News Feeds

WEAVING ALTERNATIVES #21: A periodical of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives Weaving Economies for Life Solidarity Economy, Commons, Care and Pluriversal Futures November 2026 Editorial Note Solidarity Economy: A Historical Overview Melanie E L Bush and Nokuthula HlabanganeAlternativesAlternativesWeavers

Clothing swaps are a fun, free way to keep our clothing in use for longer, reduce waste and push back on the pressure we all feel to buy new stuff during the holiday season.

Who Tends the Fire? and The Arithmetic of Fire By Dr Lebohang Liepollo Pheko Cooling the Flames Without Extinguishing the Fire Who Tends the Fire? I. The economies that consume us They told us to cool the flames while they were still setting the world alight.

A 647-mile tars sands crude oil pipeline is proposed for eastern Montana and opportunities to stop the dangerous Bridger Pipeline Project are coming. In this webinar from October 29, MEIC and our partners covered what you need to know about the proposed pipeline and how we can push back. Earthjustice legal expert Lars Phillips, Dr. …

The post Webinar Recording: Bridger Pipeline Project appeared first on Montana Environmental Information Center - MEIC.

On a sunny afternoon in late October, a juvenile Bald Eagle soared back into Florida skies. State Senator Jennifer Bradley was on hand to release the eagle, and a crowd made up of homeschool...

OCT. 30, 2026

We’re excited to share that Clean Air Council was named Activist of the Year at the 2026 SustainPHL Awards!

This annual event, hosted Oct. 29 by Green Philly, celebrates the people and organizations who work to make the Philadelphia region healthier and more sustainable.

We’re grateful for this recognition, but environmental advocacy is a collective effort. So much of what we do depends on the communities, our members, funders, volunteers, grassroots groups, and partner organizations who work alongside us every day

We also want to give a special shout-out to Elaine Wells, a member of Clean Air Council’s Board of Directors, who won the Environmental Justice Award for her work in connecting young people with trails, nature, and literacy.

We are proud to be part of such a dedicated environmental community. Here’s to continuing this important work in 2027 and beyond!

Senators Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley, and Alex Padilla are demanding that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum stop attempting to put data centers on public lands, citing a lack of transparency around his meetings with data center developers and investors. Burgum met with dozens of technology and energy executives last year, including Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, according to the Washington Sun, which reviewed his calendar. “The timing of these meetings taking place concurrently with the administration’s efforts to pursue data center development on public lands raises serious questions about your involvement in these deals,” the senators wrote in a letter to Burgum this week.

The senators also warned about data centers’ water use, which could worsen drought across the West. “Effectively privatizing public lands owned by American taxpayers sends a clear message that the Trump administration continues to prioritize the profits of tech CEOs and shareholders over the American people that rely on public lands for hunting, fishing, recreation, and livestock grazing,” the letter states. The only data center BLM has approved so far, near Boulder City, Nevada, is on hold pending more environmental review.

In a second letter, Senator Wyden asked about the deal Burgum helped broker in March for Venezuela’s state-owned mining company to sell gold to commodities trader Trafigura. “Recent reports indicate that you played a pivotal role in brokering the sale of this gold, which is reportedly tainted by human rights abuses and environmental degradation,” wrote Wyden. Much of that gold has sat in storage because U.S. refiners have refused to process it.

In September, members of the House Natural Resources Committee requested Burgum’s official calendar and any lists of public lands his department had flagged as priorities for data center development. The Interior department declined to comment on this week’s letters, saying it does not comment on congressional correspondence through the media.

Quick hits Analysis finds elevated arsenic at uranium mine near Havasupai Tribe’s only water source

Native News Online | Inside Climate News | KNAU | Grand Canyon Trust

Trump administration moves to roll back Biden-era methane rules for oil and gas companies

KANW | NPR | Politico | CNBC

Permitting reform would de-fang bedrock environmental laws

The Landline/High Country News

Shell and Total post highest quarterly profit since 2022

Reuters

Who is responsible for Yellowstone’s water quality? After whiplash between Biden and Trump, EPA says Wyoming

WyoFile

Lawmakers target Burgum’s gold deals, data center push

Politico | Washington Sun

California lawmakers demand Interior department reverse pay cut for Yosemite park staff

Sierra Sun Times

A top Trump appointee was ordered to remove an unauthorized cabin from public land. Two years later, it’s still there

High Country News/Public Domain

Quote of the day

Havasupai Creek is not just a beautiful place on a map. It is the lifeblood of our homeland… If Havasu Creek is contaminated, there is no backup water system waiting for us. There is no second river we can turn to. We are asking that elevated arsenic be investigated, not normalized.”

—Melinda Yaiva, Chairwoman of the Havasupai Tribe, Native News Online

Picture This @carlsbadcavernsnps

Have you even flown through a cave in the dark to get your dinner?

