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Listen: After a decade of minimal progress, local advocates redouble efforts to clean the Potomac River
WASHINGTON — The Potomac River has long faced pollution from sewage overflows, litter and more. Organizations made significant improvements to water quality for nearly a decade, but since 2016, progress has slowed. Now, local advocates are redoubling their efforts to...
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Federal agencies to prioritize public lands development over local preferences that conflict with administration goals
The Trump administration has been rescinding President Joe Biden-era land policies and frustration communities affected by those decisions.
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Congress votes to overturn Central Yukon conservation management plan
For over a decade, federal workers collaborated with Alaska Native tribes, Alaskan residents, federal agencies and state representatives to develop a federal strategy to manage public lands in the Central Yukon.
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Dems urge rural development nominee to push back against Trump administration
Trump agricultural nominees continue to express largely uninhibited support for the president, even though his administration’s policy has hurt their communities.
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Senate committee approves plan for new FBI headquarters
The EPW narrowly passed a resolution along party lines to approve the GSA plan to move the FBI to the Ronald Reagan Building Wednesday, moving it one step forward.
read moreTVA board nominees signal openness to net-zero carbon goals amid rising energy demand
WASHINGTON – Nominees to the Board of Directors of the largest public power system in the country clashed with lawmakers Wednesday over commitments to honor decarbonization goals.
The nominees to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), hailing from backgrounds in business, public infrastructure and utilities, said they must utilize all available energy resources when evaluating rising energy demands before committing to net-zero carbon goals by 2050.
They said their goal is to continue to drive energy innovation while keeping electricity affordable and reliable to customers, which would require tapping into the existing blended grid combining traditional fossil fuel and renewable energy.
“I gained a better appreciation of TVA’s balanced generation portfolio and how critical that is in keeping the lights on and the cost low,” board member nominee Mitch Graves said.
The TVA was created during the New Deal to spur economic and infrastructural development in the most impoverished regions of Appalachia. Today, the TVA functions primarily as a public power supplier and utility provider to over nine million people throughout the southeastern United States.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Environmental and Public Works Committee, said nominees will have to contend with customers if the TVA changes its energy portfolio and drives up costs.
“If you suppress wind and solar polar . . . you are virtually inevitably raising costs for your TVA rate payers at the end of the day,” Whitehouse said.
While nominees agreed to consider renewable energy, they seemed less committed to phasing out the Kingston and Cumberland Fossil Plants, both owned by the TVA, in Tennessee.
“It’s a little bit more complicated,” Graves said. “We have to use all of our energy sources right now to meet the demand.”
Nominees also sparred with senators over how to expand the electrical grid to account for the influx of new data centers and their high power demands.
At one point, Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) asked nominees how they planned to address “unprecedented” power demand from data centers while protecting customers from potential rate hikes.
The nominees agreed that consumers should not absorb the additional costs. Randall Jones, a nominee who previously served on the Guntersville Electric Board in Alabama, added that he would consider using bonds to offset costs on consumers.
“We cannot put it on the backs of the grandmother in Asbury, Alabama,” he said.
Most nominees said they would consider a separate, higher rate class for data centers if they are confirmed onto the board.
Jones said he wants data centers to operate with a degree of self-sufficiency, but did not directly say if he would consider a separate rate class.
“I hope that the data centers pay for their own power that they have provided themselves,” he said.
Nominees said they would consider the concerns raised by committee members ahead of their Senate confirmation vote, but could not provide guarantees.
“Still being a nominee and not having all the facts to say, ‘Yeah, I’ll commit to this right here,’” Jones told the Medill News Service. “We don’t have the information.
Senate weighs EPA chemical regulations against defense, economic concerns
WASHINGTON — At an Oct. 23 Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, lawmakers discussed the benefits and disadvantages of stricter chemical regulation approvals from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) established the tone of the hearing during his opening statement, emphasizing how regulatory delays can stifle innovation while recognizing the challenge of supporting American companies while protecting the environment. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) highlighted the responsibility to create good working jobs in his opening statement.
“Pollution isn’t partisan and addressing it is our shared responsibility,” Merkley said. “America should be a leader, not a follower, in protecting its workers and the environment.”
The hearing focused on the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976 (TSCA), which requires the EPA to evaluate the risks of new and existing substances. Experts discussed how chemical regulation by the EPA under TSCA can hinder or drive technological advances, as well as potential health and environmental risks.
Dr. Tracey Woodruff, reproductive sciences professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said she wanted policymakers to understand the dangers of lax chemical regulation and consider how industries have lied about the harms their products pose.
“Once they’re (chemicals) out — you can’t take them back — and the result is that people could get sick and die,” Woodruff said. “EPA was established to protect the health of the public and the environment, not to increase corporate profits.”
A recurring subject was the possibility that strict regulation could influence American companies to conduct research and development overseas, like China and Southeast Asia.
