Environmental Politics

"Fossil fuel firms are biggest beneficiaries of investor-state dispute settlement courts which have awarded $114bn of public money".

"New litigation from state AG offices raises the stakes in court battles focused on fighting greenwashing and misleading claims about recycling."

"Top EPA officials supported a rebuke of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s environmental review of a gas-fueled power plant this spring, but they backed off when the electric utility ignored their criticism."

"Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had pledged to crack down on bottled water companies taking water at the same time Flint, Michigan, faced a water crisis. Six years later and in her second term, little has changed."

"Signal Hill Petroleum spent millions to overturn California’s landmark law protecting neighborhoods from oil drilling. Now it wants to drill dozens of new wells in a city established a century ago to avoid taxes on oil development."

"Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) will appear in ads touting the Biden administration’s green investments in ads running in their state. The $1.4 million total buy from climate group Evergreen includes an ad with each governor, highlighting the impact of the Biden administration’s investments in their state."

"What would have been America’s first congestion pricing experiment has been delayed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, leaving public transit in a financial hole."

"The drinking water regulator for England and Wales has brought only three prosecutions against water companies for providing poor quality water since 2021, despite 362 instances in which water was flagged as being unfit for human consumption."

"U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said Wednesday that countries must confront not just the fossil-fuel industry, but also companies that support efforts to obstruct climate action. The U.N. chief, a longtime critic of oil and gas companies' role in driving climate change, called the industry out for spending billions on "distorting the truth, deceiving the public, and sowing doubt" about climate change, while investing just "a measly 2.5%" of its total capital on clean energy alternatives."

"Mexico's President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, an accomplished climate scientist, could struggle to fulfill her environmental pledges after she sailed to victory, in part, on the popularity of a predecessor who doubled down on fossil fuels."