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Politics and Policy

Fossil Fuel Industry Wants To Keep New Buildings Dependent On Gas

February 27, 2025 Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. , , , ,
A new report from InfluenceMap reveals the fossil fuel industry has been waging an international lobbying war to prevent cities and towns from requiring newly built homes and businesses to install climate-friendly heating and other appliances. So far, 26 U.S. states have passed laws designed to prevent towns, cities, and other local governments from crafting new “natural gas bans” or enforcing those laws, according to the report. The analysis shows how utilities and their trade associations have pushed to take away local government’s power to phase out fossil fuel appliances or to limit new buildings’ connections to natural gas pipelines.

US Energy Secretary Backs Coal And Attacks ‘Sinister’ Climate Targets

February 18, 2025 Adam Barnett, DeSmog. , , , , ,
Donald Trump’s new energy secretary has today vowed to “get out of the way” of coal, oil and gas, and called the UK’s 2050 net zero target “a sinister goal” that would “impoverish” people. Chris Wright, an oil and gas industry executive appointed by U.S. President Trump, was speaking via video link at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London, a right-wing forum run by fierce opponents of climate policies. He also downplayed the threat from extreme weather, and suggested that climate action is part of a plot to “grow government power” and “shrink human freedom”.

Finger-Pointing Over Funding Freeze May Lead Trump To Drop DOGE Lawyer

February 4, 2025 Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. , , , , , ,
The recent federal funding freeze spurred immediate finger-pointing inside the Trump administration, with anonymous sources telling major news outlets that attorney Mark Paoletta was responsible for drafting the infamous memo that briefly paused trillions in federal funds. Paoletta, newly returned as the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) general counsel, is connected to a wide range of powerful figures on the right, including multiple conservative Supreme Court justices, the organizers of Project 2025, and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Alberta’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Enforcement Strategy Doesn’t Apply To Polluters

January 26, 2025 Mitch Anderson, DeSmog. , , , , ,
“Alberta is taking a zero-tolerance approach to crime,” bragged Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in 2023 on social media after her government announced more enforcement, greater emphasis on public safety, and limited discretion of prosecutors to let offenders off the hook. “ “There is an increasing sense that the system is not holding criminals properly accountable and letting the public suffer the consequences,” chimed in Alberta Minister of Justice Mickey Amery during the announcement. “This is simply unacceptable.” If only the governing United Conservative Party applied those laudable principles to oil sands companies that repeatedly flout legal requirements not to pollute waterways, air and land.

Mapped: Donald Trump’s Transatlantic Anti-Green Network

January 22, 2025 Adam Barnett, DeSmog. , , , , ,
As Donald Trump takes his oath of office to become the 47th president of the United States, his second term comes at an ever-more critical time for climate change. Climate scientists have warned that 2024 was the hottest year on record, and without dramatic action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, global pledges to limit warming to 1.5C and curb the worst effects of climate change are doomed. At the start of 2025, Trump’s “government efficiency” chief Elon Musk (who donated $250 million to Trump’s campaign), pushed grooming gangs to the top of the UK political agenda – with the help of Conservative and Reform UK politicians, and their allies in the media.

The Case For A ‘Bold Idea’ To End The Era Of Coal, Oil And Gas

November 22, 2024 Matthew Green, DeSmog. , , , , , ,
Could the world negotiate a wind-down of the fossil fuel industry — just as Cold War adversaries once agreed to limit their stockpiles of nuclear weapons? In an interview for the Climate Consciousness Summit 2024, Tzeporah Berman, founder and chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative said a growing wave of support for the proposal — which has been endorsed by more than 3,000 scientists, 121 cities and sub-national governments, and 14 nations — could ultimately make new fossil fuel projects unacceptable, even in the United States, the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas.

Governments Must Tackle Climate Disinformation, Experts Urge

November 16, 2024 Joey Grostern, DeSmog. , , ,
Governments around the world must take “immediate and decisive action” to tackle climate disinformation, scientists and campaign groups have urged as talks at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan enter their fourth day. A coalition of 55 climate information integrity groups and 42 leading climate scientists and experts have signed an open letter urging countries to counter the risk of false and misleading claims that are wrecking efforts to slow climate change. It comes two days after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke at COP29 arguing that “there is no national security without climate security” – and a week after the election in the United States of Donald Trump, who has previously called climate change a “hoax”.

Utility Industry Dollars Pour Into Public Service Commission Elections

November 2, 2024 Sara Sneath, DeSmog. , , , , ,
On Tuesday, Louisiana voters in 13 parishes will decide who will fill a vacant seat on Louisiana’s Public Service Commission, a little known but powerful five-member body that regulates electric companies, oversees telecommunications services, and sets utility rates. The person elected to District Two of the Public Service Commission will fill the seat left by Dr. Craig Greene, a moderate Republican who was seen as the commission’s sole swing voter. He is not seeking re-election. Earlier this year, Greene voted alongside the two Democrats on the commission to approve energy efficiency programs aimed at reducing electricity costs for residents.

