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“We are disappointed by the lieutenant governor’s decision and respectfully disagree with it,” Neil Nissan, a spokesperson for NextEra Energy, told Utility Dive. State regulators are set to hold their first local hearing on the case Wednesday.

Renew Home is now Everyday Electric. CEO Ben Brown told Utility Dive its flagship Everyday VPP can reduce the need for new centralized generation and mitigate costs for all ratepayers.

An investigation by ABC News has shed new light on the problem of abandoned mines in the Western U.S. and across the country. The investigation compiled records from the Office of Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), part of the Department of the Interior, to create an interactive map of more than 230,000 documented abandoned mine sites.

Many of the documented abandoned mines are in coal-producing regions in the eastern U.S. The investigation points out that since the 1970s, coal mining companies have been required to develop and execute remediation plans to restore the land after coal mining operations have ended, and OSMRE’s Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program, established in 1977, addresses legacy coal mines using fees on current coal production. However, there is not a similar funding source for reclaiming hardrock mines, which are much more common in the West. The ABC News map shows just how many documented abandoned mines are concentrated across Western states.

OSMRE officials also acknowledge that there may be many more abandoned mine sites that are not documented or identified. “Mining back in 1865 or 1880 or 1890, there are no records of that. No one kept records,” Lanny Erdos, an OSMRE official, told ABC News. “There potentially can be mines out there that we would have no idea that they are there until they express themselves in some adverse way.”

Quick hits As Pitkin County looks toward management of the Maroon Bells, what does it mean for the iconic place?

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Conservation group calls for moratorium on AI data centers on US public lands

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Veteran Interior department lawyer resigns in protest, warns of ‘assault on the rule of law’

Public Domain

Three principles for a wildfire-resilient nation

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Wrongly indicted Olympian seeks investigation into potential DOI, DOJ misconduct in Reflecting Pool case

New York Times | Washington Post | CBS News | ABC News

Forest Service rangers helped ICE detain a group of campers. Now, Congress wants answers

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A long (long) walk down Ambler Road

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This sky island destination will likely be America’s next national park

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Quote of the day

What’s it going to be? ‘The Maroon Bells brought to you by Budweiser’?”

—Victor Valinskas, visitor to the Maroon Bells Scenic Area, CPR News

Picture This @greatbasinnp

On a cool September evening, sundown reveals the Great Basin one layer at a time: rock and rabbitbrush, sagebrush and pinyon-juniper, the broad basin below, and distant mountain ranges rising beyond it.

These isolated ranges are sometimes described as “sky islands”—higher, cooler habitats surrounded by lower, drier country. Each change in elevation brings changes in temperature, moisture, plants, and wildlife.

But this landscape offers something that cannot be measured by elevation alone.

Quiet. Distance. Room to breathe.

Great Basin National Park preserves not only mountains, caves, ancient trees, and dark night skies, but also opportunities to experience solitude. Sometimes the landscape’s quietest moments tell its story best.

What do you notice first when you look across the Great Basin?

Photo Credit: NPS/G. Zierdt

 

Featured image: An abandoned mine in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, D&RG Railfan via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0

The post Abandoned mines ‘a constant problem’ across the West appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

Food labels provide information about food products and their contents. Most identify the product and list its ingredients and net quantity. Labeling requirements generally apply to packaged and prepared foods, although the information required—and how manufacturers must present it—varies across countries and food categories.

Food labeling has expanded beyond identifying a package’s contents. Today, labels communicate information about nutrition, allergens, food safety, preparation and storage, production practices, and other product characteristics.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) identifies nutritional information as a central feature of food labels. Nutrition labels typically provide a product’s energy content and levels of nutrients including carbohydrates, protein, fat, sugars, sodium, vitamins, and minerals, typically reported per serving or specified quantity.

Labels also communicate food safety information. Allergen disclosures identify ingredients that may trigger reactions, while storage, preparation, and handling instructions help consumers use foods safely. Date markings such as ‘sell by’ and ‘best before’ can provide information about a product’s safety or quality over time. But date labeling can also be confusing to consumers, leading to safe food going to waste.

According to the European Commission and the FDA, food labels are intended to help consumers make informed choices by explaining what a product contains and allowing them to assess dietary needs and compare products.

They aim to provide clear comprehensible information to enable efficient decision-making at the point of sale, describes the World Health Organization (WHO). Data from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute shows that the majority of in-store shoppers spend an average of 13 seconds evaluating a brand before purchasing, with most decisions taking less than 10 seconds.

Food-labeling requirements vary globally. Research published in Frontiers in Public Health has identified mandatory nutrient-declaration policies for processed foods in at least 95 countries, with differing requirements for front-of-package labels and health and nutrition claims.

The FAO and WHO develop international standards through the Codex Alimentarius Commission, including baseline principles for labeling prepackaged foods that can inform national regulations.