The lowest known point of Carlsbad Cavern is called Lake of the Clouds at 1037 feet. This area is much warmer than the 56°F visitors encounter in the Big Room. These warm temperatures were chosen by the Cave Myotis (Myotis velifer) and sometimes the Fringed Myotis (Myotis thysanodes) as a maternity roost and bachelor pads. The bats take an arduous flight in order to get out in the evenings to eat insects. They travel past the lunchroom all the way up the main corridor and out into the evening.

Each year the Resources Department sets up an audio recorder that catches the different calls the bats make as they leave their roost sites. Echolocation call characteristics and identifying software are used to determine the bat species recorded. This information is helpful to researchers to determine what type of bats are currently roosting in this area of the cave and if there has been a change in residency. Cave myotis typically call in the 40 Kilohertz range and Fringed myotis make calls in the 20 Kilohertz range.

#carlsbadcavernsnationalpark#batweek#bats

Featured photo: Google Data Center in The Dalles, Oregon. Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons

The post Lawmakers demand Burgum halt data center push on public lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

This story was co-published with Rolling Stone.

In Ohio’s rural southeastern corner, Marietta College geology professor David Jeffrey was among the residents worried that industry activity in America’s booming natural gas region could be polluting their drinking water. That’s “the biggest fear,” he said at an August meeting with top Ohio officials.

When Jeffrey and residents from advocacy groups Buckeye Environmental Network and Washington County for Safe Drinking Water met with Ohio officials, those state officials repeatedly assured residents that despite the up to 1.4 billion gallons of oil and gas wastewater injected in underground wells in their county and across Ohio each year, the state was unaware of any resulting drinking water contamination there.

“We would have heard about it,” Mary Mertz, director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), which oversees both aspects of Ohio’s environment and its oil and gas industry, told residents in the August 17 virtual meeting.

“No one has called us that I’m aware of,” said Eric Vendel, ODNR’s oil and gas division chief. “We have a water investigation form that can be filled out and we would have my team down there and investigate the water.”

What officials did not tell the group that day is that five years earlier, the state did receive a call and, on Vendel’s orders, investigated a drinking water well for oil and gas wastewater contaminants in eastern Ohio, roughly 80 miles away from Washington County. Independent experts say the results are consistent with fracking wastewater contamination. Despite that and the water well’s location near two oil and gas wastewater injection wells, ODNR concluded fracking wastewater was not to blame, according to documents DeSmog and Rolling Stone obtained via public records request.

Subscribe to Desmog

Get the weekly intelligence you need to hold polluters accountable

Email Address Sign Up Send me intelligence from: All US/Global team UK/Europe team Sign Up --> (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery);

ODNR spokesperson Andy Chow told DeSmog and Rolling Stone: “When administrators were meeting with representatives in Washington County, they were discussing matters related to injection wells located in Washington County. ODNR stands by the comments made by its administrators.”

Concerns over polluted drinking water cross political and social divides, perhaps nowhere more so than rural Washington County. As intensely salty wastewater pushed below ground resurfaces, residents and officials have injected the issue into the already bitterly divided Ohio governor’s race. Susan Vessels, a Republican official in Washington County, recently appeared alongside Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton because of Acton’s pledge to pause new wastewater wells in this densely drilled area. “We have a chance to prevent the worst from happening, and we need to act now,” Acton told DeSmog and Rolling Stone.

“Drinking water is not political and it is my hope Ohioans will come together across party lines on this issue.”

Susan Vessels, Marietta City Council President

Ohio ranks in the top 10 nationally for both oil and gas production. Fracking can occur within 100 feet of a school or rural home, and operators have been able to tap the gas-rich Marcellus and Utica formations by drilling directly beneath water reservoirs and state parks. But in order to maintain that production, the industry has to offload the tidal wave of toxic wastewater — rich in salts, carcinogens, heavy metals, and radioactive elements — that surfaces in the weeks and years that follow drilling an oil or gas well.

That wastewater gets pumped into injection wells deep below ground, where impermeable geological layers are supposed to keep it from leaking into oil and gas wells or drinking water supplies. Washington County, whose 19 injection wells outnumber all of Pennsylvania, has received complaints of this wastewater, or brine, flooding nearby oil and gas wells, according to the New York Times.

Now, an hour and a half drive north, in the town of Coshocton, Ohio, records show evidence of a family’s drinking water polluted by high levels of the same types of salts found in fracking wastewater.

“This is different”

In early November 2021, Bill Burgan, an eastern Ohio water well driller, called ODNR to complain about water from a 360-foot well he had drilled in 2017 for the Fisher family in Coshocton, according to ODNR documents. At the beginning of 2021, their water had become salty and corrosive. Not only did it leave a salty taste in the mouth, but it caused their hot water tanks to rust out prematurely. The couple had replaced two tanks in four years. Within weeks, the newest one became coated in an unidentifiable white precipitate.

