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Industry says retrospective tax on renewables announced in budget could deter foreign investment when it's needed most.

The post A “keep out” sign for investment: Alarm bell sounds over new retrospective tax on renewables appeared first on Renew Economy.

One of the segments flowing rivers of gold from the data centre boom is backup diesel gensets. Our major cities could be awash with them. But batteries provide a better solution.

The post Diesel backup gensets are big winners from the data centre boom. Our cities would be better off with batteries appeared first on Renew Economy.

Congress could be days away from passing a bill that strips local communities of stable funding for multimodal transportation and deprives the entire country of predictable rail dollars that the overwhelming majority of Americans demand.

In a letter sent on Tuesday, Senate Democrats pressed the upper chamber’s appropriations committee to resist the Trump administration’s demands and renew multi-year funding for a raft of vital multimodal grant programs when they write the next federal transportation law.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, colloquially known as the BIL, will expire on Oct. 1, and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is scheduled to begin marking up the replacement bill as soon as next week.

That committee’s chairman, Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), said in November that he would lobby for a “traditional highway bill” to replace the BIL, and promised that lawmakers would refrain from “spending money on murals and train stations or bike paths or walking paths” — a suggestion Trump echoed in his budget proposal, which recommends draconian cuts to multimodal programs.

What the BIL Did Right

For all of its flaws, the BIL did at least one thing right: It provided local communities with historic levels of “predictable, multi-year funding” for multimodal transportation projects for five years, thereby insulating projects from the fickle whims of Congress’s annual appropriations process.

Since infrastructure projects generally take several years to plan and complete — especially ambitious ones like new rail lines, high quality bike paths and major road diets to keep pedestrians safe — this funding structure allowed communities to dream bigger about their transportation futures.

It also allowed locals to apply for far more grant money directly, rather than forcing them to rely on state-level Departments of Transportation, who far too often redirect gas tax receipts generated on city roads to pay for highway expansions in the suburban and rural periphery.

The BIL created a similar opportunity for the American rail industry, which secured its first predictable, multi-year funding streams in U.S. transportation history — finally allowing train operators to plan long-term expansions and start building out the expanded network that 92 percent of Americans want.

How Trump’s Proposal Could Halt Transportation Progress

If Congress accepts the Trump administration’s budget proposal, those rail programs would lose an astonishing 84 percent of their funding in fiscal year 2027, and they wouldn’t be guaranteed any money beyond that year. That would make it impossible for Amtrak and its peers to plan for the future.

Meanwhile, a host of programs that fund multimodal transportation would lose 96 percent of their 2027 funding — with no assurance of more money later. Safe Streets and Roads for All, for instance, would be zeroed out completely in FY2027, while the Capital Investment Grants program, a major source of transit funding, would receive a 48-percent cut.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who led the letter’s release and serves as ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, recently oversaw the publication of a 26-page report that described these efforts as “Main Street improvement” programs. The same document noted that these programs are especially vulnerable to budget cuts despite attracting so much interest that the Department of Transportation rejected more than 1,000 applications for funding.

“Congress must reject President Trump’s budget cuts and reauthorize surface transportation programs with advance appropriations that continue to provide dependable multiyear funding for our entire transportation system — not just part of it,” Cantwell’s office wrote.

Future-proofing the federal transportation program

Unfortunately, in an era of federal clawbacks, the mere existence of robust, multi-year funds for multimodal priorities doesn’t always mean that communities will actually receive their designated money — at least without a lot of lawsuits.

The Trump administration recently gained the dubious distinction of becoming “the first administration in at least three decades to fail to approve a new transit project in its first year,” according to Transportation for America’s Steve Davis. And that’s in addition to months of freezes, clawbacks, delays, and rescissions of programs that the administration deemed too “green” or “woke.”

That’s why advocates have launched parallel efforts to persuade Congress to stop negotiating the next transportation bill until Trump stops holding existing funds hostage — and, when negotiations resume, to build more guardrails to prevent future executive interference.

Recommended Trump Is Holding Affordable Transportation Projects Hostage, and Congress Could Call His Bluff Kea Wilson May 7, 2026

Until that happens, though, average Americans will continue to suffer from a lack of affordable, safe and multimodal transportation options — and that’s costing them real money.

Two years ago, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that discontinuing infrastructural investment and canceling money for freight priorities — as Trump’s proposed cuts would do — would cost the average U.S. household more than $700 per year. And that’s to say nothing of the missed opportunity costs of everything our transportation network could be if we funded multimodal priorities.

