G2. Local Greens

File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

DrillOrDrop will be posting updates here as a record of the clean-up of Cuadrilla’s fracking site at Preston New Road in Lancashire.

We reported last week that work had begun to remove the green acoustic fencing around the well pad.

19 August 2026. Photo: Maple Indie Media

Lancashire County Council issued an enforcement notice for the site in June 2026 after the operator, Cuadrilla, failed to meet an approved timetable.

The company now has until 8 November 2026, 80 days away today, to remove remaining plant, buildings, fencing, membranes and aggregates forming the drilling compound.

Replacing subsoil must be completed by 8 December 2026 (110 days). The deadline for returning top soil and making the land suitable for agriculture is 8 January 2027, in 141 days.

Preston New Road was the only UK onshore site to frack horizontal wells. The fracking operations in 2018 and 2019 caused numerous small earthquakes. Fracturing was suspended almost exactly seven years ago after the UK’s largest fracking-induced seismic event.

Thanks to everyone who let us use their photos.

21 August 2026

Eye witnesses report all the acoustic fencing has now been removed

Photo: Used with owner’s consent

The Fox Group, which has been working on thge site, said the acoustic fencing would be “sold on and reused elsewhere, giving the materials a second life rather than going to waste”. The company posted this video on Facebook today:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2775307122839993

Wednesday 19 August 2026 Photo: Maple Indie Media Photo: Maple Indie Media Photo: Maple Indie Media Photo: Maple Indie Media Wednesday 12 August 2026

Work begins to remove the green acoustic fencing.

Photos taken 12 August 2026 and 13 August 2026: Chris Holliday and used with the owners’ consents.

The government has unveiled its revised planning blueprint for England, with key changes to shape onshore oil and gas decisions.

The new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has:

• Removed a requirement to give “great weight” to the economic benefits of onshore oil and gas proposals
• Removed a previous requirement to “plan positively” for onshore oil and gas developments
• Introduced a new policy to refuse onshore oil and gas extraction proposals except in defined circumstances (see more below)

The previous policy on restoration and financial bonds for oil and gas sites is unchanged.

A year ago, nine environmental campaign organisations urged the government to end planning policies which they said favoured fossil fuels (details). They said the previous policies were “dangerous for the climate” and “unfair to communities”.

The government said the new NPPF policy on minerals sought to ensure a sufficient supply, “while restricting peat, coal and onshore oil and gas extraction for environmental reasons”.

The new NPPF replaces a version published in 2012 and revised between 2018 and 2024.

A public consultation on the new version ran from December 2025-March 2026.

National_Planning_Policy_Framework August 2026Download

“Great weight” gone

Previous versions of the NPPF required decisionmakers to give “great weight” to the benefits of mineral extraction to the economy.

This general policy, M3 (1), now reworded to “substantial weight”, remains. But the NPPF states specifically that it does not apply to onshore oil and gas projects. The new NPPF also no longer includes a requirement to “plan positively” for onshore oil and gas.

The government said this “represents a policy change for oil and gas”. It said:

“We are proposing this change in recognition of the need to transition away from using fossil fuels in order to reduce climate change impacts.”

In the public consultation, 45% agreed to the removal of oil and gas from policy M3, 14% disagreed and 42% neither agreed nor disagreed.

Restrictions on approval

A new policy, M5 (2), requires that proposals involving onshore oil and gas extraction or coal workings should be refused unless they are necessary.

One of the exceptions applies specifically to oil and gas:

“to facilitate the exploration, appraisal and production in an area where the North Sea Transition Authority [the industry regulator] has granted petroleum rights, including licensed areas”.

This formalises the current requirement that oil and gas development is allowed only in licensed areas.

But it does not mean that all proposals in licensed areas should necessarily be approved.

The government said:

“there was broad support for aligning national planning policy with wider government objectives on climate change and the transition to a low-carbon economy”.

In a public consultation, 36% agreed with the M5 policy. 20% disagreed and 44% neither agreed nor disagreed.

Impacts of mineral development

A new policy, M4, brings together previous requirements on impacts.

This states proposals for mineral development should:

• Not have unacceptable adverse impact on the natural and historic environment, human health or aviation safety
• Take into account the national decision-making policies in the NPPF
• Include the result of any cumulative effect of multiple impacts from individual sites and/or from a number of sites in a locality

Proposals should also ensure unavoidable noise, dust and particle emissions and any vibrations from blasting will be controlled, mitigated or removed at source and that appropriate noise limits are established for extraction near noise-sensitive properties.

Restoration and bonds

Policy M4 also requires decisionmakers to continue to use planning conditions to ensure restoration and aftercare is carried out at the earliest opportunity and to high environmental standards.

On restoration bonds, the existing policy also remains:

“Bonds or other financial guarantees to underpin planning conditions should only be sought in exceptional circumstances”.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

August 14, 2026

Mining Claims Filed Immediately After Trump Decimates National Monuments in Utah – 8.14.26  Attempts to file mining claims in Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments shows industry clamoring to exploit landscapes

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org
Autumn Gillard, Coordinator, Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition; (928) 614-2600; autumnavielle@gmail.com
Perry Wheeler, Earthjustice, pwheeler@earthjustice.org, (202) 792-6211
Keri Gilliland, The Wilderness Society, (KGilliland@tws.org)
Chaitna Sinha, Conservation Codirector and Staff Attorney, Grand Canyon Trust; (970) 399-9565 (csinha@grandcanyontrust.org)
Amy Dominguez, Sierra Club, amy.dominguez@sierraclub.org, (385) 355-4631
Kris Deutschman, Conservation Lands Foundation, kris@conservationlands.org, (505) 498-0212
Andrew Scibetta, NRDC, (202) 289-2421, ascibetta@nrdc.org
Daniel Hernandez, National Parks Conservation Association, dhernandez@npca.org, (202) 573-2201

SOUTHERN UTAH – Within one day of President Trump illegally reducing Bears Ears National Monument by over 90%, a company staked multiple mining claims in areas cut out of the monument. On July 14, 2026, Kimmerle Mining filed 7 mining claims (see map) with the San Juan County (Utah) Recorder’s Office. Kimmerle Mining previously filed mining claims after Trump’s 2017 reduction of Bears Ears and excavated a partially reclaimed mine shaft on one of the claims – the so-called Easy Peasy claim (this mine has been re-buried); Kyle Kimmerle (a Managing Member of Kimmerle Mining) was also a plaintiff in one of the cases filed in the District of Utah challenging President Biden’s 2021 restoration of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.  