“We do not need to be cutting corners,” said Peter Huntsman, the president and CEO of Huntsman Corporation. “But we need to have better focus, speed, transparency and reliable standards in order to compete.”
Dr. Gwen Gross, a senior technical fellow at The Boeing Company, said that Boeing has experienced challenges under TSCA research exemptions. Gross said that companies must submit chemicals for risk assessment to the EPA before approval to manufacture or import chemicals. Gross explained that delays in these approvals stall her work at Boeing.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) then asked Huntsman about concerns about defense development as a consequence of delays in chemical regulation.
“This is the most dangerous period we’ve had since World War II,” Wicker said. “And it’s not just Iran with their nukes, it’s China, it’s Russia, and this crazy guy that runs North Korea.”
Huntsman said when approvals by the EPA are slow, production of missiles and components of defense technology is postponed. He said that the chemical work Huntsman Corp. is conducting is in service to advancing science and environmental stewardship.
Subcommittee chairman Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) raised concerns about the pace and predictability of chemical regulation approvals. In recent years, the EPA has also struggled with understaffing, resulting in delays.
Still, Curtis thought the hearing was productive in reaching a consensus.
“When you bore down in it, we all want clean air, we all want clean water,” Curtis told Medill News Service. “How we get there is realizing each other’s perspectives.”
Others, like Merkley, ended the hearing echoing the same concerns.
“We need an effective chemical review system,” Merkley told Medill News Service. “I’m hoping to work with my colleagues across the aisle … We should all be pushing it together to greatly improve the review system by having it properly staffed.”
Trump administration continues to issue permits and leases for oil, natural gas and coal operations during the shutdown, but stops the same for renewable energy
WASHINGTON — The Department of the Interior (DOI) will continue issuing permits and land leases for oil, natural gas and coal production while halting the same and construction on renewable energy projects during the government shutdown.
When asked about that decision, a DOI spokesperson said via email, “The Department of the Interior will keep critical services open and running for the benefit of the American people.”
These “critical services” include projects that address the administration’s energy goals and the National Energy Emergency that President Donald Trump issued in January. Both emphasize oil, natural gas and coal. The national emergency’s definition of energy excludes renewable sources like solar and wind power.
After the Senate failed to pass a stopgap spending bill Tuesday, most federal activities were paused and thousands of federal workers were furloughed.
According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) contingency plan, federal workers involved with issuing permits for oil and natural gas drilling and coal mining are exempt from furloughs because of the National Energy Emergency. A BLM spokesperson confirmed activities related to the National Energy Emergency will continue through the shutdown.
Issuing permits for and developing solar farms will stop for the duration of the shutdown.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which manages energy resources in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf under DOI, outlined plans to furlough over 70% of its staff in its shutdown contingency plan. The plan also outlines that carryover funds from the last fiscal year will not be used to support employees working on renewable projects.
The DOI shutdown contingency plans reflect a greater pattern of the Trump administration prioritizing fossil fuels over renewable energy, which Special Initiative on Offshore Wind Director Kris Ohleth described as concerning. She said following an “all of the above” approach to energy is important to successfully transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources.
“In the grand scheme of things, we’re much more concerned about the next three and a half years than the next three and a half weeks of the shutdown, hopefully less,” Ohleth said. “But it’s a real challenge at the federal level. This (shutdown) just seems a bit like yet another layer for the sector to have to absorb.”
Offshore wind is one energy industry that could face temporary consequences because of the shutdown. Wind farms built on the Outer Continental Shelf require permits from BOEM for construction because the territory is federally managed. The federal workers who manage the permits are considered “nonessential,” so offshore wind projects cannot contact these regulators for urgent matters while they are furloughed. This could cause construction delays.
Ohleth said the preferred construction windows for most offshore wind projects often ends by late October because high wind speeds and aggressive waters during winter months can slow installation.
She also noted that it takes around 10 years to develop an offshore wind farm, so these types of projects will likely not face long-term consequences if the shutdown only lasts a few weeks.
“This will just be a bit of a micro blip in the story of an offshore wind farm,” Ohleth said.
Even before the shutdown, the Trump administration has prioritized fossil fuels over renewable energy. The DOI retracted permits that had already been issued to offshore wind companies under the Biden administration.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought posted on X Wednesday that the administration will also cancel nearly $8 billion in funding for climate initiatives, including clean energy, in 16 states that voted for former vice president Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
“While I would say, typically, a government shutdown would have a very big impact on offshore wind, because the federal government has already essentially been shutting down offshore wind, I would say relatively this impact is less than it typically has been or would be,” Ohleth said.
EPA proposes changes to how it evaluates the risks of toxic chemicals
WASHINGTON — The EPA proposed changing how it evaluates the risks of toxic chemicals, aiming to make the process more efficient for the manufacturing industry.
