HT @rmblaber1956

#EnvironmentalGroups sue #Trump’s #EPA over repeal of landmark #climate finding

Lawsuit from #health and #EnvironmentalJustice groups challenges the EPA’s rollback of the ‘endangerment finding’

Dharna Noor
Wed 18 Feb 2026 07.10 EST

"More than a dozen health and environmental justice non-profits have sued the Environmental Protection Agency over its revocation of the legal determination that underpins US federal climate regulations.

"Filed in Washington DC circuit court, the lawsuit challenges the EPA’s rollback of the '#EndangermentFinding', which states that the buildup of heat-trapping #pollution in the atmosphere endangers #PublicHealth and welfare and has allowed the EPA to limit those emissions from #vehicles, #PowerPlants and other #industrial sources since 2009. The rollback was widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the #ClimateCrisis.

"The suit was brought by the American Public Health Association [#APHA], #AmericanLungAssociation, the #CenterForBiologicalDiversity, the #EnvironmentalDefenseFund, the #NaturalResourcesDefenseCouncil [#NRDC], the #SierraClub and 11 other public health and environmental organizations. The lawsuit was filed by green legal organizations #CleanAirTaskForce and #Earthjustice and it names the EPA and the agency’s administrator, #LeeZeldin, as defendants.

" 'EPA’s repeal of the endangerment finding and #safeguards to limit vehicle emissions marks a complete dereliction of the agency’s mission to protect people’s health and its legal obligation under the #CleanAirAct,' said #GretchenGoldman, president and CEO at the #UnionOfConcernedScientists, another one of the groups behind the lawsuit. 'This shameful and dangerous action by the Trump administration and EPA Administrator Zeldin is rooted in falsehoods not facts and is at complete odds with the public interest and the best available science.' "

Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/18/trump-epa-environment-climate-lawsuit

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/kp4pY

#USPol #ClimateChange #EPAFail #ClimateCrisis #GreenhouseGas #FossilFools #FossilFuelIndustry #BigOilAndGas #CorporateColonialism #Oiligarchy #Oligarchy #CorporatePolluters

#Trump Ripped Over ‘Reckless’ Plan to Drill for Oil Off #California, #Florida

“#DonaldTrump and #DougBurgum are once again trying to sell out our coastal communities and our public waters in favor of #CorporatePolluters’ bottom line.”

Jessica Corbett
Nov 20, 2025

“Despite overwhelming bipartisan opposition, Trump and Burgum are moving forward with their reckless plan to serve their ultimate goal of handing over our public lands and waters to #BigOil CEOs,” Blackford continued. “These lease sales are privatization in everything but name—a ‘keep out’ sign is the same whether an area was sold or leased. The Sierra Club will continue to stand with coastal communities and work to stop this reckless plan dead in the water.”

Read more:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-ripped-over-reckless-plan-to-drill-for-oil-off-california-florida

#USPol #TrumpLies #ExxonLies #Corporatocracy #CorporateColonialism #Alaska #California #Florida #DrillBabyDrill #WaterIsLife #PowerCorruptionAndLies #Oiligarchy #BigOil #FossilFuels #TrumpIsAFossil #TrumpIsAFascist

Countries are struggling to meet the rising energy demands of data centers

#Mexico’s lagging energy grid is forcing companies, including #Microsoft, to use generators.

By Daniela Dib and Pablo Jiménez Arandia, 15 September 2025

Excerpt: "That Mexico’s electric grid is struggling does not bode well for a country trying to position itself as a data center hub, and which is already home to 150 #DataCenters, including from Microsoft, #AmazonWebServices, and #Google. Together, they have invested over $7 billion in the country since 2020.

"Like Mexico, countries around the world are scrambling to meet the rising energy demands of data centers, spurred by a boom in #ArtificialIntelligence and #CloudComputing. Like Microsoft, some companies have tapped alternative — and sometimes more #polluting — energy sources. Mexico’s power grid faces a deficit of 48,000 megawatt-hours by 2030, which is more than half the country’s output in 2023, according to the Mexican Institute For Competitiveness, a research center. As the country lures more data center-related investments, more companies may follow in Microsoft’s footsteps.

" 'This case is part of a broader global pattern, particularly in areas where the rapid deployment of #DigitalInfrastructure is outpacing the #EnergyGrid’s capacity,' Marina Otero Verzier, a visiting professor at Columbia University who researches data centers, told Rest of World. 'In some cases, corporations frame fossil-fueled generators as temporary solutions, which, over time, become normalized.'