In the United States, the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) share primary responsibility for food labeling. Federal regulation dates to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which targeted adulterated and misbranded foods. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 expanded labeling requirements, while the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 established mandatory nutrition labeling for most FDA-regulated foods.

The European Union takes a more centralized approach, establishing common labeling requirements across its member states. The United Kingdom’s voluntary ‘traffic light’ system uses green, amber, and red to identify nutrient levels, while Chile requires black, octagonal ‘high in’ warnings on products exceeding thresholds for calories, sugar, sodium, or saturated fat.

As food labels communicate more information, they can also become more difficult to interpret. Consumers must navigate nutrition and ingredient information alongside claims, certifications, warnings, and other disclosures, making relevant information harder to identify and understand.

Government labeling resources often target producers and use technical language that consumers may struggle to interpret, Laurie Beyranevand, Director of Vermont Law School’s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems and Professor of Law, tells Food Tank.

And because the pages contain technical jargon, consumers may not always understand what they read.

A study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior finds that 89 percent of respondents believed they understood date labels, but just 24 percent correctly identified their meaning.

“I think there are real trust issues with our food supply. Having access to information and having clarification of what those things mean is really important,” Dr. Roni Neff, Professor at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for a Livable Future, tells Food Tank.

Confusion around date labels can also contribute to food waste. A European Commission study estimated that confusion and other practices surrounding date marking contribute to approximately 10 percent of food waste in the EU. Consumers may discard food that remains safe to eat after misinterpreting ‘best by,’ ‘sell by,’ or ‘use by’ dates.”

Public health organizations increasingly identify food labels as a potential policy tool. The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies nutrition labeling as one approach to helping consumers make healthier food choices, while UNICEF reports growing evidence that nutrition labels can improve consumers’ understanding of nutritional quality.

But labels can only serve that purpose if consumers can understand and use the information they provide. WHO recommends that front-of-package labels present nutrition information in a convenient and readily understood format, while the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) emphasizes the need for clear, reliable labeling as global food supply chains increase the distance between consumers and producers. For policymakers, Beyranevand says, that means prioritizing accessibility and comprehensibility when developing labeling requirements.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

The post Food Tank Explains: Food Labeling appeared first on Food Tank.

Coyotes, it seems, prefer the roar of the garbage truck to the call of the wild.

While pigeons, rats and cockroaches might be more emblematic city-dwelling wildlife, coyotes have shown an aptitude for urban living. In just the last year they’ve made the news for taking up residence in such places as West Hollywood, Chicago and suburban Miami. Their presence near cities is so routine that it takes something unusual to generate headlines.

Much as humans pack together in cities, it turns out coyotes inhabit at least one urban area at roughly 9 times the density they do in the wild, according to research in Washington state published recently in the journal Environmental Research: Ecology.

“That might surprise people who think of coyotes as afraid of humans, but I think it just shows how ideal the urban setting is for coyotes,” said Laura Prugh, a University of Washington wildlife ecologist who led the new research.

This isn’t the first time scientists have noted that cities boast higher concentrations of coyotes, nor is the phenomenon confined just to these canines. Other research has found that raccoons, red foxes and (improbably) leopards live in cities at densities five times that of their counterparts in the countryside.

But in the case of coyotes, much of the evidence is incomplete, without the scientific rigor that could get at just how coyote life varies between paved streets and remote forest.

To get a more accurate comparison, Prugh and her collaborators tracked coyotes through their scat. In 2021, they repeatedly scoured 34 green spaces in Seattle, such as parks and cemeteries, for feces left behind by coyotes. They did the same in forests and open country in a mountainous north central part of the state, some 120 miles away from Seattle.

 

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All told, they gathered more than 800 samples. Genetic analysis told them the scat came from 48 different Seattle coyotes and 213 wildland coyotes.

While that might make it seem like there were more coyotes in the wild, that’s not adjusting for the size of the locations where they looked for scat. Relying on statistical techniques commonly used to estimate wildlife population demographics, the scientists found that urban coyotes were, in fact, much more closely packed together.

There are a host of reasons why coyotes might thrive more in a city. They are much less likely to encounter animals that prey on them, such as wolves, bears and mountain lions. Among radio-collared wolves in the wildland  study area, 3 were killed by cougars and one by a black bear. Coyote pups were also killed by wolves.

While cars present a danger on city streets, armed humans bent on killing coyotes in rural areas might well be more lethal than any vehicles. Of the 47 collared wildland coyotes whose deaths could be confirmed, slightly more than half were killed by hunters or trappers. A single coyote was killed by a vehicle.

