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Earlier this year Freepoint Eco-Systems announced that it would be suspending operations at its facility in Licking County. This is a major victory for clean air and a real opportunity for clean jobs as since opening, this facility has been a major polluter in the community and a toxic workplace. 

Freepoint was one of just seven operational pyrolysis facilities in the United States. Freepoint claimed it was “recycling” plastic trash into low grade oil called py-oil. However, in a notice of violation published shortly before the facility suspended operations it was revealed that Freepoint had not produced enough py-oil in nine months to qualify for a recycling exemption and therefore had been misregulated. 

Malfunctions reveal the truth we knew all along

Py oil is the low grade oil made at these ‘recycling’ facilities. The facilities need to process more than 70% by weight of the plastic waste into py-oil to qualify for a recycling exception. This rule is set in the Clean Air Act rules for incinerators. For 3 quarters in a row in its limited operation, Freepoint was ‘recycling’ less than this. Because Freepoint was not “recycling” enough plastic into py-oil it should instead be regulated as an incinerator. This reveals the truth we knew all along. Plastic pyrolysis is plastic burning. 

In just under two years of operation the facility received five notices of violations and had 27 malfunctions in the first five months of 2026.  There were also multiple OSHA investigations of the facility including one shortly after start-up after reports of fine plastic dust. An OSHA report from 2025 revealed a worker was hospitalized with chemical burns after a drum that was only supposed to be holding plastic spilled sulfuric acid on them. 

After the smells, malfunctions, and black smoke flaring events, Freepoint has lost the community’s trust and so even though they are in the process of shutting down we wanted to make sure they protect the community, workers, and our environment through the process. 

Our Findings

On June 10th Earthworks and our partners at Buckeye Environment Network were at the facility with our optical gas imaging (OGI) camera. This is a special camera which is designed to detect certain invisible, airborne pollutants such as harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs). 

While we were at Freepoint we caught a sickening whiff of a sweet chemical odor as workers were transferring fluids between a truck and storage tank. When we observed this process through our camera, we identified emissions from the hatch on the tank. Due to the nature of the site, these emissions likely consisted of VOCs that could have posed a threat to the health of the  nearby worker. From our vantage point we could not see if any of the workers involved with this process had PPE to keep them safe. Many of the materials mentioned in Freepoint’s permits are carcinogens and workers deserve the proper safety equipment throughout the shut down process. 

While the facility was cold and there was no pyrolysis taking place, this demonstrates that even during shut down Freepoint still has the potential to pollute. It has an obligation to the community, and even more so the workers, to ensure this process is done safely and transparently. 

We’re calling on Freepoint to address community and worker concerns by holding a town hall before the facility closes on July 26th. 

Together, we can get justice for our communities— join us!

The post Freepoint Plastics Incinerator: Still polluting while shutting down appeared first on Earthworks.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (July 13, 2026) – Last night, Governor Shapiro signed Pennsylvania’s 2027 state budget, which was finalized over the weekend after negotiations across chambers and parties.  

The bills increased the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s general fund allocation by less than inflation and contained a handful of policy provisions both harmful and helpful to our health and natural environment. The budget lacked funding for transit. 

Alex Bomstein, Executive Director of Clean Air Council, issued the following statement: 

“The negotiations around the budget this summer were an opportunity to move ahead on important legislation such as a moratorium on new hyperscale data centers and removing barriers to clean and abundant renewable energy. And this budget should have secured critical funding for transit systems across rural and urban Pennsylvania communities. 

“Instead, legislators passed a state budget that doesn’t change much and left the Capitol without taking meaningful action on the issues that matter most to Pennsylvanians. While a status quo budget could be a lot worse, it is a missed opportunity. This will continue to force transit agencies across the state to cut services and increase fares. Big tech and fossil fuel interests will continue to pollute our air, raise our energy bills, and take advantage of our communities.” 

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Two weeks after eliminating the funding for the county’s fire chief and his deputy, Sussex County supervisors voted to give an annual payment of $422,250 to the volunteer rescue squad run by Board Chairman Steve White, according to a memorandum of understanding obtained by Checks & Balances Project (C&BP).

The $422,250 is more than twice the annual revenue for the Stony Creek Volunteer Rescue Squad (SCVRS) in the years leading up to 2019, which is the last year the squad filed its tax returns with the IRS.

SCVRS lost its federal nonprofit status in 2023, because it failed to file tax returns for three straight years. It regained its nonprofit status in January 2025, but there are no more recent publicly available tax returns after 2019.

The squad’s revenues also include donations, billings to Medicare and Medicaid and other payments from the county. The $422,250 in county funding far outstrips SCVRS revenues in previous years. Consider:

• In 2015, annual revenues were $154,771;
• in 2016, $78,426;
• in 2017, $124,837;
• in 2018, they were $186,911.

C&BP obtained the memorandum of understanding through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Too many questions

The funding for Fire Chief Nick Sheffield’s job was removed during a special retreat in September 2025 after he questioned SCVRS’ finances during supervisors’ meetings. Sheffield also said that SCVRS had not filed its tax returns.

Sheffield said, “There’s a net profit to that and nobody knows what the net profit is,” though it is unclear if Sheffield was referring to Stony Creek’s profits of those of other county rescue squads.

By voting for the MOU, it appears that White may have had a direct conflict of interest that could be illegal under state law (Va. Code § 2.2-3112).

Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.