“Sometimes we drill through pockets of salt,” said Burgan, president of American Drilling and Pump Service, in an interview with DeSmog and Rolling Stone this summer outside his Stone Creek, Ohio, shop. “But this is different, it’s fracking waste.”

Burgan told DeSmog and Rolling Stone, and, separately, ODNR according to public records, that he expressed concern that the Fishers’ drinking water well became impacted by an oil and gas wastewater injection well located less than two miles from the family’s home and operated by a Texas-based company called Buckeye Brine. The local community vigorously opposed Buckeye Brine’s installment of the injection well, where since 2014 the company has injected over 400 million gallons of waste.  

After receiving Burgan’s complaint, ODNR swiftly launched an investigation that agency geologist Tamara Richards said “will focus solely on contaminants associated with oil and natural gas exploration and production,” according to public records. 

The state’s results indicate signatures of possible drinking water pollution from oil and gas wastewater, according to independent experts who reviewed the findings. Ohio’s final report on the incident, completed in January 2022, found two separate indicators of potential fracking wastewater contamination — total dissolved solids, and chloride —  in the Fisher family’s water. Both tested at more than five times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) limits. ODNR also tested for sodium, which lacks a formal EPA limit but has a threshold, as high levels can cause unpleasant taste and health problems for diabetics. In the Fishers’ water, sodium was 17 times the EPA threshold.

According to Jeffrey, the Marietta College geologist, high levels of total dissolved solids, chloride, and sodium also are found in the sea of fracking wastewater pumped into injection wells like the one operated by Buckeye Brine.

However, ODNR concluded there was “no evidence of an oilfield related impact” and pinned the cause of the contamination on a sandstone layer called the “Big Injun” that the agency, without providing any data, stated “appears to be” naturally salty and surrounded part of the family’s water well.

But Jeffrey said testing done by the state did not look at enough parameters to determine that the contamination was natural and not from fracking wastewater. “It seems ODNR is either stonewalling, misdirecting, or just doesn’t know what they are doing,” he told DeSmog and Rolling Stone.

In a separate case that would unfold over a year after ODNR tested the Fishers’ water, the agency was considering whether leaking injection wells or else the “Big Injun” sandstone formation might be contaminating conventional oil and gas wells in Athens County, just west of Washington County. This time, ODNR concluded the impacts “cannot be plausibly explained” by the sandstone formation due to its unique brine signature, citing a “June 2, 2020 technical analysis prepared by ALL Consulting.” The agency added that impacts from this natural layer would have been consistent from the start, and “it is unlikely” they would have appeared only after the injection well operator began working. ODNR ultimately suspended the permit for a set of three injection wells that were eventually shut in for leaking fracking wastewater. ODNR has not yet replied to questions regarding this case.

When asked about the state’s findings in Coshocton and their scientific evidence, Burgan was dismissive. “They are covering it up,” he said, “because they are making too much money off of this.”

Oil and gas companies pay Ohio five cents a barrel to dispose of in-state wastewater, and 20 cents for wastewater imported from other states. Much of the waste injected comes from neighboring West Virginia and Pennsylvania. With at least a billion gallons of waste injected every year, that income translates to an average of $2.4 million annually for state coffers, according to state documents.

“The ODNR Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management uses evidence and facts, testing, and the latest technologies to evaluate complaints of brine migration” and “stands by the results of its investigation,” said ODNR spokesperson Chow.

The entrance to Buckeye Brine’s injection well facility in Coshocton, Ohio. Credit: Justin Nobel/DeSmog

But ODNR did not investigate the Buckeye Brine injection well, subject of the original complaint, or any other injection wells. It did investigate “producing oil and gas wells within a one-half mile radius” of the family’s home.

After Burgan’s company reached out, we “contacted ODNR and ODNR was not interested in any further efforts on the matter,” said Susie Patterson, the manager at Buckeye Brine, by email. Patterson said groundwater monitoring wells installed in 2019 and sampled quarterly showed “no indication of contamination by oilfield substances,” or that “the water was not fit for consumption due to contaminants,” and pinned issues with the Fishers’ well on the water well driller. 

“The wells were drilled much deeper than surrounding wells producing good drinking water,” said Patterson. “It is Buckeye’s opinion that the driller was trying to justify to the well owner the bad wells.”

The Fishers declined to participate in the story. 

The Oil and Gas Industry’s Trillion-Gallon Problem

Across America, over one trillion gallons of oil and gas wastewater are generated every year — enough to fill a line of waste barrels to the moon and back 28 times. Nearly all of this waste — 96 percent — will be injected deep into the earth at disposal injection wells.

Given the oil and gas industry’s reliance on injection wells as a critical means of disposal for a dangerous waste stream, analysts have referred to injection wells as a linchpin to the sound operation of the entire oil and gas industry. Disposal of oil and gas wastewater is the industry’s “Achilles’ heel,” said Ted Auch, a researcher at the oil and gas industry watchdog Fieldnotes. A 2021 Rice University Center for Energy Studies report stated that if the industry did not have injection wells to rely on for waste disposal, the “resulting economic impacts would be profound — and likely, existential.” 