Then, there’s the urban smorgasbord of food. Between overflowing trash cans, fast-food burgers dropped in the gutter and ubiquitous urban bunny rabbits, Seattle coyotes have a far more diverse, and potentially much more abundant, food supply. The same research group found that coyote scat in Seattle contained genetic matches for more than twice as many species or groups of species than their wild counterparts±64 to 27.

Despite these results, coyotes appear conflicted about urban life. While there are more of them per square mile, the scientists found that when you compared different parts of Seattle, the places with the highest coyote density were the ones with the fewest people. They’re drawn to much of what the city offers, just not the humans that built it.

So how should we react to the idea that coyotes appear to thrive more in cities than in the wild? Perhaps acceptance or resignation are best. It’s repeatedly been shown that the animals defy efforts to control their numbers, said Prugh. We might just need to add them to the pantheon of urban animals.

“Whether there are too many or too few coyotes is sort of a societal question, but ultimately our answer might not matter,” said Prugh. “Coyotes are here to stay in cities, and it is up to us to learn how to live with them.”

Prugh, et. al. “Urbanization increases coyote density 9-fold in Washington state despite negative effects of human density within Seattle, USA.” Environmental Research: Ecology. Sept. 10, 2026.

Image: ©Robert McGouey/Alamy

Headline News:

• “Invasive Plant Spreads Across Portugal And Lengthens Allergy Season” • Pampas grass, Cortaderia selloana, has large feathery plumes that make it a familiar in decorative arrangements in gardens. But what many regard as a showy plant is, in Portugal, an invasive alien species that can spread rapidly with potential consequences for health. [Euronews]

Pampas grass (Arnim Littek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped)

• “Physicist Raises Alarm Over Proposed Massive Nuclear Power Project” • A proposal for a huge industrial project in Utah would be powered by over 450 nuclear reactors. Dr Robert Davies, a professor of physics at Utah State University, worries that current regulations do not consider the massive thermal footprints that facilities like this can leave behind. [KSL News]
• “Von Der Leyen Turns To Europe’s Refineries As Shrinking Capacity Raises Energy Security Concerns” • President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission announced a new “strategic dialogue” on European refineries, drawing attention to a growing vulnerability for the EU: Its refining capacity has been declining since 2009. [Euronews]
• “GWEC Alliance Unveils Floating Wind Action Plan” • The Global Wind Energy Council and more than fifty companies and organizations have set out an industry action plan aimed at commercializing floating wind. The plan focuses on reducing costs and demonstrating value, scaling the supply chain and expanding access to finance and insurance. [reNews]
• “Heart’s Electric Airliner Still Needs Fuel” • For 27 minutes, batteries flew a machine roughly the size of the regional aircraft Heart Aerospace eventually wants airlines to operate. There was no engine aboard aside from the electric motors, but by adding a turbogenerator, the airplane can fly as a hybrid aircraft. Further development will doubtless come. [CleanTechnica]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

When antibiotics stop working Channel News brendan 7th October 2026 Teaser Media

NAZA, the new documentary by Yuval Abaraham and Rachel Szor, is a movie about Israelis. Their previous movie — the critically acclaimed No Other Land...

The post Eichmann in Tel-Aviv: NAZA and the banality of evil first appeared on Spring.

Protests against data centers have exploded across the US, with communities revolting against a multitude of proven damaging effects and the devastation of agricultural land.

The post USA: Data Centers Aren’t the Only Threat to Farmland appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

MST training on the impacts of El Niño brought together science, agroecology, and grassroots organizing to discuss a scenario of climate extremes, the limits of adaptation policies, and ways to protect food production.

The post Brazil : MST discusses El Niño and points to agroecology as a response to the climate crisis appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Cindy O’Neil understands the boom-and-bust cycles of industry. Her husband spent years working in Carbon County’s namesake coal mines. In this pocket of central Utah, energy and the economy have long been intrinsically linked, at great sacrifice to county residents.

“We’ve had the coal. We’ve dealt, the whole community, with black lung,” O’Neil said. “The explosions, the fires, and all the things that came along with it.”

But a new industry and type of energy production is about to move near her rural home. And she says it has her and her neighbors even more worried than they were about the dangers that came from their long history with coal. 

“It’s all descending, these data centers,” said O’Neil, who tracks mysterious new projects in the works and shares updates on Facebook community pages. “They’re setting these things within a couple of miles of homes.”

Her latest updates involve a lot of chatter about Valar Atomics, a nuclear startup. The company plans to build a mega-complex of 456 small modular reactors — a still largely untested and unproven technology in the United States — on the vast tracts of Bureau of Land Management land in the county. The project will store radioactive waste, according to a report from National Public Radio, and power an array of industrial activities, including data centers. “Project Beehive” has support from the state of Utah, and will include a square mile of state-owned trust lands.

Another data center complex planned for the county, Altigen Energy’s “Jurassic Spark,” will cover hundreds of acres and include a massive natural gas plant. 