You may also want to read:

Checks & Balances Project files FOIA request seeking Sussex County EMS records

Checks & Balances Project seeks Sussex County’s recusal policy

Checks & Balances Project seeks more tips from Sussex County residents

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The post Deal with county fattens Stony Creek Volunteer Rescue Squad’s bank account appeared first on Checks and Balances Project.

DENVER—An attack on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments is reportedly scheduled to happen today at 4:30 pm ET behind closed doors at the White House, according to sources cited in news stories out of Utah.

President Donald Trump’s public calendar lists the 4:30 pm Oval Office event only as “sign an executive order,” with no mention of Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, or the roughly two million acres of protected public land on the chopping block. The signing is marked as closed to press, and the White House has no press briefings scheduled today.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Executive Director Aaron Weiss: 

“Planning this attack behind closed doors and providing no notice to the press, the five Bears Ears Tribes, or the public shows the administration knows it’s on the wrong side of history.

“When Trump tried to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase in 2017, he flew to Salt Lake City and announced it from the state capitol in front of Utah politicians. This time, the president wants as few cameras in the room as possible. The five Tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and the American people will learn what happened to their land from a press release.”

Public opinion: When the first Trump administration asked the public in 2017, it received 2.8 million comments, 98 percent of them in support of keeping national monuments in place. A 2024 poll conducted on behalf of the Grand Canyon Trust found 71 percent of Utah voters support keeping Bears Ears as a national monument and 74 percent support keeping Grand Staircase-Escalante, including majorities of Republicans. Three-quarters of Utah voters support presidents’ authority to protect public lands as national monuments. Across the West, Colorado College’s 2025 Conservation in the West poll found that 89 percent of Western voters, including 83 percent of Republicans, believe national monument designations made over the past decade should be kept in place.

Background: President Bill Clinton designated Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, and President Barack Obama designated Bears Ears National Monument in 2016 at the request of five sovereign Tribal nations. In December 2017, President Trump cut Bears Ears from 1.35 million acres to roughly 228,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante from 1.87 million acres to about 1 million acres, the largest rollback of public lands protections in American history. Lawsuits from Tribes, conservation groups, and businesses challenging those cuts were put on hold in early 2021 and remain pending in federal court in Washington, D.C. President Joe Biden restored both monuments in October 2021.

Learn more:

• Trump Orders Largest National Monument Reduction In U.S. History (2017) — NPR

• America to Trump and Zinke: Don’t touch national monuments – Westwise

• In defense of Bears Ears National Monument – Westwise

• STATEMENT on proposed Bears Ears National Monument management plan – Center for Western Priorities

• Bears Ears Plan Makes History – Grand Canyon Trust

The post Trump plans secretive attack on Utah national monuments, underscoring unpopularity appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

National Nurses United (NNU) is today condemning the latest murder by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, this time in Biddeford, Maine. NNU maintains that the only way forward on this issue of fascist authoritarian violence targeting communities nationwide is the abolition of ICE. This latest horror comes just days after ICE’s murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas.

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler

I have a commentary in Carbon Brief today, written with my friend, Prof. Chris Callahan. It focuses on the recent heatwave in France.

One point we wanted to make, but that was downplayed after the elves at Carbon Brief edited the piece, is that this event should make us rethink the victory lap people took after RCP8.5 was judged to be implausible.

The focus on arguments about emissions scenarios that only affect the climate late in this century takes the spotlight off the fact that the impacts of climate change are already here and they’re significant, as this French heatwave shows.

The reduction in future emissions is good news, but it may be cancelled by the fact that models seem to be underestimating the extreme heat that Europe is experiencing.

Here is a reprint of our Carbon Brief piece:

In June 2026, a record-breaking heatwave swept across Europe, with France among the first and hardest hit countries.

In a new analysis, we estimate that the extreme conditions caused more than 2,700 heat-related deaths in France.

We also show how France’s extreme temperatures in June exceeded projections from climate models.

Our findings illustrate the human toll of extreme weather as the world warms.

We also highlight the challenges in projecting the magnitude of future heatwaves and their impacts on people.

Outpacing projections

For most of this century, Europe has seen summer heat extremes that outpace projections from climate models.

Several different factors likely explain this trend, including reductions in planet-cooling aerosols as nations have cleaned up their air pollution, as well as changes in atmospheric circulation patterns, which models struggle to represent.

In June 2026, daily high temperatures averaged across France reached 36.9°C, shattering the previous June record set in 2022 by 2.4°C1.

The rise in observed temperatures in France has outpaced projections made by climate models, with June maximum temperatures more in line with what was expected for the 2070s.

This is illustrated in the figure below, which shows how France’s average maximum daily high temperature for June recorded in 2026 (black line) compares to climate model projections (blue and orange lines).

Comparison of observed (ERA5, black) and modelled (blue and orange) temperatures across France from 2000 to 2080. Plot shows the maximum daily high temperature recorded in June for each year, after averaging temperatures across France. The model ensembles are bias-corrected CMIP6 model ensembles from the NEX-GDDP (blue) and CIL-GDPCIR (orange) projects. The dashed blue and orange lines are the ensemble averages. Credit: Prof Andrew Dessler. Counting the death toll of climate change

The downstream impacts of these extreme temperatures are lethal.

Scientists are able to estimate the death toll of high temperatures in many locations, depending on the availability of mortality and climate data.