“This work is yet another example of how we can and will protect human health and the environment while allowing manufacturing and industrial sectors to thrive,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in the news release on Sept. 22.
The Toxic Substances Control Act was passed by Congress in 1976 to protect human health and the environment from risks posed by toxic chemicals used in manufacturing commercial products, like plastics and rubber. It was flagged for review after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February, directing agencies to identify regulations that need to change to better fit with the administration’s policies.
The EPA said in a statement that the amendments will not affect its method for reviewing toxic substances. Instead, the proposed rule would evaluate the risk of each condition of use separately, including the manufacture, distribution, use and disposal of the chemical.
It would also consider the effect of personal protective equipment in mitigating risk during the evaluations. Earthjustice Attorney Kelly Lester said that considering personal protective equipment endangers workers by lessening the danger.
“If EPA is understating the risk at the front end, then the protections that it’s going to put into place at the risk management stage are going to be insufficient,” Lester said.
Lester added she is concerned the amended evaluation process would overlook air exposure and the cumulative effects of chemical plants in the same vicinity.
For example, some chemicals involved in the manufacturing process are released through the air and water into surrounding communities. If there are multiple chemical facilities in the same area, there are increased, or “aggregate,” risks of chemical exposure for nearby residents.
By allowing aggregate risks to be excluded from evaluations, the proposed rule would underestimate the danger these toxic substances pose, Lester said.
“(TSCA) looks at a chemical throughout the life cycle in order to understand the true risk that the chemical faces,” Lester said. “You can’t just ignore slices of that and then say, ‘Okay, here’s what the risk is.’ You have to look at the entire thing.”
The American Chemistry Council, which advocates for the chemical industry, said the proposed changes to the review process would improve efficiency and transparency for businesses.
“For chemical manufacturers and the countless downstream sectors that rely on our industry’s innovative materials, clearer processes mean more predictable timelines, consistent guidelines and greater confidence when making business and investment decisions,” Kimberly Wise White, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs at the ACC, said in an email statement.
She added that the proposal considers “real-world” applications of toxic substances.
This is not the industry’s first push for separate evaluations for each condition of use.
Under the Biden administration, the EPA changed the TSCA risk evaluation process to consider all exposure pathways and parts of the chemical’s life cycle.
The ACC, chemical manufacturers and labor unions petitioned a review of the 2024 rule in court for requiring evaluations to include all conditions of use. The litigation hinted that changes were coming down the pipe.
“We thought that a lot of these changes were coming,” Lester said. “And the rule did not disappoint in that regard.”
Some of the proposed changes backed by the EPA and chemical industry have already been challenged in court for endangering human health and the environment.
Congress passed a bipartisan act in 2016 to revise the TSCA, which allowed the EPA to identify and regulate the risks of toxic chemicals used in commercial products.
In 2017, the EPA announced a framework for evaluating the risks posed by toxic chemicals. It did not require evaluations for all conditions of use, similar to the 2025 proposal.
Several advocacy groups and labor unions sued the EPA on the grounds that its final rule endangered human health. In 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled the EPA could not ignore the long-term effect of a chemical’s use, even after it stops being manufactured. For example, asbestos is no longer manufactured but still found in older paint, insulation and more. The agency said in a statement that it will follow the court’s ruling.
The appeals court did not rule on whether the EPA was allowed to evaluate conditions of use separately.
“In that case, one very significant thing that the court did was say that certain conditions of use cannot be categorically excluded from consideration under a risk evaluation,” Lester said. “And that is something that this proposed rule basically ignores.”
Roadless Rule rescission met with outcry
WASHINGTON – As the U.S. Department of Agriculture moves to eliminate a measure prohibiting road construction in select remote areas, some experts warn of environmental consequences.
The long-contested 2001 Roadless Rule established prohibitions on road construction and timber harvesting in almost 60 million acres of inventoried roadless areas in the National Forest System, with some exceptions. Now, the USDA has encountered uproar as they begin to repeal the rule.
“The backcountry wild areas protected by the Roadless Rule are universally enjoyed and integral to what makes this nation special,” environmental advocates said in a joint statement from The Wilderness Society, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Alaska Wilderness League. “As Americans, we have the right to explore these wild places — and we will not stand for auctioning them off to the highest bidder.”
These organizations say that the Roadless Rule is essential for protecting cherished public land.
Opponents of the rule have said that restricting access to natural resources like timber, minerals and energy hinders economic development. Some have also said that local land managers should have more flexibility than a national rule allows.
In a statement, a USDA spokesperson offered another reason for repealing the rule, saying it “is more important than ever” to aid wildfire mitigation.
“Roads improve access for wildland firefighting when timing is critical, and lives are at risk,” the spokesperson said. “As the Secretary stated, the lack of maintenance and access have frustrated land managers for years, including firefighters who haven’t been able to reach fires in time to slow their spread.”