It’s an abrupt shift. Carbon County’s coal mines produced nearly 10 million tons of coal in 2006. But a shift to cheaper energy sources, like renewables and natural gas, along with depleted supplies in the coal seams, sank the region’s main economic engine in just a few decades. Since 2023, not a single pound of coal has been mined in Carbon County.

“They say everything’s left us, and if we don’t grab these table scraps we’re not going to get anything,” said O’Neil. “I don’t think our county has to take the table scraps.”

Empty coal cars sit idle along U.S. Highway 6 near Wellington in Carbon County, Utah, in 2022.
Francisco Kjolseth / The Salt Lake Tribune

None of Carbon County’s new data center plans call for coal. The Utah Trust Lands Administration recently agreed to lease a square mile of its state-owned land for up to 100 years to Valar Atomics. The nuclear startup intends to use that lease to run some of its small modular reactors, process its uranium TRISO-fuel to feed the reactors, build water desalination, manufacture steel, refine critical minerals — and support data centers.

The Valar site is expected to generate $35 million in lease rents over 50 years, according to information the Trust Lands Administration staff presented to its board last month. Revenue collected from the project benefits Utah schools. (The state agency declined to comment on the Valar project.)

During that September board meeting, three Carbon County residents who are employed or expected to be employed by Valar spoke in favor of the project. All three of the Carbon County commissioners also voiced their support.

“[We] realize that this topic is a hot button now, along with data centers,” said Larry Jensen, one of the commissioners. “It’s important that you understand that the Carbon County commissioners are committed to allowing these things to move forward. Even with the pushback — we realize that there are a few in our community who will push back — but the silent majority are the ones that we really represent.”

Cheryl Lupo, a longtime resident of the county, balked at that assertion. She is running for a seat on the county commission this year. As an unaffiliated candidate, she had to collect 300 signatures to land on the ballot. She said the opinions she heard during that process were overwhelmingly opposed to data centers and nuclear plants.

“People are up in arms,” Lupo said. “Torches and pitchforks. Because they’re not being heard.”

Governor Spencer Cox, U.S. Senator John Curtis, and other high-ranking Utah officials welcomed Valar to the state earlier this year, allowing it to test its “Ward250” microreactor at the San Rafael Energy Lab in neighboring Emery County. Valar announced it had achieved “self-sustaining criticality” in June — a process where atoms split and maintain a steady fission chain reaction without being fed more neutrons. The company has plans to power a 30-megawatt nuclear-powered AI data center in Emery County, too, in partnership with the computer-chip giant Nvidia.

Small modular reactors have yet to be deployed for commercial use in the United States. During last week’s Trust Lands Administration meeting, Mike Nelson, the board’s chair, seemed to acknowledge that the deal with Valar came with some unknowns. “We weren’t always sure what to ask about,” Nelson said, while offering praise for the nuclear startup, “and probably still aren’t sure of everything to ask about because this is a first, right?”

Utah has a troubled history with nuclear testing. Lupo’s mother was 38 years old when she died, and Lupo believes the cause was downwind effects from radioactive weapons testing in nearby Nevada during the 1950s. Her mother lived in Carbon County at the time. She believes the fallout caused her grandfather’s death, too.

“I will never, ever be a proponent of nuclear,” Lupo said.

Empty coal cars sit idle along U.S. Highway 6 near Wellington in Carbon County, Utah, in 2022.
Francisco Kjolseth / The Salt Lake Tribune

Even before the proposal to build Valar’s complex started causing a stir, rumors swirled about the possibility of another data center campus in Carbon County.

Altigen, a company that builds natural gas power plants for data centers, has selected an area east of Wellington for its 1,200-acre “Jurassic Spark” project — nearly double the size of the Valar campus, according to meeting minutes from the local Community Economic Development Board. Plans call for building a 250-megawatt gas plant to power the complex initially, but it could eventually produce 3 gigawatts of electricity, according to Jensen. For the sake of comparison, the entire state of Utah uses about 4 gigawatts. (Altigen did not respond to a request for comment.)

Data center developers are increasingly turning to natural gas to power their projects since utilities have struggled to supply the intense electricity demands of AI servers.

Last year, the Utah Legislature passed SB 132, allowing private companies with energy demands of 100 megawatts or more to build their own self-contained generating stations. The idea was to support business development, including data centers, without putting a strain on the grid used by nearly everyone else. The result was a surge of builders issuing plans and applying for permits to build gas-fired power plants.

Natural gas, however, is a potent greenhouse pollutant mostly composed of methane. It helps fuel climate change and pollutes the air in surrounding communities. And natural gas plants can produce immense amounts of heat.

But nuclear plants can produce even more heat than natural gas plants because they are less efficient, according to Robert Davies, a professor of physics at Utah State University. “If you’re in a contained valley, it concentrates the problem,” he said.