Two mining claims were also recently filed in Grand Staircase-Escalante, less than one month after Trump’s attack. On August 6, 2026, Craig Rosequist filed two mining claims (see map) with the Kane County (Utah) Recorder’s Office in areas cut out of the monument by the Trump proclamations. According to public records, Rosequist previously located several mining claims in neighboring Washington County, Utah.

Under President Trump’s proclamations decimating Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, mining claims cannot be staked until 60 days after the date of the proclamation, which will be Friday, Sept. 11: “Appropriation of lands under the mining laws before the date and time of restoration is unauthorized.  Any such attempted appropriation, including attempted adverse possession under 30 U.S.C. 38, shall vest no rights against the United States.” In light of this prohibition and the illegality of the Trump proclamations, the Bureau of Land Management should reject these recently filed claims in both national monuments. Below are quotes from Tribal leaders, conservation groups, and additional information. 

“When we talk about Grand Staircase-Escalante, we are not simply talking about public land or a national monument. We are talking about our homelands — living landscapes with personhood and spirit,” said Autumn Gillard, Southern Paiute and Coordinator of the Grand Staircase Inter-Tribal Coalition. “New mining on lands unlawfully cut from the monument threatens not just the land’s natural beauty, plants, and animals, but our sacred places, our culture, and our history. We are all stewards of these lands, and it is our duty to protect them for all our future generations, yours and mine.” 

“This rush to locate new mining claims in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments – even though premature and unlawful – reinforces the need to be vigilant over the next several years while we work to undo Trump’s illegal actions and restore the monuments.“said Hanna Larsen, Staff Attorney at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “Mining claims like these often lead to real and long-lasting damage to the very qualities that make these monuments so special.”

“The rush to stake mining claims in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante has already begun, nearly a month before new mining claims would be allowed even under the illegal Trump proclamations,” said Axie Navas, director of designation campaigns at The Wilderness Society. “It’s hard to imagine a clearer sign of where this administration wants to take our public lands. National monuments belong to all of us. They represent our freedom to experience some of the most extraordinary landscapes in the country. We owe it to future generations to protect them — not sacrifice them for the short-term profit of special interests.”

“Mining claims on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument puts crucial water resources at risk. The Monument protects over 2,510 river miles that could be negatively impacted by mining waste if claims are approved in haste. These rivers flow into Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon, which are visited by millions of people.” said Dr. Jackie Grant, Executive Director of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners. “If these mining claims are not being legally filed, what other illegal actions should we be worried about?”

“These illegal mining claims are proof that the Trump administration’s proclamations, if allowed to stand, would be devastating for public lands that are cherished by people across the country,” said Thomas Delehanty, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “President Trump’s proclamations were themselves illegal, and forthcoming litigation will seek to avoid this exact outcome. Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, incredibly significant to Indigenous communities and beloved by recreationists for their one-of-a-kind features, deserve better than to be sacrificed to industrial extraction.”

“The speed with which the mining industry moved to stake claims following the dismantling of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments demonstrates the real-world consequences of stripping protections from one of America’s most important landscapes,” said Bobby McEnaney, Director of Land Conservation at NRDC. “This sequence of events underscores exactly why Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were originally established and why these landscapes deserve lasting protection. These future mining claims amount to a virtual giveaway of public lands.”

“While it’s clear these Kimmerle Mining claims were illegally staked before the ink was dry on Trump’s proclamation stripping national monument protections from these areas, it’s important to recognize that any future mining claims in the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante cultural landscapes are unacceptable,” said Chaitna Sinha, Conservation Codirector and Staff Attorney with the Grand Canyon Trust. “The cultural values here are irreplaceable; this is simply the wrong place for destructive new mining.” 

“The mining claims we’re seeing submitted in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante on the heels of their illegal reduction goes to show that the Trump Administration intends to turn the public lands we love into sacrifice zones for privatization and exploitation,” said Franque Bains, Chapter Director of the Sierra Club in Utah. “We are prepared to fight to ensure that national monuments and public lands don’t become pawns in a scheme to turn a profit for corporate interests.” 

“It’s clear this administration will cut every corner and violate laws and guardrails to accelerate the destruction of America’s natural treasures,” Chris Hill, CEO of the Conservation Lands Foundation. “The ideologues driving this anti-public lands agenda are willfully ignoring the millions of Americans who stood up to protect Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments and the overwhelming majority of Americans who support protecting MORE public lands. They forget they are accountable to everyone who values these natural places and is determined to expose their corruption.”  

“Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were established to protect over a hundred thousand ancestral sites and are among the most beloved public lands in Utah. Mere weeks after their downsizing, we are seeing the very first mining claims being staked among their cultural and natural treasures, enabled by an outdated mining law from 1872,” said Sara Cawley, Energy Director at the National Parks Conservation Association. “It’s clear the arguments about access were always about access for mining companies. This puts the connectivity and health of dozens of national parks, monuments and protected wildlife corridors all the way to the Mojave Desert at risk, a precursor for what we can expect on other public lands under this administration unless more permanent protections are enacted to safeguard our special places.”

Background Information on Mining claims: 

• Map of 2026 claims in Bear Ears, showing the 2021 and 2026 Monument Boundaries and noting the location of the Easy Peasy Mine, created by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA)
• Map of 2026 Claims in Grand Staircase-Escalante, created by SUWA
• Photo and video assets of Kimmerle’s Easy Peasy Mine and surrounding claims, please credit Tim Peterson.
  • Gallery & Gdrive 
  • Video b-roll

Background information about the national monument reductions:

• Statements from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal coalitions
• SUWA Statement on Trump’s Illegal Reductions of Grand Staircase-Escalante & Bears Ears National Monuments
• Full Statement and Quotes Tracking
• Maps of the reductions
• Reporter Background Memo on National Monuments

###

The Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, which includes the Hopi Tribe, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Navajo Nation, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and the Zuni Tribe, advocates for Grand-Staircase-Escalante National Monument, for Tribal voices and perspectives to be heard and included in the management of the monument, and for protecting the monument for all Americans to appreciate and enjoy. Learn more at www.grandstaircasecoalition.org 

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.