“Our roads are more than just highways — they are also hubs for community activity, hosts to small businesses, routes to and from schools, and drivers of economic activity,” Cantwell’s office wrote in its report. “Our federal investment strategy must reflect that reality and empower communities to make the most of their infrastructure.”

An earlier version of this article misstated Senator Cantwell’s role on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. We regret the error.

• At 18 cents a gallon, suspending the federal gas tax would only save drivers a few pennies on pump prices that have topped $4.50, on average (Wall Street Journal; paywall). Gas stations often pocket the difference, and encouraging people to drive more during a shortage could push prices even higher (CNN). It would also drain the already insufficient highway trust fund (PBS). Even if state gas taxes were suspended, too, gas would still be 35 percent higher than before the war on Iran (NBC News).
• Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy continues to get dunked on for filming a reality TV show funded by companies his department regulates. (NPR)
• Too many transit projects get bogged down because an agency tries to engineer its way around a problem rather than try to work things out with other agencies involved. (Infrastory)
• Electrifying bus fleets involves a lot more than just acquiring the buses. (Metro Magazine)
• Waymo and Waze recently started sharing pothole data with cities, and now a company that sells security cameras for trucks is offering the same service. (TechCrunch)
• After the H Street streetcar was unceremoniously shut down, the D.C. Metro is now considering a bus rapid transit line along H Street to get Commanders fans to the new RFK Stadium because a rail station won’t be open by 2030. (WUSA)
• The board of Vancouver, Washington transit agency C-Tran voted to support light rail along the controversial I-5 bridge connecting the city to Portland. (The Columbian)
• The Charlotte city council reversed course on supporting new toll lanes on I-77. (Observer)
• An Atlanta city council member pulled a bill to separate “heels” and “wheels” on the Atlanta Beltline, which transit advocates said would preclude future rail, but supporters said would protect pedestrians from the scourge of e-scooters. (AJC)
• New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced a plan to improve cleanliness, reliability, access and safety for NJ Transit. (NJ Business Magazine)
• Is Florida private passenger rail company Brightline headed for bankruptcy? (Palm Beach Post; paywall)
• A Kansas City program is helping small businesses find empty storefronts along the streetcar line. (KSHB)
• Unfortunately, America’s fondness for oversized SUVs is spreading to Europe. (The Guardian)
• A new report established a baseline for English roads’ carbon footprint to help reduce emissions in the future. (Smart Cities World)

The bizarre planning rules that make fossil gas connections a default for new homes, and add costs in a state that leads the world in rooftop PV and home batteries.

The post Bizarre planning rules that force new home owners to pay for gas connections, whether they want it or not appeared first on Renew Economy.

Tim Buckley from Climate and Energy Finance joins to discuss the good, bad and the ugly from the federal budget, how to fix the Capacity Investment Scheme, and other news.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Budget’s fossil fail, and how to fix the CIS appeared first on Renew Economy.

May 13, 2026 For Immediate Release:
Ute Mountain Utes, Navajos/Dine, Greenaction & Allies to Protest Energy Fuels’ uranium mines and the mill/dump next to White Mesa Ute Community – Saturday, May 16, noon

 

 

Click Here To Download the Press Advisory –> PRESS-ADVISORY_WMCC_La-Sal_Protest (1)

Click Here to Download Flyer –> May 16 No Uranium Protest at La Sal Junction

Support Green and Red Podcast and get the latest at https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast. In our latest, Scott talks with writer and Flotilla participant Zukiswa Wanner about the Global Salmud Flotilla. They talk…

The California Senate Rules Committee voted unanimously to advance Dorene D’Adamo’s reappointment to the State Water Resources Control Board despite vocal opposition from Tribal, environmental, and fishing groups.

Critics accused D’Adamo of favoring powerful agricultural and water interests, arguing during the hearing that those groups have had outsized influence over the Bay-Delta Plan process, while Tribal and environmental voices have been sidelined and ignored.

The reappointment hearing comes ahead of an expected September vote on the updated Bay-Delta Plan, which relies on negotiated “voluntary agreements,” also known as the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes program, that would allow major water users to avoid enforceable regulatory standards intended to restore river flows and protect the Delta ecosystem.

“The State Water Board has consistently tipped the scales on behalf of agriculture and urban water interests, and as a result, we have multiple species headed towards extinction,” Max Gomberg, Senior Policy Advisor to the California Water Impact Network told the committee members. “This committee should not condone the ongoing environmental catastrophe in our Delta via regulatory capture of this board.”