As it happens, the Wellington area sits in a valley, hemmed in by the Wasatch Range to the west and the Book Cliffs to the north and east.

“The heat island that the data centers produce, that concerns me,” said Aspen Westenskow, who has lived in Carbon and Emery counties all her life. “They go clear all this land, the brush, the trees. What helps cool the planet down? Not flat dirt.”

Westenskow said water remains her biggest source of distress. The region is water-strapped, with every drop spoken for.

Valar says its reactors use closed-loop helium cooling which requires little water, and data developers have asserted they will also use closed-loop cooling systems with low water demands.

On July 3, Carbon County issued a statement responding to their residents’ concerns. The region faces a difficult economic reality due to the decline of the coal industry, the statement said. That has shifted more of the county’s property tax burden to homeowners and remaining businesses. Data centers have earned the commissioners’ support because of their potential to infuse tax rolls with much-needed revenue.

The statement also addressed concerns over the non-disclosure agreements that some residents have questioned. “Without these agreements,” the statement reads, “some companies would choose not to explore projects in Carbon County.”

Read Next A solution to data center backlash? Put them in oil fields. Jake Bittle

It’s not clear whether the county had nondisclosure agreements with Altigen or Valar. But they’re common for companies looking to do business in Carbon County. Oran Stainbrook, one resident, said he was aware of several when he served on the county planning commission and economic development board. He resigned from those positions a few months ago to take a job in Colorado, he said.

Although he wasn’t aware of any agreements involving the data center projects, Stainbrook said he believed the commissioners were looking out for the county’s best interests, trying to lure jobs and investment.

O’Neil, from her home on U.S. Highway 6, sees things differently.

“You shouldn’t be hiding what you and the company are going to bring to a community,” O’Neil said, “and not tell the community until it’s too late and a done deal.”

toolTips('.classtoolTips7','A powerful greenhouse gas that accounts for about 11% of global emissions, methane is the primary component of natural gas and is emitted into the atmosphere by landfills, oil and natural gas systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, and wastewater treatment, among other pathways. Over a 20-year period, it is roughly 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Powering data centers on nuclear? That’s a tough sell in Utah’s coal country. on Oct 7, 2026.

There are many markers of fall: vibrant foliage, apple picking, and pumpkin-spiced everything, to name a few. Cranking up the heat is another. With record-setting energy prices, everyone is bracing for higher bills. For the more than 4 million households that rely on heating oil, this winter could be particularly devastating.

The war with Iran has pushed the cost of heating oil, which is essentially diesel, higher than it ever has been. It is hovering around $6 a gallon across much of the Northeast, where about 82 percent of homes that burn the fuel are located. That’s compared to the mid-$3 range in February. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association, or NEADA, projects that the cost of warming a home with that fossil fuel will go up 50 percent across those states. That amounts to $878 per household, or some $3.8 billion overall. 

“The volatility of this product right before winter is scary,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the organization, which had projected a lower increase just weeks earlier. “This is part of the cost of the war.” 

The stalemate in the Mideast has curtailed ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a tenth of the world’s water-borne diesel once flowed. Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, another major source of diesel, have further curbed the global supply. That has sent prices up, with colder states expected to see heating oil hikes well above the NEADA average. Vermont and Maine, for example, face the prospect of a 76-percent jump. 

These increases threaten to overwhelm the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a federal safety net for those who cannot afford to heat or cool their homes. With existing aid buying far less fuel than it did before the war, Republicans and Democrats alike are pressing the Trump administration to release assistance quickly while Congress weighs whether to put billions more into the program. The situation is so dire that the governor of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency on Monday.

For people with oil furnaces, there are few easy alternatives. They could turn to space heaters because electricity rates haven’t climbed as fast as heating oil, but the devices are inefficient and could lead to higher bills. Burning wood is another option for those with a fireplace or stove. Although natural gas prices have remained relatively low, installing a new furnace is costly and it could take years for any savings in energy costs to recoup the investment.

Another route is to invest in weatherizing a home by adding insulation or sealing windows, for example, which can help lower bills, and many states have funding available to help with energy-saving projects. 

The EI Niño weather pattern could bring a relatively warm winter to the Northeast, which would help ease the burden of higher prices. Still, as winter approaches, people who rely on it are concerned.

“I just had my boiler cleaned/serviced for the coming season and honestly I’m terrified of the oil bill,” one person noted on Reddit. Others are weighing whether to pre-buy fuel to lock in current prices, though some are finding that dealers aren’t offering that option given the uncertainty. An especially dejected person simply said, “I have no plan and I’m all out of ideas.”

Read Next What the record-high cost of diesel means for you Tik Root

Wolfe is especially worried about the more than 1 million low-income households that rely upon heating oil. Those families may end up having to choose between filling the tank and buying necessities like food and medication. “This could be a public health crisis,” he said. “The problem is that the administration has said nothing.” 

President Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, for elimination. It has survived so far, though the administration did temporarily hold back payments last spring. Some lawmakers worry fall funds could move slowly, too. 

“A quick release of funding will ensure no gaps in assistance,” a bipartisan group of 31 senators wrote in a letter last month to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The program currently has roughly $4 billion, and the agency has until November 1 to release at least 90 percent of that money to states, with the rest coming in the spring. But the legislators want the payments to reach people as soon as possible. “Given the extraordinary pressure consumers will face this winter,” they wrote, “we ask that you make this distribution well before the deadline.”

The White House referred a request for comment to the Department of Health and Human Services, which told Grist that it will meet the deadline. “HHS has staff and capacity to distribute these funds in a timely manner,” the agency wrote in an email. 

Even if that money arrives quickly, it won’t go as far with fuel prices this high. Increasing the program’s funding would require congressional approval — a step legislators have taken in the past, including during President Trump’s first term. A House bill introduced last week would add $1 billion to the LIHEAP budget, though any action on the legislation won’t happen before midterms. Without more of a buffer, families may not have enough heating oil to last the winter.

“People’s benefit would have less purchasing power,” Miranda Gray, the deputy commissioner at the Vermont Department for Children and Families, told Grist. Her agency distributes the state’s LIHEAP distribution. If assistance were to run out, she said people might have to turn to other options, like community nonprofits. 

On Monday, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency to prepare for a rough winter ahead. Her executive order boosts assistance to 156,000 low-income households and expands access to 50,000 middle-class families. It also activates legal protections against price gouging, the state said in its press release. Healey also called on Congress to pass an additional $3 billion in funding for LIHEAP. For now, both officials and consumers are hoping for the best. 

“I try to have an optimistic attitude that things could change,” Gray told state legislators at a hearing last month. One Reddit user put it more bluntly: “I feel like I’m playing chicken with fuel prices and the impending cold weather.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Northeast’s reliance on heating oil is turning into a crisis on Oct 7, 2026.

Barrier islands like Tybee Island, off the coast of Georgia, should naturally accumulate sand from islands farther north, but human activity — development on the island, building sea walls and jetties, creating shipping channels — has disrupted that process. As a result, barrier islands are constantly losing sand, and the beaches are constantly being washed away by the relentless tide.

To address the problem, the Army Corps of Engineers has, since the 1970s, been dredging up sand and depositing it onto beaches up and down the east coast. On Tybee, which sits just south of the mouth of the Savannah River, beach renourishment happens every seven years. The natural sand-sharing there is further interrupted by the shipping channel that cuts between Tybee and its neighbors to the north.

In the winter of 2019 and 2020, the Corps placed 1.3 million cubic yards of sand on the Tybee Island beach. More than half of that sand is gone now. On one stretch near the DeSoto Beach Hotel, the dune looks like it’s been chopped in half with a giant knife, ending in a 5-foot cliff instead of a gradual slope.

“It’s extremely stark and startling to see up close and personal,” said city manager Bret Bell. “You can see the vegetation. It’s bisected in half. You can see the roots coming out of the dune system.”

It’s not just the dune grasses. In some places, the tide and storms have cut into sea turtle nests buried in the dune. Businesses are feeling the pinch too. The dramatic erosion has forced chair and umbrella rental operations off the beach in some places, Bell said, and the DeSoto has lost bookings due to the poor state of the beach in front of its doors. 

All told, the erosion puts the island itself — and the mainland — at risk. The sea level is rising about half an inch a year due to climate change.

“It is really our only protection against the encroaching oceans,” Bell said. “Storm surge would inundate our island if it weren’t for the mitigating effects of the beach and our dune system.”

Tybee Island is due for renourishment again this winter. Planning began when the last renourishment ended, Bell said, and the city, Chatham County, and the state of Georgia have worked since then to set aside enough funds to cover 40 percent of the $20 million price tag — the required local match funding for the federal beach renourishment program. But Congress underfunded that program, according to Bell, and Tybee was left off the project list.

“All of a sudden, all of these beach communities started really competing for the limited amount of funding that there was,” he said.

City officials continued to lobby, residents launched a letter-writing campaign, and members of Georgia’s congressional delegation visited the island to see the stark beach erosion. Then, in September, came a development Bell called a “miracle”: The Corps redirected leftover funds from other projects to Tybee. Work is slated to begin this winter.

When it does, the Corps plans to try something new. When the agency dredges the Savannah River shipping channel, it will deposit that sand in the shallows off Tybee’s beach instead of pumping it offshore. The goal is to minimize the wave action that eats away at the beach and allow the sand to travel more like it naturally would without the interruption of the shipping channel.