The Grand Canyon Trust is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to safeguard the wonders of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado Plateau, while supporting the rights of its Native peoples. Learn more at www.grandcanyontrust.org

 

 

The post Mining Claims Filed Immediately After Trump Decimates National Monuments in Utah – 8.14.26 appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson is disputing Duke Energy’s description of a proposed electricity rate increase, arguing that the company misrepresented under oath how much residential customers would pay under a recent settlement agreement.

The disagreement comes as Duke Energy seeks approval for a settlement that would raise rates by 6.8% over the next two years. The proposal would affect customers across the Triangle and other parts of the state.

…

Climate advocacy group NC WARN also raised concerns about the proposal.

“You know, last year, Duke reported a record $5 billion in profits, while many North Carolinians are really struggling to pay for their electric bills,” said Sara Heilman of NC WARN.

Jackson argues that residential customers would see a 9.3% increase rather than the 6.8% increase referenced by Duke Energy. Heilman said that level of increase remains unacceptable.

“But really, from our perspective, 9.3% is still too high of an increase for residential customers, especially when those increases in the bills that we’re paying are really going towards building unnecessary power plants, fueling these massive power-guzzling data centers that communities are not asking for and really not serving the interests of the average North Carolinian,” Heilman said.

Continue reading

The post NC attorney general challenges Duke Energy rate hike figure: ‘Details matter’ — ABC11 appeared first on NC WARN.

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

As exciting events continue in Philadelphia, learn how you can get around to major summer 2026 events without a car, or being stuck in traffic with GoPhillyGo: Car-Free Routes Map!

Register now to join Transit for All PA! for a statewide call on Wednesday, August 19th from 6-7 PM. Join to discuss how transit riders and transit advocates can win funding for transit in 2027. Register here! 

Transit 4 All PA is hiring fellows, with two paid positions in Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties: to support transit advocates in building local demand for transit. If you live in Luzerne or Lackawanna County, and you ride transit, apply TODAY. Application closes on September 2, 2026. Learn more here. 

Image Source: SEPTA

Metro Philadelphia: SEPTA’s 11th Street Station closing for major accessibility upgrades – Beginning early September, the Market-Frankford Line will be skipping 11th Street for around a year. The station will be closed though the end of August of 2027, according to SEPTA. Plans include building two elevators, improving lighting, and structural repairs, making the station fully ADA compliant as part of a $44 million project. Other than 11th Street, the 34th Street and Spring Garden stations are the only remaining inaccessible, with future plans to construct elevators at both.  

Image Source: WHYY

WHYY: SEPTA celebrates new Navy Yard bus service in the rapidly changing Philadelphia neighborhood – The Route 45 bus travels from Center City to the Navy Yard, simplifying a route that many commuters and riders previously relied on a shuttle bus transfer for. This change is part of the New Bus Network, which began in phase 1 this month. The planned goal is to consolidate routes and adjust service for riders. 

Image Source: Northeast Times

Northeast Times: Self-driving SEPTA buses unlikely soon, but a state bill aims to prepare – State Representative Ben Waxman, representing House District 182, which includes parts of Center City and South Philadelphia, has introduced a bill that bares completely autonomous transit vehicles. The bill would require transit vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds and using an automated driving system to have a licensed driver on board. SEPTA has announced no plans to introduce autonomous buses, but Representative Waxman said he discussed the proposal with SEPTA officials. 

Other Stories

WHYY: Commission approves at least $300 million in funding to expand bike and walking trails in Philly area 

The Inquirer: Self-policing loading zones have worked in Center City, the PPA says, so they’re adding more 

Northeast Times: Bridge Street ramp to I-95 closing permanently this month 

PhillyVoice: Walnut Street will go car-free for seven Sundays this fall 

Philadelphia Today: PennDOT Launching $2 Million Repair Project on Historic University Avenue Bridge 

CBS Pittsburgh: Tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will increase in 2027. Here’s how much more drivers will pay. 

On August 11, a quorum of the Questa City Council, minus the absent Mayor John Ortego, called for a special meeting within 72 hours to address Kit Carson Electric Cooperative’s proposed hydrogen plant and solar array. Mayor Ortega, an employee of KCEC, has been accused of approving the hydrogen project, and the funding to support it, without oversight or approval of the City Council. Council members had been trying for months to get the project on the agenda and to meet with KCEC without support from the mayor.

Work on the project has been ongoing despite the fact that the Council doesn’t know if a proper County work permit has been issued and has never seen the United States Department of Agriculture’s application that supports the project (a FOIA request for all pertinent USDA information has been submitted). The Council never approved the $20 million that funds the solar array, where work has also begun. At one point Councilor Daryl Ortega, after questioning how the Questa city attorneys had failed to ascertain if KCEC had obtained a permit for the project, announced in frustration: “Without a permit this project needs to be shut down!” The crowd erupted in applause.

When the meeting was opened for public comment, Honorio Justin Rael, the law school student and Questa native who wrote the complaint filed by Questa acequias against the USDA’s approval of the hydrogen project, had this to say:

[T]onight I want to talk about some internal controls based on my 11,000-page IPRA [Inspection of Public Records]. So I reviewed the entire thing, and one thing has become crystal clear to me about the Village of Questa.

The people who make decisions for this town do not sit on that board. It is the Questa Economic Development Fund. The Questa Economic Development Fund is an independent Chevron-funded nonprofit partner, but they are not an elected governing body.

Yet their agendas are probably four times the size of any agenda I’ve seen from this village. And you know how we’ve never gotten any updates on what’s going on with this project? Well, they get monthly detailed updates from the mayor. Last year, they made teams to complete the zoning ordinance that allowed this project to move forward without a project-specific vote.

They made a team to develop a communication strategy concerning the project using the Questa del Rio News. And they’ve discussed ways that village meetings can be controlled to limit public backlash. The point being that an advisory board has been formulating zoning, public communications, lobbying grants, major financing strategies, and the public access to its own government with basically zero input from the village council.