Some counter this idea, claiming that wildfires are more likely to occur near roads.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced in June that the U.S. Department of Agriculture would rescind the rule. In late August, the USDA opened a public comment period, formally beginning the process to repeal it.
The document received over 600,000 comments before the Sept. 19 deadline. According to environmental non-profit Earthjustice, at least half a million of those respondents opposed the rollback.
Still, some lawmakers in affected states have lauded the decision to repeal the rule.
“The Roadless Rule has never fit Alaska, so I welcome this effort to rescind it,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said in a June statement. “Repeal will not lead to environmental harm, but it will help open needed opportunities for renewable energy, forestry, mining, tourism, and more in areas that are almost completely under federal control.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) agrees. In a statement issued in July, he described the rule as an “environmental disaster.”
There are several more steps that the USDA must take to formalize the measure. The Forest Service plans to publish a draft environmental impact statement around March 2026 and says it will accept more public comments around that time.
The decision aligns with a series of Trump administration executive orders that have focused on deregulation and the removal of perceived barriers to resource extraction.
Through these executive orders and other remarks, the Trump administration has rebuked climate-friendly policy. While addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, President Donald Trump lamented the “global warming hoax” that he said has captivated the globe.
“It’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” Trump said.
Yet, the USDA spokesperson cautioned that this move “would not automatically authorize commercial harvest, road construction or any other on-the-ground activity,” as decisions relating to land management would be subject to national forest or grassland management plans.
However, there have already been moves to increase drilling in protected areas outside of the Roadless Rule’s purview. In early September, the House voted in support of a mining road through the Alaskan wilderness. The measure is expected to clear the Senate soon.
And, Trump himself continues to demonstrate interest in mining and extractive operations.
“We have an expression,” Trump said Tuesday at the UN. “Drill, baby, drill. And that’s what we’re doing.”
Watch: Trump’s pick for EPA leader testified at Senate hearing
WASHINGTON — Lee Zeldin, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, appeared before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on Thursday where he was grilled for his previous positions on climate change.
Even so, he received bipartisan support in the hearing, including from Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
Watch the video report here:
Climate change activist groups demand action from Biden before term ends
WASHINGTON – Around 300 people gathered to demand climate action from the Biden administration outside the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters on Sunday, according to estimates from organizers.
Protesters called on President Joe Biden to protect public lands, cancel oil and gas projects and use all unspent money from the Inflation Reduction and Bipartisan Infrastructure Acts to invest in the climate.
Protesters came from the Washington DC metro area, New York and Pennsylvania to urge Biden to take action in his final 60 days of power before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
A coalition of activist groups organized the rally, drawing hundreds of protesters to the Federal Triangle metro station. (Emma Richman/MNS)
“We cannot imagine trying to sleep any night during the Trump administration if we haven’t done everything we can first,” said Saul Levin, political and campaigns director for Green New Deal Network.
2024 has been the hottest year on record with the global average temperature reaching 1.54 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization. This temporarily exceeds the Paris Agreement 1.5-degree temperature rise limit.
Trump is expected to take office in January, appointing former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Together, the administration is expected to roll back the more progressive climate policies under Biden.
Levin organized the rally with over 30 climate change activist groups. He said it was the launching point for a campaign over the next 60 days to demand Democrats do as much as possible for the climate before Trump takes office.
Some protesters also held signs urging Senate Democrats to confirm more judges that would uphold environmental laws to safeguard against the Trump administration.
Jason Rylander, legal director for the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said there are limits to what the Trump administration can reverse. Rylander, who attended Sunday’s rally, added that the legal system is an important wall of defense.
“We will stand up with our partners and take the Trump administration to court at every turn if they’re undoing environmental protections,” Rylander said.
Several speakers addressed the rally, telling personal stories and outlining demands. The crowd cheered and chanted for climate action. Organizers led the rally in chants saying “every day counts” and “YOLO Joe.”
Protests held signs that said “60 days,” the amount of time Biden has left in office to take action on climate change. (Emma Richman/MNS)
Some protesters held signs urging Biden to pardon environmental activists. Others advocated for Biden to stop new liquified natural gas projects. Student activists led the crowd in song, and protesters of all ages attended.
Keanu Arpels-Josiah, climate organizer and first-year student at Swarthmore College, said he’s been involved in climate change activism since high school. An organizer with Fridays for Future NYC, Arpels-Josiah came to Sunday’s rally with a group of students from Philadelphia and said around 30 others came on a bus from New York.
Arpels-Josiah gave a speech at the rally and led the crowd in song alongside fellow student organizers. He urged Biden to fulfill his promises to take progressive climate action to safeguard the Earth for future generations.
“We can’t have a transition of just resignation,” Arpels-Josiah said. “We must have a transition of action and setting the groundwork to protect our democracy, protect our future, protect our rights, protect climate action.”
