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A coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Trump administration over its decision this week to remove Endangered Species Act protections from species threatened by oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. On Tuesday, a group of administration officials called the Endangered Species Committee met for only the fourth time in its history. Also known as “the God Squad, it’s made up of six high ranking federal officials, led by the interior secretary. The group voted unanimously to exempt oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from environmental safeguards that have been put in place to protect the endangered wildlife in its waters. The decision came after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on March 13 that it “was a matter of national security” and a reaction to pending litigation “that threatened to halt oil and gas production” in the Gulf.
Republicans at the state and federal levels are working to shield fossil fuel companies from laws and legal claims that aim to make them pay for some of the damage caused by climate change. Lawmakers and oil industry advocates are running a two-track campaign, in statehouses and in Congress, to pass laws to protect companies from paying some of the costs of intensified wildfires, storms, floods and other effects of global warming. The goal is broad immunity, similar to what Congress granted to gun manufacturers two decades ago. The effort comes as major fossil fuel companies including Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips face a wave of lawsuits from cities, states and individuals who say the companies knew their products would dangerously warm the planet.
Dealerships say they’re getting busier as the Iran war and the shipping crisis at the Strait of Hormuz drag on. Buying inquiries are way up at iDrive1 Motors in Carrollton, Texas, where owner Dink Davis has specialized in used electric vehicles for a decade. Gas prices aren’t nearly as high in the Lone Star State as they are in other parts of the US, after the Iran war and the ensuing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz spiked global oil costs in late February. Compare the average $3.68 per gallon in Texas to California’s $5.89. But AAA says prices are up nationally more than a third since the start of the conflict. Davis and his three employees—in the business of selling cars that run on batteries, not gas—are very, very busy. “The last three weeks, it’s gotten stupid,” Davis says. “We can barely keep up with the stuff that’s coming in.” On Tuesday, he says, a customer traded in a diesel-eating Jeep, which costs more than $100 to fill up, for a used EV.
If the utility had to pay a fraction of rising fuel prices, it might rethink its gas buildout and save North Carolinians tens of millions of dollars, a study finds. If the war in the Middle East has proved anything over the last month, it’s that fossil fuel prices are extraordinarily unstable. But global conflict isn’t the only catalyst that can send the cost of oil and natural gas reeling. Factors such as extreme weather, policy changes, and pipeline outages can also set off a price roller coaster. In North Carolina, all this volatility is prompting calls for change. Advocates want the state to join the handful of others that require electric utilities to absorb a fraction of fossil fuel prices — rather than saddling customers with all of them, as the companies do now.
As the climate crisis intensifies the storms lashing south Florida, it is imperative to design spaces that soak up the water. The 19.4-acre Bayshore Park is an example of how to design spaces that protect from and connect residents to nature. Masterminded by the Savino & Miller Design Studio, a local landscape architecture firm, the 19.4-acre green space replaces a golf course.The designers and community groups sought a variety of experiences in the park, from immersion in nature and a playground for children to tennis courts. ‘We thought, How can we save this land for community benefit and ecological benefit as well?’ said Barry Miller, a landscape architect and principal at the firm.
Hyperscale data centers have policy experts, residents and environmentalists concerned about water usage and extreme energy consumption in the Great Lakes region. Sure, the sheer size of the hyperscale centers draws attention. An individual hyperscale data center often requires over 100 times more power to operate than a traditional data center, churning through as much as a million gallons of water per day. Still, a single data center, even a hyperscale behemoth, isn’t the issue that most concerns water experts focused on the long-term health of the Great Lakes region, home to the largest surface freshwater system on the planet and 90% of the U.S. supply of fresh water.
Aurora, May Mobility, Motional, Nuro, Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox all refused to cough up a number during Senator Ed Markey's recent investigation.
That’s good news, since the forecast is sunshine for the next 5 billion years. There’s a whole menu of different energy sources to choose from in generating electric power—coal, gas, wind, and so on—and some are worse for the planet than others. But regardless of where we gather it, the energy itself almost always comes from the sun. Don’t believe me? Let’s think about it: When you burn coal, it reacts with oxygen and releases energy. But where did that energy come from? Prehistoric vegetation. Ancient ferns and weird swamp trees captured energy from sunlight using photosynthesis. Over eons, all that greenstuff got buried, where heat and pressure turned it into coal. That’s right, coal-based power is solar power. You could even call it a renewable resource, if you don’t mind waiting 100 million years.