There are several ways to do this.

One option is to examine death certificates to see which deaths have been directly recorded by physicians as related to heat. However, there is strong evidence that this method significantly undercounts heat-related deaths, as most death certificates do not consider environmental factors such as heat when diagnosing the cause of death.

Alternatively, it is possible to calculate the rate of total (“all-cause”) mortality in a given time period relative to previous time periods – for example, by comparing the total number of deaths in June 2026 compared to the average of previous Junes. This “excess deaths” figure can be used as an estimate of the deaths from a heat wave.

Using this approach, Public Health France attributed around 2,000 deaths in France to the extreme heat in the week of 22-28 June.

Finally, scientists can use long-term data on overall mortality and correlate changes in mortality with changes in temperature to understand the statistical relationship between the two.

Research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025 that used this third approach found that mortality rates in France increase rapidly in cold or hot conditions as daily maximum temperatures depart further from approximately 20C.

This pattern of a U-shaped response of mortality to temperature — shown in the figure below — is very consistent across time periods and regions around the world.

  Relationship between daily high temperature and all-cause mortality rates in France, estimated using data over 2004-19. Credit: Dr Christopher Callahan, based on data and methods in Callahan et al. (2025)

To calculate the death toll of the June 2026 heatwave in France, we compared observed temperatures over 12-29 June to their baseline average over 1980-2025.

The difference between these two temperatures helps us understand how many more people died than they would have in the absence of such extreme conditions.

Over 12-29 June, we found that France has experienced around 2,700 heat-related deaths above the average baseline. Day-to-day heat-related mortality rates rose from less than 100 to almost 300 on the hottest days of 24 and 25 June.

This is shown in the graph below, which illustrates the cumulative total heat-related deaths seen in France over the two-and-a-half week period. The inset shows how heat-related deaths fluctuated on a day-to-day basis during this time.

Estimated heat-related mortality over 12-29 June, based on a U-shaped response of mortality to temperature. The main plot shows cumulative total deaths and the inset shows daily deaths. Credit: Dr Christopher Callahan, based on data and methods in Callahan et al. (2025)

Recent analysis by World Weather Attribution has already shown that human-caused climate change increased the frequency and intensity of the June heat wave across Europe.

Meanwhile, previousresearch has shown there is substantial evidence that heat-related mortality in Europe has already been elevated by greenhouse gas emissions.

As a result, we can be confident that at least some of the more than 2,700 deaths already seen in France are directly due to the burning of fossil fuels.

Calculating climate risk

In April, the UN-led body responsible for coordinating the work of climate modelling centres — the Coupled Modelling Intercomparison Project (CMIP) — unveiled a set of seven new emissions scenarios.

These are designed to replace the previous scenarios that have been used by scientists to understand how the climate might change in the future. They will feed into the upcoming seven assessment report (AR7) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The range of future emissions in the new CMIP scenarios is smaller, with scenarios of very high or very low emissions no longer on the table.

The retirement of the very-high emissions scenario — known as “RCP8.5” — led to certain commentators in the media and in politics, including US president Donald Trump, arguing that the risks of climate change had been “overstated”2.

Our analysis of June’s heat-related deaths in France suggests that, even if the most severe emissions pathways are no longer needed, climate impacts are taking a heavy toll on society.

Moreover, the temperatures seen in France show that climate models continue to underpredict the magnitude of heatwaves for a particular level of global warming.

This is because greenhouse gas emissions are only a first step in estimating the impacts of climate change.

The second step is converting emissions to changes in the climate at both the global and local levels — or hazards. This includes heatwaves, flash floods and droughts.

The third step is to determine how changes in the hazards will affect local populations. This can be determined by calculating people’s exposure and vulnerability to hazards.

Substantial uncertainty persists at every stage of this sequence.

For example, scientists do not know exactly how the global climate will react to ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions — nor the extent to which global temperature increases will drive local climate hazards. We also do not know how climate change at a local level impacts human health outcomes.

Managing the future of heat risk

Almost all heat-related deaths are preventable.

Adaptation options, such as air conditioning, heat action plans and social support for isolated people, will be crucial as the climate moves away from the typical conditions that people are used to.

Our previous research showed that France made a lot of progress reducing heat-related mortality after the deadly 2003 summer heatwave by taking many of these actions.

Adaptation can reduce deaths, but it cannot eliminate the risk created by continued warming.

Without a move away from fossil fuels, future heatwaves will keep testing the limits of public health systems and more people will die.

Thanks for reading The Climate Brink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.

other stuff

My old friend3 Steve Wilson has a new Substack. It’s not about climate, it’s about U.S. drug policy. He’s writing a book and is posting chapters and they’re pretty good. Check it out.

I’d be grateful if you could hit the like button ?? below! It helps more people discover these ideas and lets me know what’s connecting with readers.

1 For more on the impacts and coverage of Europe’s June heatwave, see Carbon Brief’s explainer.

2 For more on false and misleading claims around the new emissions scenarios, see Carbon Brief’s factcheck.

3 I mean that I’ve been friends with him for a long time not that he’s old.

Today, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ruled that President Trump’s lawsuit asking for $10 billion from the IRS was manufactured to justify a “settlement” that included a nearly $1.8B slush fund to reward political allies.

Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, co-presidents of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:

“Donald Trump had the brilliant idea of suing the government he runs and resolving the lawsuit with the creation of an illegal and unconstitutional nearly $1.8 billion slush fund, paid for at taxpayer expense and likely to be distributed to January 6 insurrectionists, among others, as well with as an immunity deal protecting Trump and his family from IRS investigation. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was a willing participant in this fraud on the court and the American people.

“Trump and the DOJ tried to remove the issue from the court in which Trump originally filed the sham lawsuit but now Judge Williams has had her word. In a devastating order, she finds that ‘This lawsuit was not brought to vindicate rights; it was brought to manipulate the judicial process to pursue benefits unavailable in litigation because the Parties were not adverse.” The abuse is so severe that she has ordered the bar to consider sanctions against Trump’s attorney; ordered that Trump and DOJ never again refer to their collusive deal as a ‘settlement;’ and authorized amicus filers in the case — including Public Citizen — to seek attorneys fees.

“Crucially, Judge Williams finds that the abuse is committed equally by Trump’s private lawyers and the Todd Blanche’s Department of Justice, with DOJ’s conduct ‘equally untenable.’ Blanche’s DOJ ‘disregarded DOJ policies, and accomplished objectives beyond those authorized, as well as those specifically prohibited, by law.’

“If the Senate needed an additional reason not to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general, it just got it.”

On Monday, 12 state attorneys general launched an antitrust suit to block the proposed $111 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery. California Attorney General Rob Bonta led the multistate lawsuit, joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington.

“The unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.,” Bonta said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

The combination of these two massive entertainment and news companies would create a media colossus with CBS, CNN, HBO, Nickelodeon and the Warner Bros. and Paramount film studios — among other major media properties — all under one roof. The deal’s announcement in 2025 spurred widespread protests led by a coalition of First Amendment advocates, unions, consumer-rights groups, and Hollywood actors and directors.

Free Press and others opposing the mega-merger explain that the deal would give one company the power and incentives to raise prices, lay off thousands of workers and limit consumer options, while giving the Trump-aligned Ellison family the power to shape public discourse at the president’s direction in exchange for the administration’s regulatory approval. That’s why administration officials like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have openly rooted for the Ellisons to obtain CNN, based on their documented promises to make “sweeping changes” to the network to please Trump.

State attorneys general can sue to block mergers that violate federal and state antitrust laws. In March, California and New York attorneys general led a multistate coalition in suing to block the merger of broadcasters Nexstar and Tegna. Typically, state attorneys general have coordinated such antitrust suits with their federal counterparts at the Justice Department, but the Trump DoJ has shirked its consumer-protection duties in mergers involving favored Trump allies. Free Press and allies delivered hundreds of thousands of petitions opposing the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery deal to Attorney General Bonta’s office in May, and hosted rallies against Paramount’s corruption in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. González said:

“Today we thank these state attorneys general for listening to the hundreds of thousands of people who have taken action to oppose this mega-merger. This deal would result in higher prices and fewer choices for consumers. It would open the door to wholesale layoffs across the news and entertainment industry and lead to less competition and more propaganda in news coverage.

“President Trump and his cronies want to rush this anti-competitive deal through because David Ellison has demonstrated time and again that he will leverage his control of his media empire to silence Trump’s critics and amplify MAGA propaganda. That’s corruption, plain and simple. Any merger of this scale would diminish creativity and diversity in entertainment, weaken journalists’ ability to hold those in power accountable and further endanger our democracy. This is especially true when the Ellisons are in charge. To win approval for their takeover of CBS News, the Ellisons promised to gut hard-hitting reporting across the network — and have gleefully followed through. And they’ll do the same to undermine editorial independence at CNN if they gain control of the global news network.

“The states’ challenge means that this corrupt merger is far from a done deal. While the administration won’t take a stand against the president’s billionaire cronies, we can still stop the Ellisons’ power grab. While Paramount is flaunting its corruption and toasting Trump officials, we’re standing with the workers and artists at the heart of the news and entertainment industries — and with the American people, who deserve a diverse and independent media system that works on their behalf, and against the self-interest of greedy billionaires and unethical politicians.”

Declaración sobre Autonomía, Democracia Radical y autodeterminación [ English ] [ Español ] [ Français ] [ Português] Redactado en la “Confluencia Global sobre Democracia Radical, Autonomía y Autodeterminación”, Port Edward, Sudáfrica, del 2 al 6 de febrero de 2025. Organizado por el Tejido Global de Alternativas, la Academia de Modernidad Democrática, WoMIN y el Comité de Crisis de Amadiba. Ver AlternativesAlternatives

Declaration on Autonomy, Radical Democracy and Self Determination [ English ] [ Español ] [ Français ] [ Português] Issued at ‘Global Confluence on Radical Democracy, Autonomy and Self-determination’, Port Edward, South Africa, 2-6 February 2025. Organised by Global of Alternatives, Academy of Democratic Modernity, WoMIN, Jineology and the Amadiba Crisis Committee. See alternativesalternativesAlternativesMASSAAlternativesGTAAlternatives

Registered nurses and resident physicians at University of California San Francisco will protest a UC Regents meeting on July 15 to highlight their patient safety concerns about boarding in the emergency department. Combined with existing unsafe staffing, the boarding has created unsafe conditions caused by providing patient care in waiting rooms and hallways.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) today filed formal comments calling on the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to withdraw its sweeping proposed overhaul of the federal grantmaking system, warning that the rule would institutionalize political cronyism across over a trillion in annual public funds, destroy the independence of American science, and threaten the constitutional separation of powers.