The United States has more than 181,400 oil and gas wastewater injection wells, but as industry leaders testified at the Texas state capitol in August, lack of space to store this toxic brine already is threatening to curtain oil and gas production in Texas’ productive Permian Basin. Even where it has been stored, increasing evidence shows the wastewater is not always staying put.

Injection has proven particularly problematic in Ohio, where state regulators have halted operations at over half a dozen injection wells, citing concerns that fracking wastewater has leaked and has traveled up to five miles underground to contaminate conventional oil and gas wells. ODNR noted in a 2023 letter to DeepRock Disposal Solutions, a southeast Ohio company formerly run by the chair of the state senate’s energy committee, that such incidents pose a risk to public health and drinking water too.   

In Texas, wastewater shot down injection wells has burst back to the surface at old oil and gas wells, at times generating 100-foot geysers of brine in the desert, and Inside Climate News reported that oilfield waste has contaminated drinking water sources in the heart of West Texas oil country. Reporting by ProPublica revealed the situation is similar in neighboring Oklahoma, where regulators have clashed over how far to rein in the injection industry, despite state evidence showing drinking water sources polluted with contaminants consistent with oilfield waste. 

Independent scientists raise the question of whether other oil and gas states may be facing similar problems.

“We have always been concerned as environmental scientists and geologists in this area that there is no underground containment in these [injection] wells,” said Jen Bowman, a water chemistry expert and the director of environmental programs at Ohio University, in Athens. “What so many folks in this area don’t understand, our underground layers are just rock layers so there is no magic underground lake where you are getting water from, and there is no magic underground storage container where the waste is going.” Injecting millions of gallons of waste at high pressure means contamination miles from the site of injection is inevitable, she said.

“This is not a good plan or disposal mechanism for potentially dangerous materials,” Bowman told DeSmog and Rolling Stone, “especially given that people rely on groundwater in so much of rural Ohio.”

The concern about drinking water in Washington County is exactly what motivates Susan Vessels, the Republican president of the Marietta City Council. She has led the council in writing a resolution, passed last October, urging Ohio state legislators to introduce legislation imposing a three-year moratorium on new wastewater injection wells in Washington County. More recently she has crossed the political aisle when Amy Acton, the former state health director, came to Marietta last month as part of her gubernatorial campaign. Acton supports Vessels’ proposed moratorium and is facing an ugly, expensive race against billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. 

Acton told DeSmog and Rolling Stone that the fight over injection wells and drinking water contamination comes down to ensuring a better future for Marietta and all of Ohio. 

“That is why I am committing to a three-year moratorium on wastewater injection wells in Washington County,” said Acton. “I’m fighting against the corruption in our Statehouse and the cost of that corruption that we pay for. We must act to protect our resources and our drinking water.” Ramaswamy’s campaign has not replied to questions. 

“Drinking water is not political,” said Vessels, “and it is my hope Ohioans will come together across party lines on this issue.”

In an op-ed, she took to task the GOP contender Ramaswamy, who called people “whiners” for raising concerns about clean water, energy use, and other issues as proposals for AI data centers arrive in Ohio.

“I think they are full of shit, and that is point-blank my opinion.”

Phillip Johnson, Washington County water well driller

Washington County water well driller Phillip Johnson said he has drilled hundreds of private water wells in the region. He disagreed with the state’s conclusion that brine from the sandstone formation caused the Fisher family well’s contamination.

“I think they are full of shit, and that is point-blank my opinion,” he said.  

Johnson said that if the sandstone formation was the cause of the salt contamination in the Fishers’ drinking water, then the salty taste should have been there from the beginning, and not strengthened over time as the couple reported, according to ODNR documents.

“Just because you drill 1,000 wells and everything works fine, it just takes one well to not work right for there to be a problem,” said Johnson. “It is nature, if you pump something down under pressure, the path of least resistance is up.”

“I am all for drilling oil and gas,” he added, “but fresh natural water is the most essential natural resource there is, in this country, the state, anywhere in the world, and if you contaminate it, you essentially ruin everything.”

Dominic DiGiulio, a retired EPA scientist with a doctorate in geoscience and decades of experience investigating the movement of underground fluids, provided another assessment of the state’s conclusions in the Coshocton case.

“The ODNR’s logic for stating that the domestic well is partially screened in the Big Injun formation is flawed,” said DiGiulio, who also previously consulted for government agencies and NGOs. “ODNR does not provide compelling evidence.”

The post Ohio Denies Evidence of Fracking Waste in Drinking Water. Its Own Records Show Otherwise.  appeared first on DeSmog.