Gary Bobker, Program Director for Friends of the River, stated, “I do want board members who are outraged about this crisis in the Bay Delta and the way it affects many communities, and who push timely and effective action to address the root causes.”

Read more from the Sacramento Bee here. 

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Plans to construct a 400 megawatt, four-hour battery between two solar farms in north-east Victoria have been waved through the federal EPBC queue.

The post Developer of Australia’s most powerful battery gets green light for new four-hour project appeared first on Renew Economy.

Every year, Health Care Without Harm and the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments come together to honor a nurse who sees beyond the bedside – someone who understands that true healing requires clean air, safe water, and a stable climate. A nurse whose environmental activism and accomplishments have made a significant contribution to environmental health.

We are thrilled to announce Yasna Palmeiro-Silva, Ph.D.,  MPH,RN, as the 2026 Charlotte Brody Award recipient. A registered nurse from Chile, Palmeiro-Silva has transformed her experience in ICU bedside care into a powerful nurse-scientist voice at the intersection of climate change, population health, and global policy. 

From critical care to climate advocacy

Palmeiro-Silva didn’t start out as a climate researcher. She began her career as an ICU nurse, primarily working with cardiovascular disease and surgery patients – but something kept nagging at her.

“During my shifts, I noticed every single time that we were having younger and younger patients,” she reflected. “This is not okay. This is not sustainable. Because of their quality of life, but also because as a society, we cannot afford to have ill people.”

The realization that the hospital could not solve problems rooted in how we live, build our societies, and work drove her to take action. She left the ICU to study public health, then earned her Ph.D. in global health from University College in London. Her thesis linked climate change and public health in Chile. Today, she lives in Seattle, Washington, but her work continues to span continents.

Changing laws in Chile

One story Palmeiro-Silva shared stands out as a testament to what one nurse-scientist can achieve.

In Chile, the intersection of climate change, heat, and health was barely discussed until just three years ago. Palmeiro-Silva saw an opportunity – she took her epidemiological skills and produced evidence-based analysis for the policymaking sphere. The result? New policy.

“Right now, we have three or four laws that have been passed,” she said. One law explicitly requires that specific requirements be met to protect people’s health from climate change, now being woven into national and regional climate action plans.

This isn’t just advocacy – it’s systemic change.

Inspiring nurses – all in a days work

When asked how she inspires other nurses to share her passion, Palmeiro-Silva was humble.

“For me, inspiring other people is not something that I consciously do,” she said. “I do it through dialogue and sharing of experiences.”

She notes that nursing education in Chile is heavily focused on clinical practice. By helping nurses understand how the problems they see during their shifts – younger patients, chronic diseases, respiratory distress – are linked to upstream factors like governance, policy, and the environment, she expands their perspective.

She’s spoken to nurses in Turkey, the United Kingdom, Latin America, and the United States, and she’s seeing the movement grow. “They see me as a thought leader who started in the ICU who is now pushing for policy change on a global level.”

Lessons from a global perspective

Having worked extensively outside the United States, Palmeiro-Silva offered a powerful lesson for any health professional doing climate work here.

“What happens in one country could be totally different from another,” she cautioned. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn. She advocates for “learning from comparison; not competition.”

Her advice? Keep the big picture in mind. Climate change and health is a large, complicated problem, but it can be solved by various levels and individuals taking action inside their locus of control. “From the country level to the hospital to the nurse in the halls. Every action, no matter how little, matters.”

What’s next?

Palmeiro-Silva shows no signs of slowing down. She’s currently tracking heat measures and their impact on workers’ health, and she’s about to start a new project in Latin America examining the connection between temperature and cognitive performance in children, funded by Wellcome Trust.

Soon, she will begin a new role as a scientific advisor with Lancet Countdown Latin America, advising on how to track the intersection of climate change and population health, from heat mortality to heat action plans and public engagement.

“There is a need to be super active in this sphere and exit our comfort zone to go for the change that needs to happen,” she said.

Join us in celebrating Palmeiro-Silva

When asked what or who gives her inspiration, Palmeiro-Silva simply said, “Every single person that I talk to. I am super open to learning from everybody – EVERYBODY.”

That openness, combined with rigorous science and a nurse’s heart, is exactly why Palmeiro-Silva is the 2026 Charlotte Brody Award winner.