“That really is expected to extend the life of our nourishment,” Bell said. “So instead of the next nourishment happening in seven years, it might be 10 years.”

Update: This story has been updated to reflect how the Army Corps of Engineers is funding the Tybee Beach renourishment.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The never-ending struggle to protect Georgia’s most popular beach on Oct 7, 2026.

An Arizona community’s plan to reuse an invasive weed to construct low-income housing shows that when we can't pressure the top, we can rebuild from the bottom.

How did we, as children, come to believe that banana spiders were ours to capture and kill? We thought nothing of the welfare of the insects.

What would it actually mean to live with less? Can we preserve the things we value most—health, human rights, cultural diversity, individual freedom—without preserving the system that created them?

• Like a Roman emperor, President Trump is obsessed with all manner of monuments and other public buildings. Unlike Rome, though — which built 186,000 miles of roads throughout Europe— he seems entirely uninterested in public transportation, refusing to distribute grants or move projects forward. (WBUR)
• In fairness, the Trump administration is prepared to fund some passenger rail and bus rapid transit … but they plan to privilege communities with high marriage and birth rates. (Politico)
• Trump signed an executive order during a visit to Nebraska allowing everyone who drives a diesel vehicle to use tax-free fuel meant for farmers. But it won’t help lower prices much, because the real culprit is a lack of supply. (WRAL)
• Transit is often difficult for seniors to use at a time when many stop driving and need it the most. (The Conversation)
• Walkable cities are usually more enjoyable for drivers, too. (Streetsblog USA)
• Antonia Malchik ties the tactics AI companies are using to the ones used by the automobile industry to overcome opposition in the early 20th century. (Trespassing)
• New walking and biking projects in Seattle’s Pinehurst neighborhood can help health the scars left by I-5. (Seattle Bike Blog)
• Apparently nobody really knows when Maryland’s Purple Line will open. (Maryland Matters)
• Amtrak’s second daily train between Pittsburgh and New York City will launch Nov, 18. (Tribune-Review)
• A new California law lets Valley Transportation Authority employees move into affordable apartments built on VTA-owned land. (San Jose Spotlight)
• Some jerk in Nashville set up a device that screeches at people whenever they walk down the sidewalk in front of his house. (WKRN)
• Electric vehicle sales hit a record high in Europe, but have yet to put much of a dent in car-related emissions. (Transport & Environment)
• Asia’s new high-speed metros could represent a paradigm shift for urban rail because they’re fast enough to compete with highways. (The Transit Brief)
• At 200 miles, Japan’s longest walking trail connects six cities, rural villages, beaches, mountains and historic sites. (Euro News)

The city and state are gearing up to use the MTA’s existing bus-mounted cameras to ticket drivers who illegally park in bike lanes, more than three years after state legislators gave the city Department of Transportation and MTA authority to do so.

DOT and the MTA have have had the power to ticket drivers for blocking bus lanes, blocking bus stops and double parking on bus routes and blocking bike lanes since the state expanded the on-board bus camera system to allow for enforcement outside of bus lanes in 2023. The agencies refer to the whole system as automated camera enforcement, or ACE.

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ACE cameras have ticketed drivers for the three bus-related offenses since August 2024, starting with 623 buses on 14 routes. The program has since grown to cover 2,000 buses on 70 routes.

But in all of that time, the agencies have never ticketed drivers in bike lanes, despite having the authority to do so. Last year, the MTA did not directly address Streetsblog’s question of why the bike lane enforcement hadn’t begun, but suggested it was more focused on getting more cameras onto more buses rather than expanding what the cameras could do.

Now though, the agency said it’s ready to start using the awesome powers of cameras to get drivers out of bike lanes.

“We’ve tested this on the ACE system hardware and look forward to advancing a public pilot with DOT,” said MTA spokesperson Eugene Resnick.

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The MTA and DOT needed to collaborate to piece together the new ticketing system. The MTA is responsible for installing the cameras on buses, and those cameras have to capture a driver committing the same traffic infraction over a five minute period. DOT employees then review and process the resulting camera footage. The city told Streetsblog that it recently completed an internal bike lane enforcement test in its own back-end, and will soon begin a public pilot.

“We’ve recently worked with MTA to complete a successful test of this concept with its ACE system and look forward to advancing a public pilot as soon as possible,” said DOT spokesperson Vin Barone.

Both DOT and street safety advocates have pursued camera enforcement against bike lane blockers for years.

In 2021, the city asked vendors for ideas on how they would set up a system to automatically ticket bike lane scofflaws, despite the fact that the agency would ultimately require Albany’s permission to ding drivers. The 2023 state budget finally expanded the authority of bus cameras to monitor traffic infractions outside the bus lane.

