Current conditions: An electricity transmission line failure triggered a massive blackout in Chile • Six tropical storms are currently swirling in the Southern Hemisphere • The Santa Ana winds are returning to Southern California this week. THE TOP FIVE 1. Report: EPA urging Trum … | Continue reading
Congress is still debating the fate of the Inflation Reduction Act, but the Trump administration has already torn up energy and climate policies across the federal government. It’s time to step back and try to take stock. How much damage has the Trump administration already done … | Continue reading
Approximately 32,000 people drink the tap water in Moses Lake, Washington, an agricultural town in the Columbia River basin approximately 175 miles to the east of Seattle. If you were to sip that water over the course of a lifetime, you’d consume 7,457 times the recommended limit … | Continue reading
As a candidate for president, Donald Trump said he wanted to stop all offshore wind projects on Day One back in office. One month into his latest administration, renewables developers and climate advocates are privately very worried he’s much closer to pulling it off than they ha … | Continue reading
Like so many other businesses in the aviation sector, United Airlines is largely banking on sustainable aviation fuel to power its transition to net-zero emissions. Now the company’s VC arm, United Airlines Ventures, is taking a bet on direct air capture to help produce this fuel … | Continue reading
Current conditions: The Pacific Northwest will soon get some relief from back-to-back atmospheric rivers • Wildfires burning in Canada appear to have survived two consecutive winters • Intense thunderstorms are forecast for Rome, Italy, where delegates are gathering this week to … | Continue reading
Here’s the state of play: The Trump administration has continued to withhold already-obligated funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure law from state and local governments, nonprofits, companies, and other entities. More than a dozen groups have … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Waves off the coast of Washington could reach 25 feet tall as the atmospheric river peaks in the Pacific Northwest • It’s down to 87 degrees Fahrenheit in Rio de Janeiro, which has been enduring its hottest temperatures in a decade • Valentine, Nebraska, will … | Continue reading
These are strange times to be a reporter. The vice president has openly mocked journalists concerned about apparently arbitrary limits to their reporting abilities. Referring to the Gulf of Mexico as such can get you barred from the White House. Say the wrong thing on air and one … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Schools in South Sudan are closing for two weeks due to a heatwave that has caused students to collapse • Unusually heavy snow in Virginia and North Carolina led to hundreds of car accidents • An atmospheric river will bring heavy rain to the Pacific Northwest … | Continue reading
Wildlife conservationists in Wyoming are asking the Trump administration to block wind projects in their state in the name of protecting eagles from turbine blades. The Albany County Conservancy, a Wyoming wildlife advocacy group, sent letters on February 11 and 18 to Interior Se … | Continue reading
Jackson County, Kansas — We’ve been covering anti-renewable lawsuits in the Trump 2.0 era closely at The Fight. But we now have a champion for the most aggressive lawsuit yet: a case filed against a single solar project intended to somehow kill … the entire Inflation Reduction Ac … | Continue reading
1. New NEPA world – The Trump White House overnight effectively rescinded all implementing rules for the National Environmental Policy Act, a key statute long relied on by regulators for permitting large energy and infrastructure projects. What does this mean for renewables devel … | Continue reading
Today’s chat is with House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the most important committee for land use in the House of Representatives. This week, Huffman and other Democrats spoke out against efforts by the Trump administration to lay off staff … | Continue reading
Current conditions: New Orleans is experiencing another arctic blast, with wind chills near 20 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday • Continued warm, dry conditions in India threaten the country’s wheat crop • Heavy rain in Botswana has caused widespread flooding. THE TOP FIVE 1. Big G … | Continue reading
The Trump administration filed a rule change this past weekend to remove key implementation regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act, a critical environmental law that dates back to 1969. While this new rule, once finalized, wouldn’t eliminate NEPA itself (doing so w … | Continue reading
The Trump administration will try to kill congestion pricing, the first-in-the-nation program that charged cars and trucks up to $9 to enter Manhattan’s traffic-clogged downtown core. In an exclusive story given to the New York Post, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said th … | Continue reading
JD Vance had a message recently for Germans uneasy about the way Elon Musk has been promoting the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party ahead of their country’s upcoming elections: “If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can surviv … | Continue reading
Nearly half of likely U.S. voters say that Elon Musk’s behavior has made them less likely to buy or lease a Tesla, a much higher figure than similar polls have found in the past, according to a new Data for Progress poll provided exclusively to Heatmap. The new poll, which survey … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Severe storms in South Africa spawned a tornado that damaged hundreds of homes • Snow is falling on parts of Kentucky and Tennessee still recovering from recent deadly floods • It is minus 39 degrees Fahrenheit today in Bismarck, North Dakota, which breaks a d … | Continue reading
The most important energy regulators in the United States aren’t all in the federal government. Each state has its own public utility commission, a set of elected or appointed officials who regulate local power companies. This set of 200 individuals wield an enormous amount of po … | Continue reading
It takes less than an hour to drive from Seattle to Franklin Falls, a beginner-friendly hike that is so popular among locals that it often runs out of parking space by mid-morning in the summer. A winter snowshoeing trip is no less rewarding — the rockface glistens with icicles, … | Continue reading
It takes less than an hour to drive from Seattle to Franklin Falls, a beginner-friendly hike that is so popular among locals that it often runs out of parking space by mid-morning in the summer. A winter snowshoeing trip is no less rewarding — the rockface glistens with icicles, … | Continue reading
As Republicans in Congress go hunting for ways to slash spending to carry out President Trump’s agenda, more than 100 energy businesses, trade groups, and advocacy organizations sent a letter to key House and Senate leaders on Tuesday requesting that one particular line item be s … | Continue reading