The $20 million grant makes this problem concrete. Now, I’ve never heard of this, but on February 1st, the mayor submitted an ECAM [Energy Conservation and Management] grant on behalf of the Village of Questa. He requested approximately $35.2 million. And the application stated that the public funding would be used exclusively for infrastructure owned by KCEC. Then the people funding the grant, ENMRD, notified the mayor that Questa had received a reduced partial $20 million award. Kit Carson then told the mayor, quote, seems you only have to approve that you accept this partial $20 million and then we are good to go. All the other steps are the standard contracting that we can work through.

Kit Carson treated the acceptance of a $20 million grant as something that the mayor could approve alone, after which Kit Carson would handle the rest. Was there a resolution approving this application or accepting the award? No.

Now, who will own the infrastructure? Nobody knows. Who is responsible for compliance, repayment, or a potential claw-back? I’m asking you to put some guardrails on the Questa Economic Development Fund. Make it clear to them that they can advise and assist, but they may not represent the village, formulate final policy, or commit village resources without council authority.

La Jicarita will let readers know when the Questa City Council special meeting will be held once it’s determined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bold Nebraska’s 2014 GOTV (Get Out the Vote) door-to-door canvass in Omaha. (Photo: J Grace Young)

Nebraskans deserve to know where the legislative candidates who are asking for their votes stand on the issue of risky carbon capture projects and the abuse of eminent domain by private carbon pipeline corporations.

We need to get each candidate on the record – but we need your help.

Below is a sample message, contact info for candidates, and a link to a form to report back their responses. If you can contact just 3 candidates, it will greatly help us reach our goal!

If you have any questions, please reach out to Shelli Meyer at shelli@boldalliance.org or Tom Genung at tom@boldnebraska.org.

P.S. While we are focused on legislative candidates, it doesn’t hurt to ask candidates running for other offices about this issue, too!

Sample phone/email conversation with candidate:

“Hello, I am reaching out as a Nebraska voter. I am concerned about risky carbon capture and storage (CCS) schemes taking place across our state and the undermining of our property rights by privately-owned corporations abusing eminent domain. If elected, will you protect landowners and communities by supporting legislation that prohibits the use of eminent domain for CCS projects?

Thank you for your time,”

Click here for a list of candidates and contact info, and a form to report-back your results. 

Fencing at Cuadrilla’s controversial former fracking site in Lancashire is being dismantled and removed.

Removal of site fencing, 13 August 2026. Photo: Chris Holliday

The work, which began yesterday (12 August 2026), appears to be the first stage of the long-awaited restoration of the well pad at Preston New Road, near Blackpool.

Local reports said fencing on two sides of the compound have gone. Contractors’ vehicles have been on the site for two days.

Work began on fence removal, 12 August 2026. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent Fence removal, 12 August 2026. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent Fence removal, 12 August 2026. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent Fence removal, 13 August 2026. Photo: Chris Holliday

The two Preston New Road shale gas wells were plugged and abandoned last year.

But in December 2025, Cuadrilla was refused more time to restore Preston New Road.

The site has been the subject of planning enforcement action for more than two months because of delays to restoration.

On 8 June 2026, Lancashire County Council announced it had served an enforcement notice requiring the removal of all plant, buildings, security, acoustic fencing, pollution control membranes, aggregates and concerete hardstanding.

The action followed Cuadrilla’s failure to meet an approved restoration timetable.

We understand the official restoration timetable began on 8 July 2026. Cuadrilla had four months, until 8 November 2026, to remove the surface infrastructure. The subsoil must be replaced by 8 December 2026 and the top soil by 8 January 2027.

Preston New Road has been mothballed since August 2019 when operations were suspended after fracking caused a record-breaking 2.9ML earthquake.

Kate and Aaron are joined by Professor John Leshy, one of the nation’s top scholars of public lands law, to discuss a new essay of his that argues America’s public lands are entering a new Gilded Age, complete with robber barons, corruption, and deregulation.

We also talk about a new exposé revealing Doug Burgum to be a really bad boss who’s breaking the law, and about Border Patrol breaking ground inside Big Bend National Park.

News

• Inside Doug Burgum’s rocky tenure at Interior – POLITICO
• “Warfare on the People.” Big Bend Residents Fear the Border Wall Will Cut Off Public Lands. – Outside
• Mapping it out: onX tool connects Montanans to public land comment opportunities – Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Resources

• On Shaky Ground: America’s Public Lands Face an Uncertain Future 
• Keep Parks Public Tour — RSVP to Tucson!
• On Common Ground: An American Inheritance
• Watch this episode on YouTube

Produced by Aaron Weiss, Lauren Bogard, Kate Groetzinger, and Lilly Bock-Brownstein
Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
Music: Purple Planet
Featured image: Basin and Range National Monument; Source: BLM Photo Bob Wick

The post Are America’s public lands entering a new Gilded Age? appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Residents in a Yorkshire Wolds village have asked the prime minister for help in their opposition to local gas drilling plans.

Foxholes parish council and the community campaign group have written to Andy Burnham outlining their fears about proposals by Egdon Resources to explore for gas on the edge of their village.

Photo: DrillOrDrop

The application seeks to drill through a principal chalk aquifer that supplies water to 900,000 people. The proposed site is in a productive farming area. It is also near the soon-to-be designated Yorkshire Wolds National Landscape, which will give the area the protection and status of a national park.

The letter said Egdon’s application, to be decided by North Yorkshire Council, has raised concerns about strategic water resources, food security, climate change, nature recovery and economic resilience.

It said these were national concerns:

“The Yorkshire Wolds are a remarkable natural asset. Protecting them should be a shared national responsibility.”

It added:

“While this is a local planning application, we believe it raises issues of wider national importance concerning water security, climate resilience, food production, nature recovery and the future direction of energy policy”.