The OMB proposed rule would require all discretionary federal awards to “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities” and would essentially abandon merit-based federal grantmaking. Specifically, this rule would:

• Require senior political appointees to review most awards before they are issued and allow them to terminate multi-year existing grants at will.
• Explicitly forbid appointees from “deferring to peer reviewers or routinely ratifying their recommendations,” thus leading to funding decisions not based on scientific merit.
• Allow political appointees to bypass public notice requirements for funding opportunities under broad national security interest exemptions that are not defined in the rule.

“This is not a grant reform — it is a blueprint for a spoils system applied to federal science funding,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of PEER, noting that this proposed rule arrives at a time when independent oversight mechanisms designed to detect corruption and financial mismanagement have been systematically destroyed or weakened by this administration.

The administration is already targeting grants on important environmental and public health issues that conflict with its political narrative, such as climate science, vaccine safety, chemical safety, and emerging infectious diseases, while it is simultaneously working to steer federal money to political allies such as Elon Musk and family members of the president, according to PEER’s comments.

“Grant money has historically been distributed through programs authorized by Congress using statutory, regulatory, formula-based, or competitive criteria rather than direct tests of political loyalty,” added Whitehouse. “Placing all scientific research funding under the unreviewable discretion of political appointees is not an administrative reform, it is a recipe for corruption on a scale not seen even in this administration.”

###

Read the PEER comments

See the OMB proposal

Dozens of police officers in India have arrested the prominent Indigenous rights activist Pranab Doley, #

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order this afternoon shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah. Sources told ABC4 the signing is planned for 4:30 p.m. Eastern in the Oval Office. A White House official called the reports “pure speculation” in statements to multiple outlets.

This would be the second time Trump has attempted to shrink the two monuments. In 2017, Trump reduced Bears Ears by 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante by nearly half. President Biden restored both monuments in 2021, and lawsuits over Trump’s original cuts remain pending in federal court in Washington, D.C. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals recently allowed a separate Utah lawsuit challenging Biden’s restoration to move forward.

Reducing or eliminating national monuments is a broadly unpopular idea across political parties. “The American people have made it clear over and over again that they want our national monuments protected, not sold out to drilling and mining companies. President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum would be wise to remember that,” said Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Aaron Weiss in a statement.

A 2024 poll conducted for the Grand Canyon Trust found 71 percent of Utah voters support keeping Bears Ears as a monument, and 74 percent support keeping Grand Staircase-Escalante. Colorado College’s 2026 Conservation in the West poll found 91 percent of Western voters, including 87 percent of Republicans, want existing national monument designations kept in place.

Trump administration finalizes rule weakening endangered species protections

The Interior Department and NOAA Fisheries finalized a rule Friday redefining “harm” under the Endangered Species Act to exclude habitat destruction, reversing a long-standing interpretation. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the change “restores common sense, respects private property, provides much-needed certainty for landowners and follows the statute Congress actually passed,” while critics say it clears the way for oil and gas drilling, mining, and logging on habitat that imperiled species depend on. “For more than four decades, the definition of ‘harm’ recognized a simple truth: if you destroy the places wildlife need to survive, you are putting species on a path to extinction,” said Ben Greuel, wildlife campaign manager at the Sierra Club.

Quick hits Trump expected to shrink Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments

Fox13 | ABC4 | Deseret News | KSL | Backpacker | Heatmap | KMYU | Center for Western Priorities [press release]

Trump administration finalizes rule weakening endangered species protections

Washington Post | Reuters | E&E News | Associated Press | Fox 13 | Los Angeles Times

Park ranger exposes impact of 2025 public lands layoffs

Denver7

Interior proposes to rewrite grazing rules on 155M acres of BLM land

Deseret News

‘L.A. at rush hour.’ ‘Disney World.’ American national parks feeling the strain this summer

CNN

Amid blistering drought, feds tap New Mexico aquifers to build border wall without permits

WBUR

Trump administration clears path for controversial Mojave Desert water pipeline

Los Angeles Times

Opinion: Selling off your off-road trails was never about affordable housing. Mike Lee’s latest vote proves

RideApart

Quote of the day

There’s no money for overtime in a lot of national parks, there’s less people to save people when they get in trouble in national parks. So, less people to come for search and rescues, less law enforcement rangers to respond, less normal rangers to clean bathrooms. It is causing rangers to also have to go outside of their job description, which again is not what we signed up for, but we are public service, and a lot of us will do it because it’s for the greater good of the public.”

—Anonymous park ranger, Denver7

Picture This
@u.s.forestserviceGolden hour? Nah, this is legendary hour.

Coconino National Forest offers a field of sunshine with a side of dramatic skies.

Drop a pin, drop your jaw and hit the trail in your big backyard.

(Forest Service photo by Deborah Lee Soltesz.)

 

Featured photo: Indian Creek at Bears Ears National Monument, Utah. Bob Wick, BLM

The post Trump expected to shrink Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

By KAY MATTHEWS

Editor’s Note: Robin Collier of KCEI radio 90.1 recorded the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) July 7 meeting on the Questa Chevron Superfund site where the Kit Carson Electric Coop’s (KCEC) proposed hydrogen facility will be located. He sent La Jicarita the transcript, which I read and am reporting on in this article. The EPA provided detailed information that I can’t adequately cover in this article, so I’ve focused on the agency’s relationship with Chevron, the company responsible for the clean-up at its former molybdenum mine, and how that may affect the proposed hydrogen facility. Kudos for Robin for recording almost all the community meetings held to discuss this controversial proposal.