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Camera enforcement works. MTA Executive Vice President for Buses Frank Farrell credited ACE for helping buses hit their highest citywide speed in four years this August. And in Hoboken, automated cameras that ticketed drivers in bike lanes cut the number of cars in bike lanes by 59 percent during a 2025 pilot. The Square Mile City also found that 93 percent of drivers who received a ticket for blocking a bike lane didn’t pick up a second one.

Advocates who have waited patiently for the enforcement to finally begin praised the forward movement, but also called for a clearer public timeline and for the state legislature to further expand camera enforcement to cover parking violations.

“We’re excited to hear that testing has concluded on automated bike lane enforcement under ACE, but we need a clear and transparent timeline for swift implementation,” said Michael Sutherland, the senior policy and legislative analyst at Open Plans.

“Once live, this enforcement will have a major positive impact for cyclist safety; every day without it means another day that cyclists’ safety is at risk. These camera programs work, proven by the massive success of the ACE, red light, and speed camera programs, and we also urge the state to expand automated enforcement to parking violations with S8665/A5440.”

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Pittsburgh is shouting for car-free travel options — and as city leaders install new bus lanes, actions are speaking even louder than words.

Steel City leaders and transit advocates gathered last week to celebrate Week Without Driving, the annual nationwide event bringing awareness to the pitfalls of American car dependency. The convening occurred next to one of the city’s newest bus lanes, still shiny from their installation in August.

“This is the result of transit riders, people without cars, being put at the center of public policy,” said Dan Yablonsky, the digital organizing director of Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Student, senior, and disability advocates were among the crowd calling for improved car-free travel options in Pittsburgh last week.

Week Without Driving began in 2021 to show local leaders the challenges that their non-driving constituents experience regularly. Elected officials, transportation planners and policymakers are all encouraged to hang up the keys for a week and put themselves in their neighbors’ shoes — and on their bikes, buses and trains.

“For people who can grab their keys and go, transportation often isn’t a major concern,” according to the campaign’s website. “But for those of us who can’t drive or can’t afford to, transportation is something we think about daily.”

While the week traditionally highlights the burden of getting around for the one-third of Americans who can’t drive, Pittsburghers highlighted the potential to improve other mobility options — and the progress their city has already made.

“Riders are really excited about these lanes,” Yablonsky said. “The buses breeze by these previously congested roadways that always made [trips] late or unreliable.”

Jacob Evangelista, a safe streets advocate and student at the University of Pittsburgh, speaks as a public bus passes by on a newly-installed bus lane.

It’s no secret that frequency and reliability can make or break how well a transit system works — and by extension, how willing people are to ride it. Very few people will willingly wait for a bus that takes an hour to arrive, or one they’re not certain is coming at all.

By contrast, the kind of bus lanes winning applause in Pittsburgh can insulate transit from car traffic, ensuring on-time pickups and faster drop-offs for riders. Put another way: more bus lanes plus more transit riders equals less driving.

Pittsburgh’s new red paint runs along the University Line, a proposed rapid bus corridor operated by Pittsburgh Regional Transit. The line will feature upgraded shelters, real-time arrival screens and safer walk and bike connections, as well as the bus lanes. The University Line will serve one of Pittsburgh’s most important corridors, connecting the University of Pittsburgh and the Downtown, Uptown, and Oakland neighborhoods.

The bus lanes are not done yet, with several blocks still awaiting upgrades, and a highly-anticipated expansion still in the planning stage. Still, Yablonsky says Pittsburghers are feeling the investment.

“It’s night and day,” he said.

Pittsburgh is upgrading a series of bus corridors in Downtown, Uptown, and Oakland neighborhoods, with future expansions being planned. Map: Pittsburgh Regional Transit via Remix

Pittsburgh’s Week Without Driving celebration also marked city leaders’ commitment to expanding car alternatives — even as their federal and state counterparts disappoint.

Rather than encouraging the development of bus lanes, the Trump administration spent its summer urging lawmakers to “prioritize [spending for] motor vehicle travel” and dismissing bike lanes as tools of harmful “DEI” initiatives. Meanwhile, Congress just passed an extension of its transportation spending bill — but not without gutting transit funding first.

Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato reaffirms the county’s commitment to fully-funded public transit in her country.

Pennsylvania legislators have played a similar card for years. State funding for public transit has dropped to what advocates describe as “crisis levels”, ensuring service cuts, layoffs, and even trains catching on fire.

Like many other cities, that’s effectively left Pittsburgh to fend for themselves. But as Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato pointed out at the event, local governments aren’t powerless to improve transit and deter driving — even without much help from higher levels of government.

“We will keep pushing for [state funding],” said Innamorato. “We will not pause until we get the funding that our neighbors deserve to build the transit system that works for all of us.”

Lock the Gate Alliance and local farmers say the NSW government’s NSW Gas Statement released today failed to listen to community concerns about proposed gas projects, which will prolong uncertainty and pain for North West communities.