Please join us in congratulating Palmeiro-Silva. And let her story remind us: whether you work in an ICU, policy office, or community clinic, you have a role to play in protecting environmental health.

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The Charlotte Brody Award is presented annually by Health Care Without Harm and the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments to honor nurses who demonstrate outstanding leadership in environmental health.

The post 2026 Charlotte Brody Award Winner: Yasna Palmeiro-Silva appeared first on ANHE.

Flying forwards while looking back Teresa Myers Wed, 05/13/2026 - 2:23 pm

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink

Back in December I provided some initial projections of where both 2026 and 2027 global mean surface temperatures might end up.

A lot has happened since then. We’ve gotten the first three months of data in for 20261 (and have a good sense of where April 2026 will end up in reanalysis data – see our Climate Dashboard for daily updates).

More importantly, models are converging on a doozy of an El Niño event developing in the latter part of 2026, with the latest multi-model median projection of a peak anomaly of 2.7C in the ENSO3.4 region of the tropical Pacific. While the prediction remains uncertain (we remain within the “spring predictability barrier” when its historically hard to predict ENSO2 development), this would put the 2026/2027 roughly on par with the “super” El Niño the world experienced in 2015/2016.

I’ve updated the models I use for both my 2026 and 2027 projections. I’ll go into the gory methodological details shortly, but the headline numbers are in the figure below: the estimate for 2026 has risen from 1.41C (with a range of 1.27C to 1.55C) to 1.46C (1.36C to 1.59C). The 2027 estimate has similarly increased from 1.57C (1.3C to 1.76C) to 1.61C (1.4C to 1.93C).

 

So what changed? Before the start of the year I was using a pretty simple regression model. It estimate what the annual temperature anomaly would be based on the prior year’s anomaly, the last month of the prior year, the predicted ENSO state over the next three months, as well as a year count (and year count squared) to reflect linear and non-linear aspects of the trend since 1970.

I’ve updated this to use the equation below, which includes the year count, prior year’s temperature anomaly, the anomaly over the year to date for 2026 (currently Jan-Mar), the latest month, the observed ENSO state over the year to date, and the forecasted ENSO state over the remainder of the year.3 The uncertainty in the 2026 prediction also accounts for the uncertainty in the ENSO forecast using a Monte Carlo sampling approach.4

Similarly, the original 2027 calculation was pretty ad hoc; I just took the 2026 estimate and added the current warming trend (0.026C per year) that we calculated in our Forster et al 2025 paper. I then added a range of possible boosts from El Niño ranging from 0C (no El Niño develops) to 0.2C (very strong El Niño), roughly encompassing the range we’ve seen across past events.

Now I’ve converted it into a proper regression model. It calculates the expected year-over-year change in temperatures based on the year count (reflecting the trend) and the ENSO forecast for the latter part of the year (September-December, reflecting the period over which the currently developing El Niño will likely peak).5 This is then added to the 2026 estimates, with their uncertainty (and the uncertainty in future ENSO forecast) propagated through using the same Monte Carlo approach. This actually slightly increases the error bars from the original 2027 estimate, reflecting the uncertainty in both the 2026 estimate and the El Niño forecast.

One way to test how well this approach works is to see how well it predicts year-over-year temperature changes during past strong El Nino events (e.g. with a peak >2C and a Sept-Dec average of >1.5C), as shown in the figure below:

In general the model does pretty well; it slightly underestimates the year-over-year increase in 1973, 1983, and 1998, gets 2016 pretty spot on, and slightly overestimates the increase between 2023 and 2024. This is, of course, contingent on where 2026 annual temperatures end up, so a warmer 2026 in this model would result in a warmer 2027.

We can also look at how well the model “hindcasts” past years by applying the 2026 prediction model to past years using the same year-to-date and temperature and ENSO values:

Overall the development of a strong El Niño event in 2026 (and its effects on 2027 temperatures) have bumped my predictions up a bit from where they were at the start of the year.

But 2026 remains more likely than not to end up as the second warmest year on record (~56% chance), but has a non-trial chance of being the warmest year (~26%) with a somewhat larger change (34%) of being above 1.5C.

2027, by contrast, is likely (~85% chance) to be the warmest year on record and has a 88% chance to be above 1.5C. My updated estimate central estimate (1.61C) remains a bit lower than Hansen’s (1.7C),6 but its consistent with the size of the year-over-year bumps we’ve seen in past strong El Niño events.

