This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Reversing its own Trump-era proposal, the US Environmental Protection Agency has spurned a lobbying effort by the chemical industry to relax clean-air regulations on two types of chemical or “advanced” recycling of plastics. The decision, announced by the EPA […]
Author: Michael Mechanic
Ohio Staters Grapple With Bill That Stifles Climate Speech
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Keely Fisher chose to pursue her Ph.D. at Ohio State University because she wanted to learn about climate change from a world-class faculty. Now one year into her program, she wonders if she belongs here. The problem has nothing […]
House Republicans’ Work Requirements “Are Not About Work”
Princeton sociologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond’s latest book, the New York Times best-seller Poverty, By America, explores why poverty is so prevalent—and persistent—in the richest nation on Earth. We spoke about his excellent book not long ago, but with the House Republicans demanding new work requirements for Medicaid and food-stamp recipients in exchange […]
Lawsuit Aims to Keep Fire Retardants Out of Waterways
This story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On a hot, dry August day in 2002, air tankers swooped over a small wildfire south of Bend, Oregon. The Forest Service hoped to suppress the flames by dropping over a thousand pounds of fire retardant on and around the […]
Colorado to Bar Utilities From Lobbying With Customers’ Money
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Utilities across the country use money collected from customers’ monthly bills to fund political campaigns and lobbying efforts, often with the goal of blocking climate progress. But in Colorado, that’s about to change. This week, the state passed the country’s most comprehensive legislation […]
The Colorado River Wars Are Based on Bad Math
This story, an edited excerpt from the video above, was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. California and Arizona are currently fighting each other over water from the Colorado River. But this isn’t new—it’s actually been going on for over 100 years. At one point, the states literally went to war […]
House Republicans Are Playing Debt-Ceiling Russian Roulette
Are House Republicans, if you’ll pardon the expression, peeing in their own Jacuzzi? I raise this question because some of the spending cuts the House GOP and its quasi-leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, are demanding in exchange for raising the debt ceiling—a deal the Democrats have vowed to reject—are destined to hit Republican-led states […]
Supreme Court Delivers Fossil Fuel Firms a Stiff Setback
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News as part of our Climate Desk collaboration. The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear five appeals from the fossil fuel industry seeking to move climate change lawsuits it faces to the federal courts. The decision opens the door for Baltimore and other cities, states and counties to pursue their claims […]
Climate Protesters Call Out US Banks Over Fossil Fuel Funding
This story was originally published by the Guardian as part of our Climate Desk collaboration. As they exited their office in Tribeca on Monday afternoon, Citibank employees were confronted with a boisterous crowd chanting and dancing along to the music of a mariachi band. It was a funny sight: New York banking professionals in black and gray business attire coming face to […]
Arizona Utility Just Won’t Let This Historic Black Community Be
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A handful of weary residents gathered at the windowless Randolph church to mull over the latest effort by an electric utility to expand its power station—a polluting gas-fired plant next door to the community that the state regulator has blocked […]