"Microsoft set up its data center last year in #ColónMexico, an industrial hub with a population of over 67,000 people, but was unable to plug into the country’s energy grid, which is itself largely powered by #FossilFuels. In documents filed to Mexico’s environmental secretariat in 2023, Microsoft said the grid would not be fully operative to the company until mid-2027 due to 'long construction times required in [Microsoft’s] contract with CFE,' referring to the Federal Electricity Commission. The following year, the secretariat approved Microsoft’s request to use seven generators to temporarily power its data center.

"A spokesperson for Microsoft declined to comment on how the company is powering its data centers in Mexico now, and whether it will continue using generators.

"Worldwide, nearly 60% of the electricity used by data centers comes from fossil fuels including #NaturalGas. #Renewables including #solar and #wind meet more than a quarter of the demand, according to the International Energy Agency. But while the share of renewable energy is increasing, the rapid growth in the demand for data centers is outpacing the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure, posing a challenge to the climate goals of countries and tech companies alike."

Read more / listen:
https://restofworld.org/2025/ai-energy-supply-data-centers/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

#EnergyUsage #AIDataCenters #AISucks #CoPilot #CorporateGreed #CorporateColonialism #WaterIsLife #Polluters #BigOilAndGas #BigData #CorporatePolluters #AI

Great Lakes tribes teach 'water is life.’ But they’re forced to fight for its protection

by Caitlin Looby and Frank Vaisvilas
Nov. 29, 2023

LAC DU FLAMBEAU, Wis. – "John Johnson, president of the #LacDuFlambeau #Ojibwe Tribe in northern #Wisconsin, is not one to hold back his frustrations with the #Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources over management of the waterways in the Northwoods.

" 'We used to be able to drink water right out of this lake when we were kids,” he
said while looking over Pokegama Lake from a balcony at the tribe’s hotel-casino. 'We can’t now.'

"While the tribe does what it can to keep the lake clean, it can’t control what happens outside the reservation to waters that eventually flow in.

"The DNR 'won’t listen to #NativeAmericans,' Johnson said. For many tribes around the Great Lakes basin, water is considered a sacred spirit.
Ojibwe teachings say that 'WaterIsLife' – a phrase that encapsulates the
interconnected relationships that water has with every living thing on Earth.

"Now the phrase is often seen on signs at protests – ones where tribes are fighting
against massive, corporate oil and mining projects that threaten to pollute
waterways."

Read more:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/11/29/indigenous-tribes-fight-for-great-lakes-water-quality/71603553007/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/l81HJ

#WaterIsLife #NibiBimaadiziwin #BigOilAndGas #CorporateColonialism #CorporatePolluters #NoMiningWithoutConsent

Ummmm...

"Thayer said she is regularly using ChatGPT to come up with ideas about planning what to eat, while also having it calculate the nutritional value of the pumpkin-banana-oat bread she’s been baking for years."

But conversely,

"Perhaps defying emerging media consumption trends, 28-year-old Sanaa Wilson usually skips right past those AI-generated summaries.

“It has to be a basic question like, ‘What day does Christmas land on in 2025?’” said the Los Angeles-area resident. “I’ll be like, ‘That makes sense. I trust it.’ But when it gets to specific news, related to what’s happening in California or what’s happening to the education system and stuff like that, I will scroll down a little bit further.”

Wilson, a freelance data scientist, does use AI heavily at work to help with coding, which she said has saved her hundreds of dollars she would have had to pay for training. She also occasionally uses it to come up with work-related ideas, an attempt to bring back a little of the collaborative brainstorming experience she remembers from college life but doesn’t have now.

When it first came out, Wilson said she also used ChatGPT to help write emails, until she learned more about its environmental impact and the possibility it would erode her own writing and thinking skills over time.

“It’s just an email. I can work it out,” she said. “However many minutes it takes, or seconds it takes, I can still type it myself.”"

https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-poll-229b665d10d057441a69f56648b973e1

#AISucks #BIgGas #MethanePollution
#FossilFuel #ClimateChange
#BigOilAndGas #CorporatePolluters

Sounds like #Wyoming needs a new governor!

#AI in Wyoming may soon use more electricity than state’s human residents

By Benj Edwards, July 29, 2025

"Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon praised the project's potential benefits for the state's natural gas industry in a company statement. 'This is exciting news for Wyoming and for Wyoming natural gas producers,' Gordon said."