Update:A new set of ENSO runs came in this afternoon from CanSIPS, which previously set the lower bound on the ENSO forecast for 2026. The new update has notably higher estimates; these don’t change the central estimate (as the median across all ENSO model remains unchanged), but it reduces the lower end of the uncertainties in the error bars. I’ve updated the figures and text accordingly. 1 Here I’m using the average of NASA’s GISTEMP, NOAA’s GlobalTemp, Berkeley Earth, Hadley/UAE’s HadCRUT5, and Copernicus/ECMWF’s ERA5 as they are updated monthly and reasonably reflect the diversity across GMST datasets. 2 ENSO refers to El Niño Southern Oscillation, a term that encompasses both El Niño and La Niña conditions in the ENSO3.4 region of the tropical Pacific. 3 I also tested it with year count squared but the difference was minor – the prior year and year-to-date already captures a lot of the information about acceleration. 4 This involves calculating a probability distribution of future ENSO development across all the ensemble members of all the models with runs through the end of the year, and randomly sampling 1000 times from that distribution to see how it affects the results. 5 I also tried a variant using the peak El Niño forecast, but that was slightly less predictive. 6 And his team’s new estimate, just published today, that 2026 is on track to be the warmest year on record.

DENVER—Interior Secretary Doug Burgum appeared in front of the House Natural Resources Committee today to defend President Donald Trump’s 2027 Interior department budget request. Today’s hearing follows Burgum’s appearances in front of a House Appropriations subcommittee, a Senate appropriations subcommittee, and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last month.

At today’s hearing:

• Burgum refused to acknowledge that the American people are facing high energy prices due to Trump’s actions in the Middle East and his vendetta against renewable energy. When asked by Representatives Dave Min and Seth Magaziner why the Interior department is slow-walking and cancelling renewable energy projects on public lands and waters while the country is facing an alleged “energy emergency,” Burgum fell back on his tired talking point that “the sun doesn’t shine” at night.

• Burgum struggled to defend Interior department spending on Trump’s vanity projects in Washington, D.C., like painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue and constructing a White House ballroom, in response to questioning from Representatives Joe Neguse, Maxine Dexter, and Ranking Member Jared Huffman.

• When asked about no-bid contracts issued by the National Park Service for Trump’s vanity projects, Burgum pleaded ignorance, saying he wasn’t even familiar with the contractor hired to paint the reflecting pool blue. Burgum also pleaded ignorance when asked about the creation of Trump’s Freedom 250 group and corruption at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

• Burgum also struggled to answer questions from Representatives Melanie Stansbury and Adelita Grijalva about massive proposed cuts to Bureau of Indian Affairs education programs.

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

“You know something has gone off the rails when members of Congress have to hold up a battery to explain energy technology to the Interior secretary who also heads up the National Energy Dominance Council. In today’s hearing, Doug Burgum doubled down on his defense of President Trump’s failing energy policies and his ongoing spending spree on vanity projects in D.C. By refusing to take responsibility for his part in rising energy prices, Burgum is forsaking the American people in favor of fossil fuel executives. And in defending Trump’s vanity projects, Burgum is selling out national parks across the country to stroke President Trump’s ego.

“Doug Burgum also claimed ignorance when asked about corruption allegations at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. If Burgum doesn’t know what’s going on under his own nose, he’s not doing his job. But we already knew that. He seems to spend more time on Fox News than he does in the office.”

Here is a full transcript of the hearing, as well as a folder with screenshots from the online hearing for media use.

Learn More:

• Trump’s bagman: Doug Burgum is helping Trump gut national parks while giving D.C. a taxpayer-funded makeover – Westwise

• Highlight reel: The five most bewildering moments from Doug Burgum’s congressional hearings – Westwise

• Burgum blunders through budget hearings, taking heat for NPS cuts and Trump ‘slush fund’ – Westwise

The post Burgum struggles to defend Trump’s DC vanity projects and ‘Energy Dominance’ agenda in House hearing  appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Vermont passes first-in-the-nation bill to ban toxic herbicide linked to Parkinson’s disease Anthony Lacey May 13, 2026

In a historic show of bipartisan leadership, Vermont lawmakers today approved a bill to ban the highly toxic herbicide paraquat. It’s the first time a state legislature has passed legislation to phaseout paraquat, a chemical linked to Parkinson’s disease.

House Bill 739 would, if enacted, end Vermonters’ exposure to one of the most dangerous pesticides still in use. 