Current conditions: It’s 111 degrees Fahrenheit in Rio de Janeiro today, the highest recorded temperature in the Brazilian city since 2014 • India’s national winter games have been postponed due to a lack of snow • At least 13 people have died across the Ohio Valley due to severe … | Continue reading
Last August, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump addressed a persistent accusation that had begun to dog his campaign. “We have nothing to do with Project 25,” he insisted to the assembled media, referring to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 920-page blueprint for res … | Continue reading
President Trump wants to unleash American energy dominance, reduce consumer costs, and lead on artificial intelligence. But his 25% steel and aluminum tariffs, which are set to go into effect next month, could work directly against all of those goals. The reason has to do with a … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Severe thunderstorms tomorrow could spawn tornadoes in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama • A massive wildfire on a biodiverse island in the Indian Ocean has been burning for nearly a month, threatening wildlife • Tropical Cyclone Zelia has made lan … | Continue reading
Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap has learned. Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella orga … | Continue reading
Anti-wind activists have joined with well-connected figures in conservative legal and energy circles to privately lobby the Trump administration to undo permitting decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to documents obtained by Heatmap. Repres … | Continue reading
1. Monterey County, California – The Moss Landing battery fire is now the big renewables PR crisis we should all be watching, even with Trump 2.0 going on. Whereas before a battery fire news cycle might last a week, this story’s now in thermal runaway, as The New York Times has t … | Continue reading
When Elon Musk became a major backer of President Trump last year, some in the electric vehicle camp saw a glimmer of hope. Perhaps, with the CEO of the world’s top EV maker in his corner, Trump would soften some of his anti-electric rhetoric and come around on EVs. Musk has been … | Continue reading
1. The anti-renewable locavore – Republican lawmakers are aiming to empower localities to block renewables projects, a similar scene to what’s played out in Ohio, where state legislators gave towns the power to have a final word on development instead of state-led entities. In Wi … | Continue reading
Today’s conversation is with Geoff Cooper, head of the Renewable Fuels Association, the most powerful biofuels trade organization in D.C. And he’s not happy. In Cooper’s view, the Biden administration left the IRA’s tax credit supporting lower-carbon jet fuel unfinished despite r … | Continue reading
The Inflation Reduction Act’s fate will soon be decided by a Republican-controlled Congress, and the market the law built up to fund its signature clean energy markets is on edge, even if there’s still brisk business being done. Before the IRA, to claim a clean energy tax credit … | Continue reading
Current conditions: An approaching rain storm prompted evacuation warnings for parts of Los Angeles recently affected by wildfires • A Category 5 tropical cyclone is heading for Western Australia • School has been suspended in Brazil’s state of Rio Grande do Sul due to an extreme … | Continue reading
One of the biggest stories of the new Trump administration is the president’s attempt to block congressionally mandated spending. So far, most of the discussion over this freeze has focused on whether it violates federal law and the Constitution. But another front is likely to op … | Continue reading
The Fed on Wednesday issued a report showing substantial increases in the price of eggs, used cars, and auto insurance — data that could spell bad news for the renewables economy. Though some of those factors had already been widely reported on, the overall rise in prices exceede … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Los Angeles is bracing for a massive rain storm that could trigger landslides in areas recently charred by severe wildfires • About 90% of districts in India have received little or no rainfall since the start of the year • Schools are closed in Kansas City, M … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Los Angeles is bracing for a massive rain storm that could trigger landslides in areas recently charred by severe wildfires • About 90% of districts in India have received little or no rainfall since the start of the year • Schools are closed in Kansas City, M … | Continue reading
The embattled nature-based carbon removal market got a significant show of support today as Chestnut Carbon announced a whopping $160 million Series B funding round, led by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The startup focuses on planting trees and vegetation as well as o … | Continue reading
Of all of the executives who have cozied up to President Donald Trump over the past two months, Mark Zuckerberg has appeared perhaps the most eager. In the weeks before Trump took power, the Meta CEO scrambled to ditch his company’s fact-checking program, rolled back hate speech … | Continue reading
The first few weeks of the new Trump administration have seen an onslaught of anti-climate actions: an order punishing the wind industry, an attempted reversal of the Environmental Protection Administration’s climate authority, and a brazen — and possibly unconstitutional — attem … | Continue reading
The U.S. government signaled that it will review previously issued approvals for Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project, the first indication that even wind projects with all their permits already will have to fend off the Trump effect. On his first day in offic … | Continue reading
The U.S. government signaled that it will review previously issued approvals for Dominion Energy's Coastal Virginia offshore wind project, the first indication that even wind projects with all their permits already will have to fend off the Trump effect. On his first day in offic … | Continue reading
Grid planners have entered a new reality. After years of stagnant growth, utilities are forecasting accelerating electricity demand from artificial intelligence and other energy-intense industries and using it to justify building out more natural gas power plants and keep old coa … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Unusually hot and dry weather in Ivory Coast has farmers worried about a looming shortage of cocoa beans • Construction on one of Britain’s busiest roads has been extended by nine months due to extreme weather • The first of three winter storms hitting the U.S … | Continue reading
Every time the White House changes hands from one party to another, some policies toggle back to what they were before, a reset meant to restore the status quo ante. The best-known example may be the Mexico City policy, which forbids U.S. foreign aid funds from going to any organ … | Continue reading