The letter’s signatories, David Eddy, chair of Foxholes with Butterwick Parish Council, and Laura Bell, campaign lead of the Drawing a Line in the Chalk campaign, asked Mr Burnham to:

• Ensure nationally-important groundwater resources, chalk streams and agricultural landscapes received appropriate protection in planning and environmental decision-making
• Ensure that the most up to date scientific evidence was properly considered where development could affect strategic water resources
• Clarify how further fossil fuel exploration was being reconciled with commitments on climate change, nature recovery, food security and resilience
• Meet representatives of the parish council and Drawing a Line in the Chalk campaign

The letter, published online today, welcomed the principle, supported by government, of empowering communities and ensuring that local voices were heard in decision-making:

“We … respectfully ask that it is applied to communities such as ours, where residents are seeking reassurance that decisions affecting essential natural resources are being made using the best available evidence and with proper regard to long term consequences.”

The letter said the protection of water resources from the Yorkshire Wolds chalk aquifer “must be considered a matter of national resilience”.

It also said:

“The Yorkshire Wolds are also a highly productive agricultural landscape. The farms and food businesses that operate here contribute to the nation’s food supply at a time when the Climate Change Committee has highlighted the growing risks that climate change poses to food security and the need to strengthen resilience across our food system.

“Protecting the natural systems that underpin agriculture, particularly clean and reliable water supplies, healthy soils and functioning ecosystems is therefore not simply an environmental concern. It is an issue of economic resilience and national security.”

Mr Eddy and Ms Bell said:

“Residents are not opposed to a secure energy future, although renewables are clearly the way forward here. They are asking that decisions made today do not compromise the water, landscapes, food producing capacity, ecosystems and tourist activity upon which tomorrow’s generations will rely.”

They added that Egdon’s estimates suggested the expected gas resource at Foxholes was the equivalent of six days UK gas use in winter:

“Hardly energy security, particularly given it will be sold on the international markets.”

They said:

“Communities are entitled to ask whether new fossil fuel exploration in environmentally sensitive locations is consistent with wider commitments on climate change, biodiversity recovery, water resilience and long-term energy strategy.”

They said local concerns about the proposal included:

• Has the latest geological and groundwater evidence been fully incorporated into decision-making?
• Have the risks to the principal chalk aquifer, including contamination pathways, been adequately assessed?
• Are the full climate implications of fossil fuel extraction being properly considered?
• Do existing planning and permitting regulations protect sufficiently nationally-important water resources, landscape and ecosystems?

The letter stated:

“The issue is not simply whether one exploratory well proceeds. It is whether our planning and regulatory systems are sufficiently robust to protect the natural assets upon which communities, businesses, agriculture and future generations depend.

“In order to enable communities to engage fully with such planning applications, we need to ensure that within the planning process the most up-to-date scientific data is also made available to those affected by the planning applications to create a level playing field.

“And that equality of representation is further supplemented by increased time at the public planning committee meetings where applications are to be heard.”

• Manteca Bulletin: SoCal killed off Owens Lake & Colorado River Delta; the Sacramento-SJ Delta is next
• Sierra Club: Can a Water Renaissance Put California on a Sustainable Path?
• The Guardian: Drought, water rationing and dry rivers: our water crisis is here

A recent editorial by Dennis Wyatt in the Manteca Bulletin criticizes irresponsible policies that have threatened critical water sources and ecosystems, contributing to concerningly low water levels in Mono Lake, Owens Lake, and the Colorado River Delta. Wyatt argues that California’s current approach to water management risks doing the same to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, as tightening restrictions on Colorado River usage lead powerful water users in Southern California to seek more diversions. 

The editorial points to costly proposals like the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP), which would cost billions while damaging critical ecosystems and diverting resources away from local water needs. Instead, the author advocates for more pragmatic and sustainable solutions, including  repairing aging levees and investing in local water supplies.

In another recent article, the Sierra Club raises similar concerns, uplifting the Water Renaissance Plan as a roadmap for developing sustainable local water supplies. The article notes that climate change, as was similarly argued in this Guardian opinion piece, and aging infrastructure are making large-scale diversions and imported water increasingly unreliable.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta already faces degraded water quality, declining fish populations, and harmful algal blooms, yet Governor Newsom and state water agencies continue to push forward projects like the DCP.

The sustainable strategies outlined in the Water Renaissance Plan, including stormwater capture, wastewater recycling, and water conservation, could generate between 1.8 to 2 million acre-feet of local water supply by 2045, at a lower cost than the DCP, while providing more resilient water supplies in the face of climate change. 

As Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director at Restore the Delta, states, “To date, recommendations around restoration of the delta—from levee upgrades to use of tribal ecological knowledge, restored flows, and local restoration practices around land management—have taken a backseat in water planning to infrastructure that will not hold up to the climate change scenario.”

ALERT’s citizen suit clears the way for safer products during oil spill response

August 13, 2026 – Recently, an Oregon state oil spill response planner asked me, “Have you seen EPA’s new product schedule?” I had not. “Something weird happened to it,” he said. “There’s almost nothing on it.” We both googled it and discovered that EPA’s new list of products for oil spill response contained five products. “See?” the state planner said. “What happened to the other 130 products?”

What happened was the successful lawsuit brought by ALERT and allies in 2020. Our citizen suit changed the rules governing use of dispersants (our focus) and other products – such as surface washing agents, solidifiers, herding agents, and bioremediation agents – during oil spill responses. EPA tightened the protocols for testing products to eliminate more toxic products, required full disclosure of ingredients (no hiding toxic ingredients as “confidential business information”), and significantly, added rules for removing products from the schedule –  an option previously unavailable to citizens. Rules for removal require evidence that technical information supplied to EPA by the manufacturer was incorrect, inaccurate, misleading, or outdated concerning impacts to human health and the environment. In other words, anything less than truthful.

Under court supervision, EPA allowed a lengthy three-year conditional use period, counting the six-months between promulgation of the new rules and when they went into effect on December 11, 2023. [88 FR 38336, June 12, 2023] That conditional use period – which grandfathered in all 130+ products that were listed as of June 12, 2023 – ended on June 10, 2026. The new EPA Product Schedule lists four dispersants and one surface washing agent. Apparently, the manufacturers of the other 130+ products could not or chose not to meet the new requirements.