When most people find a small brown nugget in the woods, they assume it’s animal poop. That's a good guess, but it also might be an owl pellet: a mass of bone, fur, and feathers that the owl could...

The bulk of the Japanese conglomerate’s Energy segment business is in electrical grid equipment. Sales are strong, but inflation and long delivery timelines bear watching, company executives said.

“While we remain confident that California policymakers will ultimately take action, delay into 2027 will have significant and costly consequences,” said Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro.

Ann Tanner is running on four hours of sleep and showing no signs of it. On a humid June morning, she greets me with enthusiasm and a surprisingly strong handshake as I join a group of volunteers...

Ann Tanner is running on four hours of sleep and showing no signs of it. On a humid June morning, she greets me with enthusiasm and a surprisingly strong handshake as I join a group of volunteers...

That was almost three times as much as what businesses producing and refining oil in the United States made in the same period in 2025.

By Rebecca F. Elliott and Keith Collins

Oct. 30, 2026, 6:35 a.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/30/business/energy-environment/exxon-chevron-oil-profits-iran-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.MlE.lwpl.pjx1bPwJvP7g&smid=nytcore-ios-share

The war with Iran has been very lucrative for American oil companies, which have earned more than $130 billion in profit as people pay much higher prices for gasoline, diesel and other fuel.

That is a conservative estimate based on the performance of more than 50 large U.S. oil and gas companies, most of them producers or refiners, in the six months from April through September. It does not reflect profits earned in March, the first month of the war, or in October.

These companies earned less than $47 billion collectively during the same period in 2025, a challenging stretch when oil was cheaper and companies were navigating the early fallout from President Trump’s trade war.

The blockbuster oil profits this year highlight longstanding concerns about who gains, and who pays the price, when wars interrupt the flow of energy. As of this week, Americans had spent an extra $147 billion on gasoline and diesel since the United States and Israel began striking Iran on Feb. 28, according to an analysis by Brown University’s Climate Solutions Lab. That amounts to more than $1,100 per household.

Some companies are benefiting more than others. U.S. refiners have fared especially well because fuel-making plants have been badly damaged by hostilities in the Middle East and Russia. With fewer refineries available to meet global demand, profit margins soared for those that remain online.

Refining Company Profits

Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence.

U.S. Oil Industry Earned Over $130 Billion in Profit During Iran War – The New York Times

The wartime boom has extended to American producers, most of which are reaping greater income from higher prices without having to contend with the danger or cost of operating in conflict zones. That said, their profits generally remain below 2022 levels, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused oil and natural gas prices to soar. U.S. oil prices averaged around $90 a barrel from April through September of this year, compared with roughly $100 during the same period in 2022.

Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the biggest U.S. oil companies, reported their highest third-quarter earnings in years on Friday, buoyed by their refining businesses.

“We certainly acknowledge that the higher fuel prices put pressure on families and businesses,” Neil Hansen, Exxon’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. “But this is one of those situations and type of business where you can’t invest your way out of these conditions overnight. The decisions that matter today were made years ago.”

Exxon’s third-quarter profit more than doubled. Chevron’s almost tripled.

“The cash is going on the balance sheet,” said Eimear Bonner, Chevron’s chief financial officer. “That’s an asset that obviously we lean on in hard times and we strengthen in times when we see higher prices.”

Dozens of other U.S. oil companies will report third-quarter results in the coming weeks. The New York Times analysis relied on a combination of financial results and, if those were not yet available, analyst estimates compiled by FactSet, a financial data firm. The review did not extend to pipeline companies or service providers, whose performance has been less directly affected by the global oil shock.

For now, many companies are following a similar playbook, paying down debt and parking their extra cash rather than investing in producing more oil than they originally planned or expanding refining capacity.

“We’re not going to change our approach to capital investments just because we have a lot of cash,” Homer Bhullar, chief financial officer of the refining giant Valero Energy, told Wall Street analysts last week. Valero’s third-quarter profit soared more than sixfold.

“Over time, all the excess cash we’re accumulating will ultimately be directed toward our owners,” Mr. Bhullar said. He did not discuss specifics, but that usually involves increasing dividends or buying back company stock.

U.S. refiners have performed especially well because a lot of the oil they process is delivered by pipeline, insulating them from sky-high shipping costs. These companies are a vital link between oil producers and consumers because they transform the crude oil that is pumped from the ground into usable fuels like gasoline and diesel. Some companies, such as Exxon and Chevron, produce oil and refine it, but many specialize in just one of those businesses.

Large European companies reported bumper profits, too. Shell earned $12.06 billion in the third quarter, more than doubling its profit from a year earlier, partly because refining was so lucrative. The French oil major TotalEnergies’ third-quarter profit also more than doubled, to $8.26 billion.

United Refining, a privately held fuel maker in western Pennsylvania, plans to use this year’s windfall to pay down debt, said John Catsimatidis, the company’s chief executive and a longtime Trump ally. Or, perhaps, to buy a new corporate plane.