Representatives of the EPA (Region 6 based in Dallas), the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), and New Mexico Minerals and Natural Resource Department introduced themselves and after their presentation on the Chevron Superfund site agreed to take questions. They explained how a situation becomes a Superfund site, when an assessment that contamination is present then leads to what type of contaminants are present and what options are available to clean up that site. Those options are ranked and then a NEPA-like process ensues with a proposed plan presented for public comment. An ROD (Record of Decision) is then released. The Chevron Questa ROD was filed in December of 2010. The Chevron molybdenum facility closed down in 2014.

What followed was a detailed explanation of the risk assessment period that tries to identify risks to human health and the environment at the Superfund site. There was also a lengthy presentation by a representative from the Department of Health who stated that the Town of Questa municipal water system has to meet federal drinking water standards but there is the possibility of future private wells being contaminated. People can request tests of their wells that would provide updated information to the state.

An EPA representative went through the cleanup activities that are being overseen by that agency. The site was divided into five different areas to address the remedy for each one, whether it be the groundwater or the soil that have contamination. The first area was the mill, where the PCB contaminated mining material was removed. At the mine site, there are 300 million tons of waste rock material. These piles of rock were regraded to a slope that’s stable and doesn’t potentially have the ability to move should there be an earthquake or other types of activity. They are then revegetated. Seepage interceptor systems are in place to rout the water away from the waste rock material. There are also groundwater extraction systems, located inside the mine area that handle the water that’s in the underground workings. At the tailings facility the ROD calls for the material to be covered and revegetated. There are also provisions for seepage collection and groundwater extraction. She then discussed what has already been achieved in the clean-up up process, what is next on the agenda, and the various agreements that Chevron has agreed to.

Finally, there was an announcement that a public meeting for the issuance of the Chevron Questa National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit will be held at the VFW in Cerro on July the 23rd.

Public comment then ensued and the moderator quickly got to the heart of the matter with this statement: “ . . . okay, I hear you, are we shilling for Chevron?” People wanted clarification on the EPA’s relationship with Chevron, and who was responsible for the clean-up. The moderator explained that the EPA doesn’t use taxpayer dollars on a clean-up when they have a responsible party “that made the mess and can afford to clean it up.” The EPA does oversee some Superfund sites that break the terms of settlement agreements, but so far, Chevron has been cooperating.

This raised the issue that if KCEC) disturbs the tailings area where the hydrogen facility is proposed, will it be the responsible party. Under the consent decree Chevron is required to provide the EPA with a 60-day notice of intent to lease or sell any land on the Superfund site. There are deed restrictions placed on the property that includes the clause that if the new owner or lessee encounters tailing material on that property, they are to immediately notify Chevron of that. They also have to notify the state and the EPA to further investigate those areas.

A member of the audience then asked if the agencies knew that the Village of Questa had rezoned the tailings area for heavy industrial use. The representative responded that the ROD lists the use as light industrial. She went on, “We don’t have a lot of power over the hydrogen plant unless it messes with our remedy at the tailings facility. And if we find out it’s going to mess with the remedy, EPA has a lot of power.” She made it clear that KCEC never notified the EPA Superfund that it was going to construct the facility and that they have no record that it will occur on the tailing facility. The solar array is not on an actual tailing site, but people asked about dust from the tailings that could blow onto those acres. The EPA position is that it’s not harmful for people to breath that dust.

The NMED is going to investigate whether there are any permits for the solar array that’s currently under construction. They’re now looking to see if in fact Kit Carson has applied for necessary construction permits that are covered under the construction general permit. If someone is disturbing an acre or more, they’re required to submit a notice of intent for coverage under the construction general permit. As a part of the permit, they have to provide a stormwater pollution prevention plan and they have to identify any type of critical species that are identified. EPA will coordinate with NMED on this.

The transcript of this presentation will eventually be on the Chevron Questions website.

 

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By Mariah Meek, Michigan State University and Karrigan Börk, University of California, Davis

It wouldn’t make much sense to prohibit people from shooting a threatened woodpecker while allowing its forest to be cut down, or to bar killing endangered salmon while allowing a dam to dry out their habitat.

But that’s what the Trump administration is doing by changing how one word in the Endangered Species Act is interpreted: harm.

For 50 years, the U.S. government has interpreted the Endangered Species Act as protecting threatened and endangered species from actions that either directly kill them or eliminate their habitat. A new federal rule change, announced July 10, 2026, keeps the first part – protecting against the direct killing of the species – but removes habitat destruction.

That matters, because most species on the brink of extinction are on the Endangered Species list because there is almost no place left for them to live. Their habitats have been paved over, burned or transformed. Habitat protection is essential for their survival.

Green sea turtles, like this hatchling in Florida, are endangered due in part to habitat destruction and fishing nets. Keenan Adams/USFWS

As an ecologist and a law professor, we have spent our entire careers working to understand the law and science of helping imperiled species thrive. We recognize that the rule change could green-light the destruction of protected species’ habitats, making it nearly impossible to protect those endangered species.

The Legal Gambit

The Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973, bans the “take” of “any endangered species of fish or wildlife,” which includes harming protected species.