Congress presses Coast Guard on Arctic icebreaker shortfalls amid growing international competition
WASHINGTON — Transportation committee ranking member Richard Larsen (D-Wash.), questioned Coast Guard leadership on the U.S. ability to ice break in the Arctic Circle compared to competitors Russia and China after the Government Accountability Office released a scathing report about the operations.
The U.S. Coast Guard is tasked with managing American responsibilities in the Arctic through its presence in Alaska. This team’s primary aim is icebreaking recapitalization, which involves regulating the quantity of and patrolling ice in the Arctic Circle.
Despite this, the American fleet has only two ships capable of breaking heavy ice in the Arctic. Russia has 55 vessels and China, which does not have an Arctic coast, has four.
Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), appeared frustrated about the timeline for new ships still being many years away. He asked the panel whether the U.S. is threatened by our lack of ships.
“We have a national security threat now,” Coast Guard Vice Admiral Peter Gautier said. “We need eight to nine ships as soon as possible, but it’s going to take a long time to build them.”
In recent years, this task has become more difficult, with longer and colder winters affecting much of the northern hemisphere. Alaska and, by extension, the Arctic Circle are valuable to United States national security, serving as the closest domestic military port to Russia.
Chairman Daniel Webster said the U.S. needs to catch up in our need for more icebreaking ships.
“It is well beyond time to carry out our mission with new ships,” Webster said. “Nearly a year has passed [since Congress first inquired] and we don’t have a plan.”
Vice Admiral Thomas Allan Jr. emphasized that the Coast Guard must receive support from the Navy in this process, as these new ships will be the Coast Guard’s first icebreakers in more than fifty years.
“We do not have enough to complete ship one,” Allan said. “The Coast Guard is a capital intensive operation, and we fall further and further behind the Department of Defense each year.”
Larsen, whose district features the third largest domestic port with significant shipbuilding facilities, echoed this sentiment and insisted that “our presence in the Arctic equals our sovereignty.”
Heather MacLeod, who authored the GAO report and directs the Homeland Security and Justice team, testified before the subcommittee.
“The Coast Guard has done a good job at assessing risk in the region,” MacLeod said. “But its reliance on an aging fleet has hindered the service’s ability.”
MacLeod said the program to build new ships has experienced design challenges as it does not have its own facility. The Coast Guard leases its hangar space in Alaska.
Gautier, who has served in the Coast Guard for 37 years, said the committee must consider providing more funds to Arctic operations to see successful reinvestment rather than just focusing on vessels.
“The Coast Guard is more valuable today than ever before,” Gautier said. “We promote a peaceful, stable and cooperative Arctic in this unique and challenging maritime environment.”
Allan said the first of these ships will be approved to begin production before the end of the year.
Warnings over climate finance, Paris Agreement take center stage at COP29
WASHINGTON – World leaders discussed climate change solutions at the United Nations’ climate change conference in Azerbaijan this week, amid the increasing threat of global warming during the hottest year on record.
The conference, known as COP29, brought together roughly 70,000 people from 196 countries. Talks focused on investing in ways to combat climate change and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.
“The world must pay up, or humanity will pay the price,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said to world leaders at the opening of the summit.
2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record nearly a decade after the Paris Agreement, where 196 countries pledged to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees celsius. In order to reach this goal, emissions must peak before 2025 and decline 43% by 2030, according to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
As global temperatures continue to rise, world leaders began to discuss plans to meet the lofty goals of the agreement at the conference.
The agenda
The World Leaders Climate Action Summit opened Tuesday morning with speeches from dozens of heads of state. Speakers emphasized commitment to a green future and called for increased action from G20 countries.
Climate finance took center stage at the conference, and U.N. speakers urged world leaders to pledge more money to the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, which finances climate change mitigation and relief in developing countries.
Speakers also cited the potential toll of climate change on the global economy to incentivize state and business leaders to act.
“Worsening climate impacts will put inflation on steroids unless every country can take bolder climate action,” U.N. Climate Change executive secretary Simon Stiell said.
Stiell urged leaders not to make the same mistake they did during the pandemic in acting too slowly when supply chains were disrupted. He called on leaders to create a global climate finance goal at the conference.
Business leaders set the tone for climate finance at the conference with an announcement on Tuesday from a group of multilateral development banks that their collective climate financing would reach an estimated $170 billion by 2030.
Leaders from small island nations, some of the most significantly affected by climate change, urged G20 nations to contribute to international climate resilience efforts and relief funds.
“In this hour of crisis, it seems some would choose isolation over unity, self-interest over collective action,” said Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis. “But we, the nations most at risk, do not have the luxury to retreat.”
Davis implored his fellow world leaders to contribute to global climate finance and warned against inaction. But only some answered the call.