“I am serious,” Mr. Catsimatidis said in an interview. “You know why? I’m 78 years old. If I don’t buy a new airplane now, when am I going to buy it? When I’m dead?”

Lisa Friedman contributed reporting.

Rebecca F. Elliott covers energy for The Times.

Keith Collins is a Times visual reporter and editor in the Graphics department.

By Natasha Lindstaedt, University of Essex

Authoritarian regimes have a history of keeping information about escalating disasters secret, even when it could harm their own citizens.

With more weather-related disasters caused by climate change predicted, the issue of whether governments are willing to act faster to share information with neighboring nations is an increasing concern.

The signs are not positive. After the recent massive floods on the Nepal-Tibet border, Chinese state media tightly controlled reporting with a focus on rescue attempts, rather than devastation. It also heavily censored unofficial accounts.

Handheld and security camera footage that showed the destruction at the border appears to have vanished from Chinese media platforms.

On this occasion and in the past, Nepal has accused China of not sharing information quickly about escalating dangers. But Beijing denied there was any disinformation, and said information was released in a “timely” way in this recent incident.

A new report says the Himalayas are approaching a tipping point in terms of the speed and risks of glacier melting and lack of monitoring – with millions of lives and livelihoods at risk. So this issue could not be more urgent.

The recent behavior of another world power, Russia, cast doubt on its willingness to be transparent during a disaster. When floods caused Siberia’s Ishim River to overflow in 2025, local officials hid much of the damage.

The severe consequences of such secrecy is apparent throughout recent history. In 1984, Ethiopian military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam concealed and downplayed the catastrophic drought which led to a famine, in order to protect the country’s image. A strict media blackout was enforced, as Mengistu’s government refused to share data regarding the scale of the crisis or even acknowledge there was one.

Instead, he prioritized spending over US$100 million (£87 million) on celebrations to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Ethiopia’s Marxist revolution.

Mengistu ignored the ongoing mass starvation crisis in speeches. He also blocked international aid workers and journalists from entering the starving regions. An estimated one million people died due to this lack of action.

Another potential issue is the impact on shared water sources. If autocracies hide prolonged droughts, they may secretly over-extract shared resources, potentially drying out neighboring territories.

Chernobyl’s Coverup

History shows that lack of warnings about escalating dangers caused by a disaster can have devastating effects in nearby countries.

The nuclear power plant disaster in Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986 was also covered up. KGB archives revealed that classified information on the extent of the radiation and contamination were kept secret.

Critical information was not released to the Ukrainian people and inhabitants of western Europe until months, and even years, later. Advocacy group Greenpeace estimated that there were potentially between 100,000 and 250,000 additional deaths – mostly due to radiation in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia – because of this lack of transparency.

Myanmar’s quasi-military government has regularly hidden valuable information from journalists, aid workers and other countries after each disaster in that country.

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake that hit central Myanmar in April 2025 killed thousands of people, causing bodies to pile up. Rather than facilitate the support of aid workers, supplies were blocked and confiscated by the military.

Not allowing humanitarian aid to come through in a timely fashion can also accelerate a refugee crisis, as desperate populations may flee in search of help.

Censorship and Repression

Autocracies are more likely to censor and monitor media platforms than democracies. For instance, China recently stopped non-official content being shared about the August 2026 floods.

Some autocracies also restrict access for international aid workers, independent scientists and observers.

There’s another example from 2019. When Zimbabwe was hit by tropical cyclone Idai, its government restricted the involvement of international aid workers, which reduced recovery efforts.

Research has also shown that authoritarian regimes can escalate repression against their own citizens during disasters.

Greater levels of secrecy has implications for disease. Natural disasters frequently lead to infectious disease outbreaks. A government’s refusal to report a climate-driven outbreak could prevent neighbouring states from taking protective measures.

Authoritarian regimes also frequently suppress or delay data regarding extreme weather, glacial melts or industrial accidents to protect the regime’s image. This can compromise the safety, stability and economy of their own citizens and, potentially, neighbouring countries too.

Ecosystems and disasters do not respect political borders. Information censorship and the suppression of data will make us all more vulnerable as climate change-driven incidents escalate.

Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor in the Department of Government at theUniversity of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post The Hidden Climate Danger of Authoritarian Neighbors appeared first on The Revelator.

“The Hub” is a weekly round-up of transportation related news in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Check back weekly to keep up-to-date on the issues Clean Air Council’s transportation staff finds important.

Happy Halloween! There’s nothing scarier than losing access to democracy! Plan to vote on November 3. Find more information here.

Image Source: Philly Voice

Philly Voice: SEPTA affordability programs would be permanent under proposed Philly law – A proposal introduced by Philadelphia City Council could increase access to transit for Philadelphians. Councilmember O’Rourke introduced legislation to set aside 0.5% of the city’s General Fund for a transit access program in April of last year. The fund would support Zero Fare, Key Advantage, and Key Partner programs. These programs offer critical transit access to transit to low-income residents, families, and businesses across the city.