Toronto And Montreal Move Ahead With Fossil Fuel Ad Restrictions

October 18, 2024 Taylor Noakes, DeSmog. , , , , , , , ,
The city of Toronto has passed a motion aiming to restrict fossil fuel advertising on municipal property, one of several recent efforts to curtail fossil fuel advertising in major Canadian cities. The motion passed on Thursday, October 10, giving Toronto city councillors one year to come up with a draft of the proposed legislation. The effort comes as transit agencies in Canada’s two largest cities have either implemented or are considering similar restrictions on using public transit to advertise for Big Oil or related industries.

Outrage As Senate Panel Advances Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill

August 2, 2024 Brett Wilkins and Jessica Corbett, DeSmog. , , ,
A bipartisan energy permitting reform bill introduced last week in the U.S. Senate — and described by one campaigner as “the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry” — advanced Wednesday in a key vote that came over the objections of hundreds of green groups. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 in a 15-4 vote. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) voted against advancing the bill. The bill’s co-sponsors, Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), claim the proposal will “strengthen American energy security by accelerating the permitting process for critical energy and mineral projects of all types in the United States.”

Big Oil Rallies To Obstruct Accountability

July 20, 2024 Emily Sanders, DeSmog. , , , , , , , , , , ,
In the face of mounting scrutiny from local, state, and federal officials, fossil fuel companies and their allies are deploying a range of tactics to obstruct ongoing lawsuits and investigations concerning evidence that the industry has misled the public about the harms it knew its products would cause to the climate, environment, and human health. Far-right industry allies with ties to Chevron have mounted an “unprecedented” pressure campaign calling on the Supreme Court to stop a potentially historic climate deception lawsuit against oil majors from going to trial. Republican attorneys general are separately urging the Supreme Court to throw out similar climate fraud lawsuits from five states.

California Regulators Refuse To Enforce New Orphan Well Rules

July 18, 2024 Joe Fassler, DeSmog. , , , ,
As two of California’s largest oil and gas companies join by corporate merger, state regulators are declining to apply tough new rules governing the transfer of defunct oil and gas wells, DeSmog has learned. But a growing chorus of California legislators say that nonenforcement stance violates a groundbreaking law they fought to pass just months ago — and they, along with dozens of environmental groups, are demanding that regulators change course. “They’re just ignoring the statute,” Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an interview. “We need the governor to step in and tell the agency to follow the law,” she added

Oil And Gas Leases On Federal Lands In Question

July 13, 2024 Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. , , , , ,
A dozen Democratic lawmakers on the House Natural Resources Committee want to know if shale drillers could see their oil and gas leases and operations on federal lands suspended amid allegations that the companies may have colluded to drive oil prices up. “Such market manipulation would have enormous impacts on the price of gas paid by working families across the country,” the lawmakers wrote in a July 9 letter to the Department of the Interior. The lawmakers, who include Democratic representatives like Arizona’s Raul Grijalva and California’s Katie Porter, cited evidence that the Federal Trade Commission uncovered during its roughly six-month review of an ultimately successful merger between ExxonMobil and Permian shale giant Pioneer Natural Resources, and class action litigation alleging at least eight major shale producers engaged in antitrust violations.

Inside Big Oil’s Business: Failure On Climate And Profits From War

June 20, 2024 Stella Levantesi, DeSmog. , , , ,
Oil majors are not on track to hit Paris Agreement climate targets that limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, a new report reveals. Eight fossil fuel giants – Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalEnergies, BP, Eni, Equinor, and ConocoPhillips – are on course to use 30 percent of the world’s remaining carbon budget for that 1.5°C goal, according to the Big Oil Reality Check report by nonprofit Oil Change International (OCI). Combined, the oil and gas companies’ extraction plans are consistent with a temperature rise of over 2.4°C, the report found. That level of warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will reduce food security, risk irreversible loss of ecosystems, and increase heat waves, rainfall, and extreme weather events.

Big Oil Aims To Cash In On Hydrogen Tax Credits With Natural Gas

June 15, 2024 Adam M. Lowenstein, DeSmog. , , , , ,
Less than two years after securing generous subsidies in President Joe Biden’s landmark climate legislation, some of America’s largest oil and gas companies are directing their advocacy toward shaping one of the law’s obscure but potentially lucrative provisions: a tax credit for hydrogen production. The hydrogen tax credit – known among advocates and industry players as “45V” for the section of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that created it – felt at times as if it were the sole focus of the Hydrogen Americas Summit, a two-day industry confab held June 11-12, that wrapped up yesterday in Washington, D.C.
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