Major players
United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer made headlines with his announcement of new targets for emissions and climate change action. Starmer said the U.K. will aim for an 81% cut in emissions by 2035.
“There is no national security, there is no economic security, there is no global security, without climate security,” Starmer said at the conference.
Some major leaders were notably absent at the conference including U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, heads of the top two countries in greenhouse gas emissions. Other key powers like India, France and Germany also did not send their heads of state.
John Podesta, Biden’s senior advisor on international climate policy, led the U.S. delegation at the conference, during which the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a new policy to reduce methane emissions.
The policy requires oil and gas companies to pay a fee for excessive methane emissions, following the directive of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which the Biden administration and environmental groups have called the most significant climate legislation in U.S. history.
Under the Biden administration, the U.S. has increased climate finance for developing countries from $1.5 to $9.5 billion from 2021 to 2023. Biden pledged to work with Congress to scale this number up to over $11 billion by 2024.
Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election makes U.S. negotiations at the conference somewhat futile. The president-elect is expected to roll back many Biden-era environmental policies and regulations. Trump has promised to withdraw from the Paris Agreement as he did in his first term, reversing Biden’s act of rejoining it in 2021.
Despite the uncertain future for U.S. climate policies, Podesta reiterated the country’s ongoing commitment to fighting climate change at the conference.
“Science is still science,” Podesta said. “The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle and one country.”
Azerbaijan in the limelight
The location of the climate conference has also garnered outrage from many activists due to Azerbaijan’s position as a major oil producer and the country’s recent conflicts with Armenia.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev acknowledged the irony of a climate change conference hosted in the city where the first industrial oil well was drilled. Aliyev called oil and gas a “gift of the God,” while also emphasizing the country’s commitment to a “green transition.”
Climate activists have accused Azerbaijan of “greenwashing,” attempting to appear more environmentally friendly than the country actually is.
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg gathered with fellow activists in Tbilisi, Georgia on Tuesday to protest Azerbaijan’s hosting of the conference, where she accused the country of being a “repressive, occupying state” in a video from the Associated Press, referring to its displacement of ethnic Armenians in September 2023.
Despite the underlying controversies, the conference opened as usual and will continue through Nov. 22 as countries evaluate the progress of old agreements and negotiate new solutions.
IMF: Carbon Emissions Exceed Global Warming Goals
WASHINGTON – Only nine years after the signing of the Paris Agreement — a landmark treaty promoting international cooperation to combat climate change — global carbon emissions are out of line with Paris’ global warming targets, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported in a Staff Climate Notes report this month.
The IMF report calculated that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 25% to meet a 2 degrees target or 50% to reach 1.5 degrees. Currently, national targets would result in only a 12% drop in emissions.
They prescribed urgent action to avoid an “emissions cliff edge,” which would make limiting global warming to only 1.5 degrees Celsius, and even 2 degrees Celsius, unattainable by 2030.
“We’re in the greatest transition since the last industrial revolution,” said Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, at an IMF climate panel in Washington, D.C., Wednesday.
At the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in 2015, the Paris Agreement set a target of ideally 1.5 degrees Celsius and “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, beginning in November 2016.
Environmental economist and Stanford professor Charles Kolstad, who was not present at the IMF panel on Wednesday, said it was not surprising that current national contributions were not aligned with the target warming rates. He added that, while the 2 degrees target is helpful in measuring progress, it was a political agreement, rather than a scientific goal.
“It’s a helpful goal to have,” he said. “Just because they didn’t meet the goal doesn’t mean it didn’t serve its purposes.”
“If we don’t achieve 50% by 2030, we’re going to see what we call a ‘climate cliff,’” IMF Deputy Managing Director Bo Li said at the IMF panel. “After 2030, we’d have to do dramatic reduction in the next 30 years after 2030, and that might be unbearable for the global economy.”
The panel focused on “mitigation,” or strategies to lessen the destructive impact of climate change. Stanford professor Rob Jackson, who was not present at the panel, said mitigation is essential to “stave off the worst damages of climate change.”
One of the mitigation strategies presented by the report was setting a carbon price of $85 per tonne, which would align emissions with the 2 degrees Celsius target. In order to reach the 1.5 degrees Celsius target, the price would have to be much higher.
Carbon pricing is a strategy that attaches a financial cost to carbon emissions, passing on part of the burden of emissions to polluters and consumers. Currently, the IMF reports the global carbon price to be only $5 per tonne.
Some U.S. states have adopted emission permit programs to indirectly raise carbon prices. Climate policies, such as subsidies, can also impact carbon pricing, Kolstad said. Still, there is no comprehensive federal or international carbon pricing program.
“Carbon pollution is essentially free in the U.S.,” Jackson said.
During the panel, Li suggested that large economies should take the lead on negotiating an international carbon pricing floor, adding that carbon pricing is critical to climate mitigation policy.