Image Source: Northeast Times

Northeast Times: SEPTA Ridership Hits Highest Level Since February 2020 as Bus Trips Climb 14% – In September, SEPTA averaged more than 822,000 riders across all modes per day. This is the highest average daily ridership SEPTA has seen since February 2020. Bus ridership has risen 14% from 2025. SEPTA is giving credit to the New Bus Network, and phase 1 of the plan began in August. Regional Rail is the only mode to decline, with average weekday ridership down 4% from last year. SEPTA notes capacity and frequency issues as the leading causes for the decrease in Regional Rail ridership.

Image Source: AOL

6ABC: SEPTA buys Canadian train cars to boost fleet – Two dozen Canadian EXO Transit rail cars are being serviced by SEPTA mechanics, with plans to phase them into service next year. The cars will help SEPTA meet daily service needs and should increase ridership. The new cars will seat an additional 60 to 70 riders, offer more handrails for standing passengers, and increase capacity for Regional Rail service.

Other Stories

NBC Philadelphia: Philadelphia Indego bike stations get high-tech upgrade with smart kiosks

WHYY: Pa. announces funding for 515 new electric vehicle chargers

Trains.com: Amtrak schedules event for public comment on restructuring

WHYY: NJ Transit is expanding a project to present art exhibitions at bus and train stations

Philadelphia Today: AIM Academy Mountain Biking Program in Conshohocken Turns 10

Philly Voice: Filmmakers who set out to produce a comedy on the PPA instead confront tragedies of a car-obsessed culture

The key question for regulators is no longer whether utilities can simply find a reason to install another gas turbine, write experts from Environmental Defense Fund and Minnesota’s CURE.

Researchers have found evidence that warming, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, reversed the advance of a new ice age.

Read more on E360 →

The Biden administration had sought to crack down on methane leaks, a big driver of climate change. Those rules are now being scaled back.

By Brad Plumer

Reporting from Washington

Oct. 27, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/climate/trump-methane-rules-epa-greenhouse-gas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.MFE.4WCG.UBsTE-ryBq8s&smid=em-share
The Trump administration is moving to weaken federal rules designed to force oil and gas companies to cut their emissions of methane, a gas considered a “super pollutant” because it traps so much heat in the atmosphere.

President Trump announced the plan at a campaign rally on Tuesday evening in Lubbock, Tex., for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton. Mr. Trump said the Biden-era rules were “expensive and unnecessary.”

The move marks one of the most significant steps by the Trump administration to scale back federal policies designed to tackle climate change.

Methane, the main component of natural gas, traps about 80 times more heat in the atmosphere in the short term than carbon dioxide does. It is responsible for nearly one-third of the rise in global temperatures since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and experts have said that reducing methane leaks is one of the fastest ways to slow global warming.

The Biden administration issued rules in 2023 that would have required oil and gas facilities to monitor their operations and prevent methane from leaking into the atmosphere. The Trump administration had already delayed those rules from taking effect.

Now the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to relax requirements to curb methane emissions from hundreds of thousands of “marginal” oil and gas wells that are nearing the end of their useful lives and have relatively low output. These wells account for around 7 percent of U.S. oil and gas production but produce roughly half of the industry’s methane emissions, the agency has previously said.

Trump administration officials have cast the move as an effort to bolster U.S. oil and gas production and ease prices for consumers. High fuel prices, driven up by the U.S.-led war with Iran, are weighing on Republican candidates ahead of next week’s midterm elections. In Texas, the nation’s top oil-producing state, polls show Mr. Paxton trailing Democrat James Talarico, and Mr. Trump is aiming to boost his campaign.

Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, said that the Biden-era rules would have shut down a number of smaller wells and estimated that easing the requirements would save the industry $45 billion through 2050.

“Behind every barrel of oil and every cubic foot of natural gas produced in the U.S. are millions of workers, businesses, and the heartbeat of this nation’s economy,” Mr. Zeldin said in a statement. “The Biden E.P.A. destructively targeted all this. President Trump promised to end the war on oil and natural gas.”

Oil and gas production is the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the United States. Methane can leak from wells, pipelines, storage tanks and other fossil fuel infrastructure. The gas can also come from natural sources such as cows, rice fields and wetlands.

Environmental groups criticized the rollbacks, saying that methane leaks from oil and gas operations were a form of waste that it made sense to curb. They also pointed out that the Biden-era methane rules had been expected to cut other harmful pollutants such as volatile organic compounds, which can form smog, and benzene, which has been linked to cancer.

“Methane leaks are the dumbest kind of pollution because the industry is losing the very product it is selling,” said David Doniger, senior strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Many large oil and gas companies have said they support at least some limits on methane emissions, noting that they have already invested in expensive technologies to monitor and capture the gas.