The image of farmers clad in flannel shirts while livestock pull plows through the fields may still be foremost on the minds of individuals asked to imagine farm life. But such images may no longer reflect an industry increasingly governed by advanced technology. Even small-scale family farms have recognized the advantages of embracing technology to help make their operations more efficient and successful. Manual plows and tractors largely have been replaced by fleets of autonomous machines and precision farming technology. Experts agree that the evolution of modern farming is a case study in the application of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. STEM is helping to address the problem of global food security and widespread climate change. U.S. News & World Report says 27 percent of new high-skills jobs in agriculture will require a STEM education. There are many ways STEM is utilized within the agricultural sector.
After years of false starts and amid an acute regional energy crunch, large-scale onshore wind power could finally take off in Maine in 2026. Utility regulators in five New England states are considering developers’ proposals to build up to 1.2 gigawatts of onshore wind capacity in Maine’s far north, following a deadline for bids earlier this month. The coordination between Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont — all of which have ambitious clean energy goals — means this procurement is more likely to succeed than those that have fizzled out in years past, said Francis Pullaro, president of clean-energy industry association RENEW Northeast. “The states have come together, and that’s a pretty impressive accomplishment on their part,” he said. “We’re in a much better position now that we have the states going into the process having conferred.”
One of the purported advantages of self-driving car tech is that every car can learn from one vehicle’s mistakes. Here’s how Waymo puts it on its website: “The Waymo Driver learns from the collective experiences gathered across our fleet, including previous hardware generations.” But in Austin, Waymo’s vehicles struggled for months to learn how to stop for school buses as drivers picked up and dropped off children. An official with the Austin Independent School District (AISD) alleged that the vehicles had, in at least 19 instances, “illegally and dangerously” passed the district’s school buses while their red lights were flashing and their stop arms were extended rather than coming to complete stops, as the law requires. In early December, Waymo even issued a federal recall related to the incidents, acknowledging at least 12 of them to federal regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which oversees road safety. According to federal filings, engineers with the self-driving vehicle company had “developed software changes to address the behavior” weeks before.
Sixty-six members, covering approximately 70% of global trade, have adopted a pathway to bring into force the WTO Agreement on Electronic Commerce through interim arrangements while continuing to work towards its incorporation into the WTO legal framework of rules, co-convenors announced on 28 March at the 14th Ministerial Conference taking place in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The joint press release is below.
This Manatee Appreciation Day, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is sharing the springtime reminder that Florida’s manatees are starting to naturally disperse from their winter refuges. Boaters and other watercraft users are advised to go slow and look out below for the slow-moving mammals when on the water. During this time of year, manatees are more likely to be present in rivers, canals and nearshore waters. Manatees overwinter in Florida springs, power plant discharges and other warm-water sites, and will gradually disperse from these winter habitats as water temperatures rise each spring. With this seasonal increase in movement, people are more likely to cross paths with manatees when on the water. To help protect manatees and prevent collisions, go slow when on the water and follow all manatee protection zones regulations, while keeping an eye out for them underneath the surface. Spotting manatees in the water can be challenging, to make it easier to see them, wear polarized glasses and watch for visible snouts or manatee “footprints” – large circles on the water that are indicators that manatees are below the surface. If you encounter manatees, admire from a distance and always give them plenty of space.
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What El Niño Will Do to Earth Next… And Why You’re Not Ready 🌎🌊
The U.S. is the world's largest producer of both oil and natural gas, but only one of those commodities is hitting American consumers. The reason comes down to infrastructure. West Texas Intermediate is at $111 a barrel as of Friday afternoon and average U.S. gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon all week. Ongoing war in the Middle East has prevented crude oil from passing through the Strait of Hormuz. But in the U.S. we are catching a break on one price: natural gas, a critical commodity that has been hit hard by the conflict. Prices here are relatively flat despite spiking roughly 70% in Europe and Asia. Why is the U.S. protected from the natural gas supply shock, but not the oil supply shock? The war in the Middle East has disrupted roughly 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas and crude oil, two vital commodities. Both are abundantly produced here in the U.S., said Ken Medlock, an energy economist at Rice University. “The U.S. is actually the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas on the planet,” he said. But crude oil and natural gas have a really important differentiator.
Regulators said ending the state’s renewable portfolio standard would save customers money, but the official economic analysis undermines that assertion. Sunny Arizona closed out 2025 as the second-biggest state for battery and solar construction. Now, a policy that helped kick-start this success could be going away. The Arizona Corporation Commission, the elected body that regulates utilities, unanimously voted in early March to eliminate the state’s renewable portfolio standard. The policy, which the commission set in 2006, called for 15% renewable electricity by 2025. The state hit that target; thus, in the words of Commissioner Kevin Thompson, it was time to move beyond “mandates that have outlived their useful life.” The commissioners — all of whom are Republicans — critiqued the mandate for costs it imposed: It pushed utilities to sign long-term contracts for renewable energy years ago, when it was more expensive than it is now, and added surcharges on customers’ bills to pay for those contracts and for incentives for households to adopt clean energy.