He also noted that climate action demands international cooperation, referencing last year’s Sunnylands Statement, in which the U.S. and China reaffirmed their commitment to working jointly against the climate crisis.
“Climate change is such an existential threat to humanity that we believe, and we hope, that countries can put aside their differences and collaborate,” Li said. “We can collaborate on many fronts, including carbon pricing, including climate finance.”
The IMF report also provides emissions targets aligned with the Paris goals for 2030, averaging the reductions between countries based on their per-capita income. This design would provide for a more equitable distribution of climate responsibility, placing more of the burden on richer countries.
During the panel, Li highlighted how countries with lower levels of pollution are often most affected by climate change, such as island countries in the Pacific and Caribbean. He added that, even within countries, certain groups will be more disadvantaged by the transition to reduce emissions and urged domestic policymakers to support the affected groups.
Next month, almost 200 countries are expected to attend COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Nicknamed the “finance COP,” the conference will center on funding climate solutions.
COP29 hopes to renew ambition surrounding climate action and increase financial support for developing countries hoping to transition to cleaner energy, Mukhtar Babayev, COP29 President-Designate said at the IMF panel.
At COP29, countries may also present updated national contributions, or emissions strategies. Per the Paris Agreement, these are due by early 2025.
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Florida’s immigrant communities sidelined in hurricane preparations and recovery efforts
WASHINGTON – In a span of two weeks, Florida endured two hurricanes, forcing immigrant communities to overcome storm preparations and recovery hurdles amid language barriers, infrastructure challenges and a glaring distrust of law enforcement.
Central Florida is home to a large population of foreign-born farmworkers whose livelihoods were recently devastated by being in the direct path of Hurricane Milton: the second of the two storms to impact the state.
Even though state officials issued potentially life-saving evacuation orders, many of these immigrants lacked necessary resources to access and understand the information provided to them.
According to a report by American Immigration Council, a Washington-based advocacy group, 21.6% of Floridians were not born in the U.S. and nearly 10% of those who were have at least one immigrant parent.
Ahmed Gaya, director of the Climate Justice Collaborative at the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) said there are an abundance of factors causing immigrants to be more susceptible to natural disasters’ impacts. First of all, many life in flood-prone areas that have poor drainage mechanisms. To make matters worse, these regions typically lack political capital and investments to climate resiliency efforts.
Based on his work with recent immigrants Gaya said the greatest challenge of all is the language barrier.
According to publicly-available U.S. Census data, residents of Florida utilize over 130 languages and nearly 30% of households do not speak English as their primary language at home.
That statistic, combined with limited access to internet and TV, can make already dangerous conditions worse for immigrant communities.
“When it comes to preparation, very little of the information about disaster preparation is in a language accessible to limited English proficiency speakers. We find that a lack of language access, even in things like emergency warnings and evacuation orders, is a major concern for a lot of our residents,” Gaya said.
Limitations under state and federal laws can make accessing relief even more complex for those who weren’t born within the country’s borders.
Many people are excluded from relief efforts due to their immigration status, while others simply evade law enforcement because they’re unsure of which resources are legally available to them.
According to Gaya, this fear and uncertainty is even more common when it comes to mixed-status families as they are more broadly skeptical of law enforcement and government intervention measures.
In terms of ongoing recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, mutual-aid efforts are key for immigrant communities.
“A lot of folks living in mobile homes or in industry-provided housing have lost their homes and don’t have recourse to any kind of state or federal recovery efforts that other residents in Florida have recourse to,” Gaya said.
Alongside concerns about relief from storm damage, recent allegations of improper FEMA fund distribution have put both government employees and immigrant communities at risk of threats.
Republican lawmakers, along with former President Donald Trump, have raised concerns about FEMA disaster funds being diverted to border-related issues — a claim denied by both FEMA and the Biden administration.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas first acknowledged a FEMA funding shortfall on Oct. 2, prompting Republican lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee to immediately take action. In a letter to Mayorkas, the group questioned whether the $61.2 billion allocated for disaster relief in 2023-2024 had gone to the right cause.
Now, they plan to investigate whether or not that funding was used for migrant services instead.
“The Committee is concerned the agency’s mission has been radically expanded under the Biden-Harris administration’s reckless open-borders agenda,” Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., said in a statement.
FEMA updated its Hurricane Rumor Response page, stating that no disaster funds have been wrongfully diverted.
David Becker, an election law expert and Executive Director of The Center for Election Innovation and Research, said that voters should anticipate disinformation as “the new normal.”
“It’s incredibly depressing that there are domestic actors, political leaders and candidates who are actively spreading disinformation that is fueling anger and delusion among many Americans, and we should expect that this will be exacerbated by the outcomes in certain states,” Becker said.
