaging more than $700 million a year on gas infrastructure spending, worsening the energy burden among low-income communities and hampering the state’s efforts to hit its ambitious clean energy and emissions reduction targets. That’s according to the Office of People’s Counsel, the state agency representing Maryland...
Study Maps Giant Slush Zones as New Threat to Antarctic Ice
A detailed new analysis of NASA satellite images shows there is much more meltwater sitting atop Antarctica’s ice shelves than previously estimated, much of it in huge slush zones that haven’t been carefully mapped until now. The new information will help determine how vulnerable the shelves are to cracking and disintegration, according to an international team of scientists who published their findings in Nature Geoscience this week.
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