Was it all smoke and mirrors? Decades of deception that oil spills can be “cleaned up” with chemical products that miraculously create a net benefit instead of more harm than good? Manipulated lab tests? Biased statistics and formulas? Carefully worded labeling that could make black appear to be white? A growing “wealth defense industry” with legions of lawyers who could make thousands of toxic tort cases disappear from workers and the public who were directly exposed to their product? Apparently so.

The famous “Gulf Walrus” are another myth found only in oil spill contingency plans for the Gulf of Mexico at the time of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. The error was corrected but the industry’s disrespect for human health and the environment remains.

Case in point: Corexit dispersants were the go-to in the US for oil spill response and comprised 45% of global stockpiles. No more. The former owner of Corexit dispersants, ChampionX, voluntarily pulled the plug on its Corexit product line in November 2022 when EPA’s proposed rules were moving inexorably under court supervision towards promulgation. Then, ChampionX vanished altogether when it was acquired by SLB (Schlumberger) in 2025. Corexit was just one of the 130+ products. The others just disappeared more quietly on June 10, 2026.

We did this – ALERT and the hundreds of concerned citizens over fifteen years who stepped up and signed onto petitions for this rulemaking and the lawsuit. We wiped out 130+ likely toxic products on EPA’s list.

So, where does this leave us?ALERT and the Government Accountability Project filed a noncompliance complaint with OSHA about its less than truthful reporting on technical literature for three of the five dispersants that are currently on EPA’s list. (The other two products were listed after we filed our complaint.) Our complaint is still under active investigation.

At this tipping point, we remain committed to eliminating products that will cause more harm than good during oil spill response. Why? Beyond the obvious, holding the oil industry accountable for multi-organ harm across body systems and species including humans from exposure to its products helps build pressure towards leaving the oil in the ground and transitioning to independence from fossil fuels.

In solidarity,

Ten Senate Democrats are accusing the Interior Department of using a routine-sounding policy review to lay the groundwork for stripping wilderness protections from nearly 200 million acres of public land. In a letter to Secretary Doug Burgum, Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and nine colleagues wrote that the review “undermines Congress’ role in wilderness management.”

The review, opened through three Federal Register notices in June, covers land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service, including up to 91.4 million acres at BLM alone, according to the Wilderness Society. The public comment period closes August 14.

Heinrich called the process unusual. “It is atypical for the Interior Department to conduct land management planning by asking for comment on its agencies’ general operating procedures,” he wrote, adding that it’s “really just a ploy to weaken protections for public lands,” pointing to the administration’s “obsession with development and disposal of public lands.”

Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda is only helping oil and gas companies

President Donald Trump promised to “cut your energy prices in half” within his first year in office. Instead, “energy dominance” has produced record profits for oil companies and higher gas prices for everyone else. Trump has used his power to cut the cost of drilling on public lands, while driving up the price of oil by waging war on Iran. Eight of the world’s largest oil companies made a combined $93 billion in profit in the second quarter of 2026, nearly double what those companies made last year and more than $1 billion in profit every single day. Read more in a new Westwise blog post on Substack by CWP’s Lilly Bock-Brownstein and Rachael Hamby.

Quick hits People are betting millions to predict wildfires. Congress wants to stop it

Outside

Opinion: Sportsmen should get a say on our public lands, that’s why we need the Local Input Act

Colorado Times Recorder

Bulldozing begins at Big Bend National Park for border wall construction

Washington Post

New Mexico delegation introduces bill to ban uranium mining in Chama Watershed

Source New Mexico

An Indigenous photographic history of America in pictures

The Guardian

White House asks Justice department to consider new reflecting-pool prosecution

Wall Street Journal

House Democrats seek records in dropped Reflecting Pool case against ex-Olympian

Washington Post

The Reflecting Pool haunts Doug Burgum

Axios DC

Quote of the day

The BLM used to be able to look at a nominated parcel, listen to the people who use it, and hold it back when leasing would, for example, impact elk or mule deer calving grounds, choke off a trailhead, or industrialize high-priority habitat. That discretion is gone. The oil company picks the parcel; the BLM is told to process the paperwork. End of story.”

—David A. Lien of Colorado Springs, Colorado Times Recorder

Picture This

@Interior

The monarch migration is about to begin. Along the way, they depend on native flowering plants to rest and refuel. Planting native wildflowers and milkweed in your yard or in your community is one simple way to help these remarkable travelers complete their journey.

Feature image: Rainbow Mountain Wilderness: Source: BLM Nevada, by Bob Wick/Flickr

The post Democrats call Interior wilderness policy review a ‘ploy’ appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The oil industry just posted some of its best profits in years while Americans pay more at the pump

President Donald Trump promised to “cut your energy prices in half” within his first year in office using his “energy dominance” agenda. Instead, energy dominance has produced record profits for oil companies and higher gas prices for everyone else.

Eight of the world’s largest oil companies made a combined $93 billion in profit in the second quarter of 2026, nearly double what those companies made last year, and more than $1 billion in profit every single day. The increase in profits is connected to the US-Israeli war on Iran, which disrupted oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and pushed global oil prices above $126 per barrel at their peak.

ExxonMobil reported $14.5 billion in profit, its highest quarterly total in four years, while Chevron posted $12 billion, its highest quarterly profit in at least six years. Shell earned $9.8 billion, its second-highest quarterly profit ever, and Saudi Aramco topped the list at more than $33 billion.

US refiners also raked in the profits. Valero Energy reported $3.7 billion in net income, up from $714 million a year earlier and its most profitable quarter on record by earnings per share. HF Sinclair’s profit roughly quadrupled year-over-year, and PBF Energy swung from a loss to over $1 billion in profit.

None of this windfall is reaching consumers. The national average price for a gallon of gas was $4.01 on August 10, and prices are higher than a year ago in every state. Refiners say fuel inventories will be slow to rebuild, meaning the high prices are likely to stick around even as the price of crude oil drops.

Oil companies aren’t using their record profits to expand drilling or refining, either. ExxonMobil alone returned $9.4 billion to shareholders in the second quarter through dividends and stock buybacks, and Shell started a new multibillion-dollar buyback program of its own. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has pointed to record US energy production as evidence that the administration’s regulatory rollbacks are “unlocking the full potential of our domestic energy resources.” But record production and record profits have not translated into lower prices, expanded supply, or any clear benefit for American taxpayers.