High court appears supportive of EPA despite climate advocates’ concerns over its anti-environmentalist track record
Washington — The U.S. Supreme Court appeared receptive to upholding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s right to place generic limits on ocean sewage discharge as San Francisco took its contentious battle to the high court Wednesday, despite resistance from some lawmakers and environmental advocates fearing the high court would undermine protections of the Clean Water Act.
The question presented by the city focused on whether the Clean Water Act allows the EPA to impose rules that subject permit holders to enforcement for exceeding water quality standards “without identifying specific limits to which their discharges must conform.”
Environmentalists feared the Supreme Court would go beyond the question and use the case to undermine the EPA’s authority as a whole after several high court rulings chipped away at environmental protections.
In June, the Supreme Court’s ideologically divided 6-3 ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo struck down the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine which provided deference to federal agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous federal law and regulations. The nation saw several other rulings undermining environmental protections in recent years, including the high court’s use of its emergency—or “shadow”—docket to halt the EPA’s curbing of smog-forming air pollution that crosses state lines in Ohio v. EPA. In 2023, the Supreme Court stripped federal protections for over half the nation’s wetlands in the Sackett v. EPA case.
Oral argument breakdown
According to San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, the case started about a decade ago when the EPA included generic prohibitions against violating water quality standards in discharge permits.
“They essentially say we can’t contribute to excess pollution without defining what is excess or which pollutants need to be controlled,” Chiu, among the petitioners, said in an interview.
But the justices appeared to agree that the Clean Water Act does not prohibit the agency from using generic language.
“There’s got to be something in this statute that tells you that the agency can’t decide to go the less prescriptive, more flexible ‘you decide how to meet it; this is the goal’ route,” Justice Elena Kagan said when questioning Tara Steeley, San Francisco’s deputy city attorney. “And I don’t see anything in this statute that does that.”
Still, Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared skeptical about the use of generic language, shifting the question from what is legal to what is practical.
“It’s just hard to know in advance, when multiple other people are also discharging into the same waters, when you’re going to have crossed the line, right?” Kavanaugh asked Frederick Liu, Assistant to the Solicitor General for the Department of Justice representing EPA.
Liu repeatedly responded by arguing that the EPA is willing to make it more practically implementable by giving specific prohibitions—but is unable to do so after San Francisco failed to give the agency information on the state of its sewage system despite EPA’s requests.
“Where do the flows go? What’s the conditions of the pipes and the pumping stations? How does the system respond to wet weather events?” Liu said. “That’s the information that we’ve been lacking for the past ten years and that we asked San Francisco to provide as part of the long-term control update [fruitlessly].”
Justice Samuel Alito moved to introduce a possible solution which was reiterated by Justice Sonia Sotomayor later in the argument.
Alito asked Liu if he wanted the high court to hold that these permit requirements are allowed when the “EPA or the State has made every reasonable effort to get the necessary information from the regulated party and the regulated party has refused to provide the information.”
“In that limited situation, you can resort to this sort of permit condition?” Alito questioned.
“We think … yes,” Liu responded.
Environmentalist Focus
The seeming lack of ideological division of justices in the case comes as a surprise after lawmakers and advocates repeatedly voiced opposition to the high court’s involvement, fearing the Supreme Court would undermine the Clean Water Act as a whole by siding with San Francisco, endorsed by organizations like the National Mining Association, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, a legislative body independent from the mayor and city attorney, introduced a resolution last Tuesday, urging the city to drop the lawsuit that “has the potential to seriously destabilize Clean Water Act protections at a time when environmental protections are already under serious threat,” The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Mike Farrah, legislative aide to Supervisor Myrna Melgar who introduced the resolution, said they approached Chiu asking to avoid litigation at the Supreme Court, concerned “they would strip away the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to set rules and regulations.”
According to Chiu, San Francisco attempted to solve the issue without the high court involvement on several occasions ”to no avail.” He cited multiple mediation meetings with the agency but said he could not provide records since “mediation discussions are confidential.”
Still, the activists wish the case was dropped before coming to the high court.
“Regardless of how narrow [San Francisco’s] dispute may be with the EPA, the Supreme Court can take that and interpret it as it will,” said Scott Webb, vice chair of the Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapter. “It’s like bringing in the mafia to deal with a small, schoolyard dispute.”
What comes next
With oral arguments now concluded and an opinion expected months away, uncertainty clouds the future of the Clean Water Act.
If the high court rules in favor of San Francisco, the consequences will be nationwide, experts say.
“This challenge would affect the legal authority of the EPA—and possibly of state agencies that also issue permits—to include these types of limits in any permit anywhere in the country,” said Becky Hammer, a senior attorney with the Nature Resources Defense Council. “Not just San Francisco, not just sewer systems, but any type of water pollution discharge anywhere in the United States.”
“That would be very harmful to the goals of the Clean Water Act … designed to provide everybody in this country with safe, healthy waterways,” she added.
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Medill Today | Thursday, January 29, 2026