Climate Change

"The Trump administration on Thursday told states it was blocking money for electric vehicle chargers, including $71 million for Washington, one of the latest steps by the White House to halt Biden-era funding. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, known as NEVI, was set to dole out a total of $5 billion to states to build charging networks along highways. The Federal Highway Administration previously approved states’ plans for using the money."

"About 780 coal units, individual generators with a boiler and a turbine capable of producing electricity, have retired since 2000. And more than half of the remaining units are also slated for retirement, according to new data from the Global Energy Monitor, an organization that collects international energy data."

"The EPA on Thursday put 168 employees within its environmental justice office on administrative leave as the Trump administration executes presidential actions to roll back diversity initiatives."

"A new and starkly different vision for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been outlined by the Trump administration – one that involves mass staff cuts, an influx of industry lobbyists and, unusually, the promotion of artificial intelligence as a key agency priority."

"As New Orleans readies to host Super Bowl LIX this Sunday, a volunteer ambassador program has been working to help welcome the hundreds of thousands of football fans streaming into the Big Easy. Who is sponsoring that program? Chevron, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers and a top climate polluter."

"The DOE Loan Programs Office gave out $107 billion to 53 projects, from EV factories to a nuclear-plant restart. But the fate of the loans is unclear under Trump."

"A new artificial intelligence model from China not only upended stock markets this week, it also called into question whether the rush to build new, mostly fossil-fueled power plants to run data centers is premature."

"National monuments, migratory birds, endangered and threatened species: Some of the nation’s most vulnerable natural resources are in jeopardy after Doug Burgum issued—on his first full day as secretary of the Department of the Interior—a seven-page directive weakening their protections to further fossil fuel development."

"New research by an international team of climate scientists documents a surge of global warming during the past 15 years that risks shutting down a key ocean current by 2050."

"Staffers with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) reportedly entered the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in Silver Spring, Maryland, and the Department of Commerce in Washington DC today, inciting concerns of downsizing at the agency."