In fact, Congress and the Trump administration are giving the oil and gas industry a tax break for drilling on public lands. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, cut the onshore royalty rate from 16.67 percent back to 12.5 percent. Interior has also moved to make it cheaper to drill on public lands, proposing a rule that would cut cleanup bonds from $500,000 to $25,000 and shrink the public comment period on lease sales from 90 days to 10. Taxpayers for Common Sense estimates the royalty rate decrease alone has already cost the public $489 million, a figure it warns could climb into the billions as 2026 lease sales get underway.

Oil and gas production, Converse County, Wyoming. BLM Wyoming

This isn’t the “energy dominance” Americans were promised. Trump’s declaration of a “national energy emergency” was based on the need to bring down energy prices for Americans, arguing that inadequate domestic supply “causes and makes worse the high energy prices that devastate Americans.” His “Unleashing American Energy” executive order relied on that “energy emergency” to justify a number of policy actions ostensibly aimed at increasing energy production, presumably to increase domestic supply and bring prices down.

If there were an actual energy emergency, and if the Trump administration was serious about addressing it, the administration would have spent the past year and a half investing in a rapid build-out of inexpensive domestic energy sources like solar, wind, and battery storage. But the administration has actually done the opposite, putting up roadblocks to renewable energy development and paying developers nearly $2 billion in taxpayer funds to abandon offshore wind projects that were already underway. Meanwhile, the administration is doing everything it can to rush oil, gas, and coal projects by cutting corners on environmental reviews and avoiding public comment whenever it thinks it can get away with it. Interior’s current plan would compress reviews that once took up to two years into a single month, and cut the public comment period for projects expected to cause environmental harm down to about 10 days.

This strategy is working splendidly for oil and gas companies. For American families, it’s been a disaster that’s squeezing them when they’re already struggling with rising costs in all other areas of their lives. Adding insult to injury, oil and gas companies are locking Americans out of their public lands by nominating and leasing public lands they don’t intend to drill, tying up both the land itself and management agency resources with unserious nominations and leases. The real energy emergency is the oil and gas takeover of our national public lands at the expense of preserving some of America’s most valuable natural places.

The post Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda is only helping oil and gas companies appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Updated on August 11, 2026, to reflect the proposition name. Originally published on January 16, 2026.

For advocates working at the intersection of environmental protection and climate-smart growth, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has long been a source of both pride and frustration. While it has been a critical tool to protect our natural and working lands, its procedural delays have often been used to stall projects essential to a low-carbon future: dense infill housing and transit-oriented development in our existing communities.

In July 2025, however, at the urging of Governor Newsom, the California legislature passed some of the most impactful changes to CEQA since its inception. Taken together, the two bills (AB 130 and SB 131) provide robust statutory CEQA exemptions for infill housing and housing element rezonings, require the state to map infill areas where exemptions would apply, and narrow the scope of the administrative record, helping to curtail anti-housing litigation.

Despite these monumental changes that address the barriers to critical infill development, California’s business lobby and sprawl developers were left unsatisfied. Now, they are proposing a ballot initiative that would make far more radical changes to the law. After gathering enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, this is now called Proposition 45.

While the rhetoric of the measure (initially called Building an Affordable California Act, or BACA) seems to be aligned with urbanist goals and those of the broader abundance and affordability movements, the actual policy details and mechanics of the initiative—and the progress we’ve already achieved in the legislature last year—suggest that the costs it brings far outweigh any potential benefits.

Below, we outline seven reasons why the measure should be rejected (click to read more):

1. Major Reforms Have Already Been Enacted

For years, a primary objective for California’s urbanists was to stop the abuse of environmental law against projects that genuinely help the environment: dense, transit-oriented housing.
In a landmark shift for the state, that goal has largely been realized. Following years of advocacy by urbanists, the legislature passed a clean statutory CEQA exemption for infill housing. AB 130, which Greenbelt Alliance was proud to support, is already being utilized across California, allowing builders to move forward with climate-friendly housing in high-opportunity areas like Palo Alto or Beverly Hills without the threat of being endlessly delayed by the environmental review process. While there is room for technical refinements, the fundamental issue at hand—the misuse of environmental laws to delay environmentally-friendly housing projects—has largely been addressed.

2. Everything is “Essential”

As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details”, and that’s certainly true for the BACA initiative. While modest on the surface, BACA creates a completely new set of rules for what it calls “essential” projects. So what, exactly, is an “essential project”?

The list is incredibly broad. Under Article 2, Section 21013, “essential projects” include housing, water, transportation, clean energy, transmission, broadband, and healthcare infrastructure. In practice, this definition encompasses a wide range of large-scale developments. For example, new freeways and existing freeway expansions would qualify as “essential transportation” projects; large greenfield sprawl developments would be treated as “essential” housing projects; and new dams and reservoirs would qualify as “essential” water projects. The definition even includes all “related and ancillary infrastructure,” meaning that highway interchanges, utility extensions, and water pipelines that enable sprawl developments also receive streamlined approval. All of these are enormous projects in terms of size and scale, with major potential environmental impacts. Yet, just like an apartment building in an urban area, under BACA, they would qualify for a significantly truncated review process.

In effect, this new CEQA process mirrors the fundamental flaw of its predecessor. While the old system failed to exempt low or no-impact projects from excessive review, the new one errs in the opposite direction, fast-tracking high-risk developments with significant potential for harm.

3. All Timelines Are Not Created Equal

The BACA initiative imposes strict timelines for this new class of projects that it deems “essential”: the environmental review process can take no more than one year. On the surface, a one-year limit on an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) seems reasonable. And for certain projects, like an apartment building on a parking lot in downtown San Francisco, or a townhome development in an LA suburb, it would be.

However, the measure’s definition of “essential” includes highways, dams, large-scale subdivisions, and other major projects. The environmental review required for projects at this scale cannot be done in a single year. Surveying hundreds if not thousands (or even tens of thousands) of acres of undisturbed and undeveloped land for species nesting patterns and habitat, water pollution impacts, and other environmental concerns physically cannot be accomplished within the timeframe laid out in the initiative. By forcing these projects into such a condensed timeline, we will be creating a system that overlooks genuine environmental harm in favor of speed.