Since 1975, regulations have defined “harm” to include habitat destruction that kills or injures wildlife. Developers and logging interests challenged that definition in 1995 in a Supreme Court case, Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon. However, the court ruled that the definition was reasonable and allowed federal agencies to continue using it.

In short, the law says “take” includes harm, and under the regulatory definition at the time, harm included indirect harm through habitat destruction.

The Trump administration has now changed the definition of “harm” in a way that leaves out habitat modification.

Critical habitat throughout the U.S., including many coastlines and mountain areas. Note: Alaska is not to scale. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

This narrowed definition unravels the most significant protections granted by the Endangered Species Act.

Why Habitat Protection Matters

Habitat protection is the single most important factor in the recovery of endangered species in the United States – far more consequential than curbing direct killing alone.

A 2019 study examining the reasons species were listed as endangered between 1975 and 2017 found that only 17% were primarily threatened by direct killing, such as hunting or poaching. That 17% includes iconic species such as the red wolf, American crocodile, Florida panther and grizzly bear.

In contrast, a staggering 81% were listed because of habitat loss and degradation. The Chinook salmon, island fox, southwestern willow flycatcher, desert tortoise and likely extinct ivory-billed woodpecker are just a few examples. Globally, a 2022 study found that habitat loss threatened more species than all other causes combined.

As natural landscapes are converted to agriculture or taken over by urban sprawl, logging operations and oil and gas exploration, ecosystems become fragmented and the space that species need to survive and reproduce disappears.

The Catalina Island fox is endemic to Catalina Island. Habitat loss, diseases introduced by domestic dogs, and predators have diminished the population of these small foxes to threatened status. Catalina Island Conservancy/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Currently, more than 107 million acres of land in the U.S. are designated as critical habitat for Endangered Species Act-listed species. Industries and developers have called for changes to the rules for years, arguing it has been weaponized to stop development. However, research shows species worldwide are facing an unprecedented threat from human activities that destroy natural habitat.

Under the new change, development could be accelerated in endangered species’ habitats.

Gutting the Endangered Species Act

The definition change is a quiet way to gut the Endangered Species Act.

It is also fundamentally incompatible with the purpose Congress wrote into the act: “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved [and] to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species.” It contradicts the Supreme Court precedent, and it would destroy the act’s habitat protections.

The golden-cheeked warbler breeds only in Texas, primarily in Texas Hill Country. It has been losing habitat as development expands in the region. Steve Maslowski/USFWS, CC BY

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has argued that the recent “de-extinction” of dire wolves by changing 14 genes in the gray wolf genome means that America need not worry about species protection because technology “can help forge a future where populations are never at risk.”

But altering an existing species to look like an extinct one is both wildly expensive and a paltry substitute for protecting existing species.

The administration has also didn’t conduct the usual analysis of the environmental impact that changing the definition could have. That means the American people won’t even know the significance of this change to threatened and endangered species until it’s too late, though wildlife groups are already planning to sue over the change.

The ESA is Saving Species

Surveys have found the Endangered Species Act is popular with the public, including Republicans. The Center for Biological Diversity estimates that the Endangered Species Act has saved 99% of protected species from extinction since it was created, not just from bullets but also from bulldozers. This regulatory rollback seeks to undermine the law’s greatest strength: protecting the habitats species need to survive.

Congress knew the importance of habitat when it passed the law, and it wrote a definition of “take” that allows the agencies to protect it.

This is an update to an article originally published May 13, 2025.

Mariah Meek, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University and Karrigan Börk, Professor of Law, University of California, Davis

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

The post Harm: How Redefining One Word Strips the Endangered Species Act’s Ability to Protect Vital Habitat appeared first on The Revelator.

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Let’s be ecologically and historically honest with ourselves. It’s not a fertilizer crisis we’re facing. It’s a soil health trainwreck brought on by the agricultural inputs industry itself.

In the global debate around food security, climate change, and sustainable agriculture, soil is finally receiving the attention it deserves. For decades, mainstream agriculture and policies around agriculture treated soil as an inert medium, ignoring soil biodiversity, both above and below ground. Understanding of fertility has been exceptionally narrow, with recommendations limited to a small number of nutrients supplied by synthetic fertilizers.

But this model is now showing strain. Across continents, soil has become increasingly degraded by global supply chains that favor monocultures and chemical inputs, perverse public subsidies, and self-serving narratives and advertisements that claim that industrial agriculture feeds the world (even as it ruins our soil). According to the World Atlas of Desertification, 75 percent of the land globally is degraded, with UNESCO warning that 90 percent of the land surface will be degraded by 2050.

Over thousands of years, long before the advent of industrial agriculture, farmers have sought to improve soil to grow nutritious and abundant food. During two days in May 2026, collaborative initiatives from India, Brazil, and Kenya, supported by the Agroecology Fund, shared insights in a conversation circle on soil health management as a climate resilience and food security strategy.

From India, organizations described how farmers they worked with faced soils left sterile by years of heavy chemical input use. Brazil’s Cerrado region, a vast, biodiverse tropical savanna, has been degraded by deforestation and monocultures dependent on the extensive use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. In Kenya, organizations highlighted declining soil fertility and the loss of beneficial organisms caused by hazardous agrochemicals.

These initiatives shared techniques to detect and improve soil biodiversity, including by applying participatory methodologies that value local knowledge. From India to Kenya to Brazil, successful soil restoration is emerging from collaboration between farmers, indigenous practitioners, and researchers.