More than 70% of adults in the United States are very or somewhat concerned about their own or their loved ones’ exposure to harmful chemicals in food and drinking water, and a majority is also concerned about chemicals in food packaging, children’s and baby products, farmland, and other sources. (See Figure 1.) Further, about 5 in 6 want government and business to do more to ensure chemical safety and increase transparency around the use of chemicals. These are the top takeaways from a national survey conducted by The Pew Charitable Trusts and global market research and public opinion firm Ipsos.
Explore climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy support at every geographic level in the United States.
American farmers have become among the most productive in the world at growing grains. In doing so, to keep afloat, they have been depleting our rich soils, polluting water from Des Moines to the sprawling dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, driving prices down, increasing farmer debt, and drawing heavily on taxpayer welfare. Something is wrong with this picture. A small-town boy from central Illinois, I think the world of my farmer friends. They are the salt of the earth, hard-working and proud of their capacity to produce bounteous crops. But they are in a box and don’t know how to get out. Big Ag equipment manufacturers, pesticide and herbicide chemical companies, seed enterprises and now drone operators drive productivity. These same global companies are of course also driving increased productivity in Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine. Rain forest trees are felled every day down under in large swaths to expand crop acreage, just as American farmers felled trees two centuries ago – and continue to fell trees along streams. The only revenue tactic available to the farmer is to produce more, which simply drives down prices and ratchets up taxpayer subsidies.
WASHINGTON, March 30, 2026 – Tech trade group INCOMPAS is backing a Maryland ISP’s bid to preempt state permitting rules. FCC preemption extends to networks providing both broadband and telecom services, the trade group argued. The outcome will “affect every INCOMPAS member deploying modern multi-use networks,” wrote the group, which represents broadband providers like WOW and Gonetspeed as well as tech giants like Meta and Amazon.
The vast data centers that power artificial intelligence are so energy hungry that they’re heating up their surroundings, according to new research. It’s an alarming finding given the number of data centers is predicted to explode over the next few years.
Project InnerSpace and the XPrize foundation will launch a contest to remove technical bottlenecks and revitalize supply chains for geothermal’s aboveground parts. Geothermal energy is rapidly advancing in the U.S. and globally, thanks to the arrival of next-generation technologies and skyrocketing power demand from data centers. Yet as more companies drill down deep to harness Earth’s heat, the industry is poised to hit a major snag on the surface. Geothermal power plants rely on “turbomachinery” — turbines, heat exchangers, and other components — to generate and deliver electricity. But the limited supply chain and high cost of that equipment threaten to delay the industry’s efforts to supply huge amounts of clean electricity around the clock, according to Project InnerSpace, a geothermal research and advocacy organization.
Most Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) rely on customers’ solar and batteries. Xcel says its utility-owned alternative can do a better job in Minnesota — but critics question the cost. Back in the summer of 2024, Minnesota utility Xcel Energy proposed a novel approach to building virtual power plants, the networks of rooftop solar systems, home batteries, and other energy equipment that can operate in tandem to reduce strain on the electric grid. Instead of working with other companies to cobble together solar arrays and batteries at homes and businesses — the traditional model for VPPs — Xcel wanted to install, own, and control those devices itself, using its grid expertise to deliver a better bargain for its customers at large. Now, a year and a half later, the plan is in — and clean energy advocates, solar industry groups, and state agencies say it doesn’t live up to Xcel’s promises.
We have been discussed for a long time electrification of heavy transport how a technological extravaganza was born, a kind of futuristic whimsy reserved for holidays, corporate presentations and promotional videos. But no: the truly extravagant thing at these high altitudes is to continue to defend that a country like Spain continues to depend on diesel trucks to transport the vast majority of its goods over relatively short distances, based on extinguishing imported fuel, emitting pollutants and accepting cost fluctuations beyond our control. Rational, efficient and strategically intelligent This is exactly the opposite: electrify internal road transport and reinforce it with a railcar where it can be heard. The interesting thing is that this conversation is not supported by abstract promises, but above real experience of use.
Most residents may not be familiar with the Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority, yet it plays a crucial role in our community. This authority is responsible for producing our long-term regional water supply plan, funding water conservation efforts, and owning Citrus County’s largest water production facility. Since 2016, I have had the privilege of serving on this board, and while most meetings focus on routine discussions of data, trends, permits, plans and conservation, Wednesday’s meeting was notably different. Upon reviewing the agenda before the meeting, I came across a troubling item that had not previously been brought to my attention. The Class I landfill in Sumter County, known as Heart of Florida, is in the process of constructing a well with the intent to permit the injection of, presumably treated, landfill leachate deep underground. Leachate is the contaminated liquid that accumulates at the bottom of landfill cells, produced by rainwater and landfill contents.
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