For projects with unambiguous environmental benefits, such as housing developments within already urbanized areas, such speed makes sense. Many of the project types considered by this measure do not have the same clear, unambiguous benefits.

4. Restrictive Alternatives

One of CEQA’s most critical tools for preventing environmental harm is its alternative analysis provision, which allows for the identification of better project locations and designs. Currently, CEQA requires agencies to analyze a “reasonable range of alternatives” that could reduce environmental impacts, including different sites, reduced intensity options, and designs that avoid sensitive resources. This is how agencies can say, “this housing should be built downtown on a parking lot instead of on farmland,” or “this highway expansion has an alternative transit solution.”

BACA restricts this to just three options: the proposed project, one alternative designed by the applicant themselves (which doesn’t even need to be at a different location), and “no project.” The applicant’s alternative can be a slightly modified version of their original proposal on the same site. This eliminates the core mechanism for steering projects away from environmentally sensitive locations toward more appropriate sites, exactly the tool needed to prevent sprawl, protect open space, and ensure development happens in the right places.

5. The Evidentiary Standard

Maybe the most radical change incorporated in the ballot measure is to CEQA’s standard of review. Right now, CEQA allows a lead agency (generally a city or county) to use its own discretion to explore project alternatives and negotiate environmental mitigations. BACA proposes to eliminate this by requiring that environmental impacts only be found significant if they violate objective, quantifiable standards already in existing law when the project was proposed, which doesn’t sound inherently unreasonable! 

However, the measure doesn’t actually require jurisdictions to adopt such standards; instead, it exploits their absence. If numerical thresholds don’t already exist for resources like oak woodlands, groundwater, or wildlife corridors, impacts to them essentially can’t be found significant regardless of severity. A genuine objective standards approach would mandate jurisdictions adopt protective thresholds and update them as science improves. This measure rewards weak standards, freezes them at application date, and prevents improvements based on new knowledge.

6. Ballot Box Permanence

Finally, one of the greatest flaws of the measure is its rigidity. Should it pass, BACA would require a 2/3rds vote of the legislature to amend.

California has a long, storied history with ballot box governance, where initiatives become impossible to adjust as new problems arise. The 2/3rds requirement virtually guarantees the law could never be changed, regardless of what issues may arise. An unchangeable measure, with foreseeable negative impacts for the state, may have lasting consequences for generations.

Some of the project types included in this measure, such as clean energy or transmission infrastructure, may benefit from the types of streamlining being considered if careful, targeted changes were made. Rather than a broad, clunky initiative that will be extremely difficult to change, we should advocate for those reforms through the legislative cleanup process already underway.

7. The Costs Are Just Too High

California faces converging affordability crises: insurers fleeing the state, utility rates climbing, and municipal budgets straining under unsustainable costs. All of these issues stem from the same source: decades of sprawling outward, often into fire-prone areas, leaving us with infrastructure we cannot afford to maintain and risks we cannot afford to insure.

BACA will accelerate these failures by trading short-term speed for permanent costs. By gutting CEQA’s alternatives analysis—the primary tool for steering projects away from costly, high-risk locations—this limits agencies to the developer’s preferred site, one alternative the developer designs themselves, and “no project.” It freezes environmental standards at the date of application, rewarding jurisdictions with weak protections. And it requires agencies to approve permits within strict timelines regardless of fiscal consequences, because most cities lack the quantitative standards BACA requires to find fiscal impacts “significant.”

The result: even if we build some things faster today, we’ll be paying the tab forever. Even more homes in fire zones will continue to destabilize our insurance markets. More infrastructure extensions will push up our utility rates. More sprawling subdivisions that generate less revenue than they cost to maintain will ensure even higher taxes. BACA promises affordability through speed but delivers the opposite: cheaper to build, but financially ruinous to sustain.

At a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, and when the federal government is doing all it can to roll back our environmental protections, the last thing we need is to double down on the failed policies we have tried for decades and know do not work.

Proposition 45 will hurt the environment and your wallet.

Greenbelt Alliance strongly opposes Proposition 45 and urges voters to vote NO on 45 this November.

The post Chamber-Backed CEQA Initiative Is A Proposition Californians Can’t Afford: No on Prop 45 appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

North Carolina regulators are weighing Duke Energy’s rate-hike requests that could raise power bills for customers across the state.

By Autumn Bracey

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson said he will not sign a proposed settlement in the Duke Energy Progress rate case that would raise residential electric bills by about 6.8% over the next two years.

The utility’s original filing had sought an 18.1% increase on residential rates over two years. Duke announced a settlement last week with the North Carolina Public Staff and other parties, and in testimony before the North Carolina Utilities Commission, Kendal Bowman, North Carolina president for Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas, said the residential rate increase would now be 6.8% over two years.

“Duke brought down their rate increase to 6.8%, but that’s still too high for families and still more than the company needs to cover its investments,” Jackson said. “We’re not signing it.”

…

Regulators hold hearings

On Tuesday, the North Carolina Utilities Commission held hearings on the proposed increase.

WCNC spoke with NC WARN, a nonprofit that educates the public about Duke Energy’s practices. The group says that while customers have seen some wins with lower rates in the past, the new requests are a reminder of why it’s important to keep paying attention.

“I think it’s really important we question the reason for these rate increases,” Sara Heilman, clean energy strategist for NC WARN, said. “We understand the connection and correlation between requested rate increases and Duke Energy’s business model, which really serves to profit its executives and shareholders at the expense of affordability for North Carolinians.”

Rising bill despite falling usage

Heilman also pointed out that per-capita electricity use has actually declined over time, which she says makes it even more important for policymakers to scrutinize the data before approving any rate hikes.

“Our allies at the Energy and Policy Institute show customers, even using the same amount of electricity over the same years, are still seeing increases in their power bills,” Heilman said. “It really has a lot to do with Duke Energy’s investments in fossil fuels, like fracked-gas power plants, and the connection between those investments and the affordability crisis.”

Continue reading

The post NC AG Jeff Jackson rejects Duke Energy rate settlement, calls 6.8% hike ‘still too high’ — WCNC Charlotte appeared first on NC WARN.