But a number of small and independent operators have opposed many of the regulations as costly and overly restrictive. They have said that requiring marginal wells that don’t produce very much oil to cut emissions would force producers to simply shut many of them down.

Mr. Zeldin indicated that the agency would rework regulations for marginal wells, typically classified as those that produce 15 barrels of oil equivalent per day or less. In 2024, those wells accounted for roughly three-fourths of the more than 900,000 oil and gas wells in the United States. While they account for a small fraction of total production, multiple studies have found that these wells yield an outsized proportion of methane emissions.

The E.P.A. is also planning to end its Methane Super Emitter Program, which would have empowered third-party monitors to use satellites and other sensors to quickly identify and report significant methane leaks. Some gas producers had complained that the program would have handed too much regulatory power to environmental groups.

And the agency is proposing to reverse a Biden-era rule that would have required operators to capture associated gas that comes out of oil wells and sell it. The agency said that doing so was not always practical, and that companies would be allowed to burn off the gas, a practice known as flaring, which produces carbon dioxide emissions.

The E.P.A. will solicit public comments on the proposed changes for 45 days before finalizing the rule.

The Trump administration has separately disavowed a Biden-era pledge to cut U.S. emissions roughly in half by 2035. And last year, Republicans in Congress passed a bill that would delay for 10 years a steep fee that Democrats and the Biden administration had imposed on oil and gas firms for larger methane leaks.

Some oil- and gas-producing states are nonetheless moving forward with their own methane regulations. Last month, Colorado adopted rules that would essentially replicate the Biden-era standards. New Mexico, the second-largest producer of crude oil after Texas, is also considering new methane rules.

Shortly after Mr. Zeldin previewed the E.P.A.’s proposal, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, highlighted satellite data that showed that the state’s existing rules had already cut methane emissions in half compared with neighboring Texas.

“Rolling back federal standards means more pollution drifting into the lungs of families living next to wells and flares, and a hotter planet for all of us,” Ms. Lujan Grisham said. “In New Mexico, we won’t stand for that. Our methane rules will remain firmly in place, and we’re planning to strengthen them while collaborating with other states to share our nation-leading best practices.”

Financial disclosures filed by Stephen Miller, a senior White House official, contain numerous inconsistencies between reported stock sales, share counts and disclosed family assets, according to a new investigation by Public Citizen. The discrepancies raise questions about the accuracy of the filings and the White House ethics office’s certification of Miller’s disclosures.

Public Citizen’s investigation found that at least 10 of the 27 stock sales listed in Miller’s August 2025 transaction report could not be reconciled with the corresponding certificates of divestiture. In multiple instances, the reported sale values appear too low to account for the number of shares listed on the certificates.

The investigation also identified discrepancies involving Miller’s children and wife, Katie Miller. The stock the Office of Government Ethics certified for sale from the three children’s custodial accounts was worth roughly $443,000 to $507,000 per account on the day of the sales, about $1.4 million in all, and the accounts held another $165,000 to $400,000 in other investments earlier that year. By the end of 2025, each account held just $1,000 to $15,000 in cash, plus $15,000 to $50,000 in Spotify stock in one account. Miller’s disclosures do not show where the rest of the money went. Separately, Katie Miller’s IRA held shares of MP Materials, Alphabet, Viking Therapeutics, Apple, Amazon and Arm in March 2025—none of them appear on Miller’s annual report, and his only transaction report lists no sales of Alphabet, Viking Therapeutics or Apple at all.

In response to Public Citizen’s questions, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said, “The White House regularly works with appointees to provide ethics guidance and help ensure compliance with applicable federal ethics laws and regulations. Stephen Miller complies with all ethics requirements.” The White House did not address the specific discrepancies.

“Stephen Miller is neither above the law nor the rules, and conflict of interest standards are not optional. This administration has demonstrated an objective to scrutinize alleged errors in other people’s paperwork, with very serious consequences,” said Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen co-president. “If that is the standard set by the White House, then the rules should apply equally to everyone. Stephen Miller included. The American people deserve an answer on why these inconsistencies are present, as well as corrections and consequences.”

It is unclear if the discrepancies in Miller’s paperwork are due to sloppiness, bureaucratic error or another explanation.

What is clear is that the Trump administration has used alleged errors or inconsistencies in official paperwork to justify criminal investigations and prosecutions against perceived political enemies, immigrants and others.

Public Citizen is calling for a detailed explanation of the discrepancies, clarification of the basis of the White House ethics office’s certification, and corrections to the financial disclosures.

“Miller’s own filings don’t add up, and the White House signed off on them anyway,” said Zach Everson, Public Citizen Research Director. “Miller and the White House must explain how these numbers were reconciled and whether corrected disclosures are necessary.”

Public Citizen has provided a copy of this report to the Office of Government Ethics.