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/07/ai-in-wyoming-may-soon-use-more-electricity-than-states-human-residents/

#AISucks #BIgGas #MethanePollution #FossilFuel #ClimateChange #BigOilAndGas #CorporatePolluters

#ClarenceThomas Secretly Participated in #KochBrothers Network Donor Events

by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski
Sept. 22, 2023, 5 a.m. EDT

Excerpt: "Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.

" 'In the 15 years since, the Koch network has left a deep imprint on American society. Its advocacy is credited with helping stamp out Republican Party support for combating #ClimateChange, once an issue that drew bipartisan concern. The “full weight of the network” was thrown behind passing the 2017 #TrumpTaxCut, securing a windfall for the Kochs and their donors. And the upcoming Supreme Court term could bring the network a victory it has pursued for years: overturning a major legal precedent known as #Chevron.

"While most Americans aren’t familiar with the 1984 case Chevron v. #NRDC, it’s one of the Supreme Court’s most-cited decisions. Legal scholars sometimes mention it in the same breath as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. In essence, Chevron is about government agencies’ ability to issue regulations. After a law is enacted, it’s generally up to agencies across the government to make detailed rules putting it into effect. The Chevron decision said courts should be hesitant to second-guess the agencies’ determinations. In the years that followed, judges cited Chevron in upholding rules that protect endangered species, speed up the approval process for new cellphone towers and grant benefits to coal miners suffering from black lung.

"The Koch network has challenged Chevron in the courts and its lobbyists have pushed Congress to pass a law nullifying the decision. It has also provided millions of dollars in grants to law professors making the case to overturn it.

"The network’s position has become increasingly popular in recent years. Once broadly supported by academics and judges on the right, Chevron is now anathema to many in the conservative legal movement. And there’s no more prominent convert than Thomas.

"In 2005, Thomas wrote the majority opinion in a case that expanded Chevron’s protections for government agencies. Ten years later, he was openly questioning the doctrine. Then in 2020, Thomas renounced his own earlier decision, writing that he’d determined the doctrine is unconstitutional after all — a rare reversal for a justice with a reputation for being unmovable in his views.

"By last year, Koch network strategists sensed that victory could be at hand. During an internal briefing for network staff, Jorge Lima, a senior vice president at Americans for Prosperity, said the Supreme Court seemed primed to radically change its approach to the issue. The network was trying to find cases that could bring about major changes in the law, according to a video of the meeting obtained by the watchdog group Documented. “We’re doubling down on this strategy,” Lima told the crowd.

"Several months later, the Supreme Court announced it would take up a case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which Koch network staff attorneys represent the plaintiffs. If Thomas and his colleagues side with them this coming term, Chevron will be overturned once and for all."

Read more:
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-secretly-attended-koch-brothers-donor-events-scotus

#OligarchCamp #BohemianGrove #SCOTUS #ImpeachClarenceThomas #Chevron #ChevronDoctrine #NDRC #KochIndustries #Oligarchy #CorruptSCOTUS #SCOTUSIsCompromised #Corporatocracy #Oiligarchy #EnvironmentalProtections #BigOilAndGas #CorporatePolluters #HeritageFoundation #ClimateDeniers #WaterIsLife #AirIsLife

Congressional Analysis: #GOP Tax Gifts to #Rich Would Explode Deficit They Always Complain About

"This bill gives enormous additional tax cuts to wealthy people and corporations, spikes the deficit, and strips healthcare from millions of Americans," said one critic.

Jessica Corbett
May 13, 2025

Excerpt: " 'Reckless tax cuts for the top and new corporate loopholes appear to be the big features of this bill, and they're paid for by cutting our healthcare and making American communities more vulnerable to floods, fires, and storms,' she stressed. 'The revenue raisers—which don't stop this from being extremely expensive—seem to be about picking winners and losers, rather than passing rational, consistent policies.' "

https://www.commondreams.org/news/gop-reconciliation-package

#BigUglyBill #Environment #Ethics #TaxBreaksForTheRich #CorporatePolluters #AirIsLife
#WaterIsLife #LandIsLife
#TrumpHatesTheEnvironment
#TrumpHatesThePoor #Corporatocracy #CharacteristicsOfFascism
#SilencingDissent #USPol #HR9495 #StopHR9495 #TaxPackage #Authoritarianism #AuthoritarianRule
#FightForTheFuture