Steve Vanek, a researcher in soil science at Colorado State University, and partner of the Manor House Agricultural Centre in Kenya, said that when farmer groups discuss the difference between good and poor soils, they often identify characteristics that align closely with scientific indicators. Farmers mention soils that are “easy to plough,” not crusty, rich in earthworms, and darker in color—observations linked to aggregation and organic matter.

In 2022, the Agroecology Fund joined a donor field visit to a diversified coffee farm on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. A foundation’s technical staff inquired about the technologies the farmer applied to measure carbon sequestration. The farmer crouched, scraped soil together with his fingertips, balled it in his palm and said, “this is how we know.”

Scientific research becomes powerful when it helps explain and strengthen farmers’ observations. It becomes more inclusive and accessible when it doesn’t rely on simplistic or reductionist metrics that may be misleading or onerous for farmers to measure.

In Kerala’s Wayanad district, a climate-vulnerable hilly region in southern India, farmers had long grappled with soil erosion, acidity, declining productivity, and the overuse of chemical fertilizers.

In response to this, Thanal Trust, an NGO based in the region and part of the conversation circle, established a local soil testing laboratory, generating soil health cards for farmers, and combining findings with field-level training rooted in agroecological practice. Farmers learned about structure, texture, microbial life, mulching, trap crops, green manures, and intercropping. Thanal invested in the farmer-to-farmer approach, working with a group of farmers—men and women—who became soil management experts, testing and validating the practices, and disseminating them within their communities.

As farmers observed improvements in their soil, they also scaled up traditional engineering practices on their farms, like mud pot irrigation—a traditional practice where water drips through micro-pores of clay pots to maintain moisture exactly where it is needed. Similarly, the practice of husk burial, where coconut husks are buried in trenches, serves to retain moisture and also provide potassium.

Sreelekshmi KJ from Thanal said, “The results were visible not only in yields but also in the soil itself. Organisms such as earthworms reappeared, soil microbes returned, and biodiversity thrived. Fields once described as sterile, lifeless mediums became living laboratories.”

In Kenya, the Manor House Agriculture Centre (MHAC) developed accessible soil health tools that allow farmers to test infiltration, organic matter, and biological activity using low-cost materials.

Vanek, who is a researcher in soil science at Colorado State University, USA, said their work focuses on “the biological and physical aspects as well as some of the major chemical limitations” in smallholder systems while “building based on local knowledge.”

Instead of expensive labs disconnected from communities, MHAC came up with soil health assessment kits for smallholder farmers. These provide simplified methods to test soil health for smallholder farmers, research for development, and citizen science.

The laboratory uses 3D-printed troughs, or even simple sieves made from cardboard and old stockings. With these low-cost methods to measure particulate organic matter, farmers are quantifying the food available for the soil-food web.

These learnings are enhanced through a Farmer Research Network (FRN) supported by the McKnight Foundation, which brings farmers together to diagnose problems, test practices, compare results, and co-produce knowledge. Farmers rank their own soils, identify constraints, and learn simple methods to assess organic matter, infiltration, pH, and biodiversity.

The relationship between scientific research and farming communities is changing in both directions. Farmers are learning from researchers—just as researchers are also learning from farmers.

In Brazil, the Centro Ecologico described partnerships with academics from federal institutes to study soils biologically rather than only chemically.

Joaquim Martins, a family farmer, noted how their approach seeks to understand the vision and perspectives of farming families on soil health while helping strengthen their management practices.

“We conducted a series of interviews with farmers to analyze soils through the lens of their lived experiences, priorities, and local knowledge. The aim was to translate scientific data into the everyday realities of farmers’ lives. It also raises an important question: How can scientific research engage in meaningful dialogue with people’s knowledge systems, and how can we, as scientists, remain self-critical in that process?” he said.

The program has engaged 200 farming families on the northern coast of Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil. It has also involved Indigenous communities, who bring their own traditions of soil care and green manure practices, as well as women farmers who are helping share and strengthen local knowledge across the region.

Researchers applied the BioAS method promoted by the public Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) to examine respiration, carbon dynamics, and enzyme activity to compare conventional and agroecological systems. But just as importantly, they conducted participatory interviews to understand how families themselves define soil health: porous soils, moisture, insects, worms, easier rooting, and fewer hard crusts.

In other words, scientific research is beginning to respond to farmers’ diverse questions. Some traditional practices long treated as informal are now gaining recognition for their rigor.

Alessandra Karla da Silva from CEDAC, in Brazil, described work on “green nitrogen” produced from Gliricidia sepium biomass, a tree legume capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen and cycling nutrients through biomass. Researchers from EMBRAPA and farmers supported by CEDAC agroecological center, in a co-creation model, are exploring how it can reduce dependence on synthetic nitrogen fertilizers while maintaining productivity.

These approaches exemplify that the idea is no longer to choose between modern science and traditional wisdom, but rather how to combine them inclusively, intelligently, and effectively.

Simply put, the global soil crisis will not be solved by chemistry and simplistic metrics alone. It requires memory, biodiversity, experimentation, and a trusting collaboration with farmers who know their soils.

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Photo courtesy of Thanal Trust

The post Op-Ed | How Soil Health Is Promoted Through Traditional Knowledge and Modern Science appeared first on Food Tank.