The Georgia Public Service Commission got a shock in November: After nearly two decades as an all-Republican body, two incumbent commissioners lost their seats. Georgia voters, frustrated by rising power bills, elected two Democrats with about 60 percent of the vote. One of the ousted commissioners, Republican Tim Echols, was...
Trump destroyed offshore wind. The Northeast can’t live without it.
Since his presidency began last year, Donald Trump has embarked on an all-out campaign to destroy the nation’s nascent offshore wind industry. He has halted all wind lease sales in federal waters, issued stop-work orders for nearly-completed wind farms, and told oil industry executives that his “goal is to not...
The winter storm exposed the grid’s real weakness: Lots of old poles
In 1843, Congress gave Samuel Morse $30,000 to try to send a telegram from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. Rather than bury the transmission wires underground, where technical issues would be hard to identify, the inventor of Morse code strung them along wooden poles and trees. When the system was completed...
The EPA wants to eliminate one of the few ways that tribes can protect their water
Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposal to revise the Clean Water Act, specifically a section of the law that regulates water quality and limits states’ and tribes’ authority over federal projects, as well as how tribes can gain the authority to conduct those reviews. Experts say...
Data centers are facing an image problem. The tech industry is spending millions to rebrand them.
With community opposition growing, data center backers are going on a full-scale public relations blitz. Around Christmas in Virginia, which boasts the highest concentration of data centers in the country, one advertisement seemed to air nonstop. “Virginia’s data centers are … investing billions in clean energy,” a voiceover intoned over...
‘A fraudulent scheme’: New Mexico sues Texas oil companies for walking away from leaking wells
The state of New Mexico is accusing three Texas oil executives of orchestrating “a fraudulent scheme” to pocket revenue from hundreds of oil and gas wells in New Mexico and offload the cost of plugging and cleaning up the wells onto the state’s taxpayers. The suit, filed in late December...
This Brooklyn bagel shop is saving money with plug-in batteries
In the back of Black Seed Bagels in northern Brooklyn is a giant catering kitchen filled with industrial-size condiments and freezers full of dough. A tall, silver electric oven, named the Baconator, stands in a far corner, cooking thousands of pounds of meat every week to accompany Black Seed’s hand-rolled,...
The climate contradictions in MAHA’s new food pyramid
This month, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins unveiled updated national dietary guidelines in a surprising new visual: an inverted food pyramid, with the widest section teetering at the top. At the very bottom, a tiny amount of whole grains are represented. The rest of...
A melting Greenland is easier to exploit — but also more perilous
World leaders surely breathed a sigh of relief late this week when President Donald Trump said the United States wouldn’t have to “take” Greenland after all, having been granted permission to establish more military bases instead. Greenland, being mostly covered in ice, might not seem like an obvious target for...
Yes, climate change can supercharge a winter storm. Here’s how.
A massive, frigid storm is developing across the United States, stretching from the Southwest up into the Northeast and putting much of the country in a deep freeze until early next week. The Weather Channel warns that more than 230 million people — two-thirds of the country’s population — could...