The Environmental Working Group is urging Gov. Phil Scott to sign the legislation and set a first-in-the-nation precedent for banning paraquat. The vote also comes as 12 other states have introduced bills to ban or restrict the chemical and California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation is re-reviewing paraquat.

Paraquat has been linked not only to Parkinson’s disease but also to other serious health harms, including cancer. More than 70 countries have banned paraquat due to these health concerns, yet it remains used in the U.S.

“With today’s vote, Vermont is making history and putting the health of its residents first,” said Geoff Horsfield, legislative director at EWG. “This is the first time any legislative body in the country has passed a bill to fully ban paraquat, sending a powerful signal that the days of tolerating this dangerous chemical are numbered. 

“Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike have made clear that safeguarding farmers, rural communities and children must take precedence over continued use of one of the most hazardous pesticides still on the market.” he added. “Now that the House has passed this landmark bill, we urge Gov. Scott to sign it.”

State Rep. Esme Cole (D-Windsor) and state Sen. Martine Gulick (D-Chittenden-Central District) championed their chambers’ versions of the bills. 

In addition to EWG, groups supporting the paraquat ban bill include the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, Parkinson’s Foundation, the American Parkinson Disease Association, the Vermont Natural Resources Council and others.

“No one, including farmers, farmworkers, families or children, should be exposed to a chemical with such well-documented risks,” added Horsfield.

Once Scott signs the legislation, it would mark a major milestone in the fight to eliminate paraquat use in the U.S. and could accelerate efforts in other states. 

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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and education, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Paraquat Press Contact Alex Formuzis alex@ewg.org (202) 667-6982 May 13, 2026

Editor’s Note: Covering the on-going arguments regarding the reuse of oil and gas wastewater hasn’t been in La Jicarita’s purview, but the latest decision by the Water Quality Control Commission is so egregious that I’m posting the New Energy Economy’s press release. The WQCC, lobbied heavily by the Water Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance — or WATR Alliance — a trade group with members from the oil and gas industry, voted for the second time to advance a petition to expand and regulate the reuse of oil and gas wastewater. The Lujan Grisham administration also lobbied WQCC to overturn a year-old decision prohibiting the reuse of the wastewater, making sure that her appointed WQCC commissioners were making the right decision. WQCC will hold a public hearing to advance the rule making, a hearing that will be protested by the many environmental and public advocacy groups that oppose this decision.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mariel Nanasi, Executive Director, New Energy Economy
(505) 469-4060 | mnanasi@newenergyeconomy.org

May 12, 2026

Despite The Fact that Science is Missing to Prove Oil and Gas Industry Waste Water Is Safe for Reuse or Discharge WQCC Votes to Move Oil & Gas Industry Petition Forward

Santa Fe, NM — Environmental and public interest organizations lost today; oil and gas industry’s latest attempt to weaken New Mexico’s produced water protections was greenlighted today despite the fact that the science remains fundamentally incomplete, uncertain, and incapable of demonstrating safety for human health or the environment.

While the Petition cites scientific studies, the studies themselves do not establish the central claim the industry needs to prove: that produced water can actually be treated and reused safely in the real world. Critically, the industry repeatedly claims that produced water can be treated and reused “to a non-toxic level in a real-world setting,” yet that statement does not appear in the cited studies or in the scientific literature itself.

The scientific record instead demonstrates the opposite: the science surrounding produced water reuse remains in an early and highly uncertain stage. Major unresolved problems remain, including incomplete characterization of contaminants, the presence of unknown and unmeasured compounds, lack of comprehensive toxicological datasets, and the complete absence of established regulatory frameworks capable of ensuring safe discharge or reuse.

The Water Quality Control Commission’s Vice Chair said “the Petition is not ready for us to hear it.” The Chair of the Commission said the Petition has “serious legal flaws” and has pages, 20 page or more of blank empty spaces” and stated that he could “not support it in its current form.” He specifically pointed out that produced water contains complex mixtures that the industry has not “fessed up” to. Produced water is full of known and unknown contaminants, that treatment technologies remain experimental, and that the state lacks sufficient standards and data to regulate reuse safely.

“The oil and gas industry is asking regulators to leap far ahead of the science,” said Mariel Nanasi, Executive Director, New Energy Economy. “While there is new science – that science does not state what it must: that produced water can be treated and discharged and is safe. New Mexicans should not become guinea pigs for an experiment involving toxic radioactive wastewater that has not been proven safe.”

Under New Mexico law, the Commission’s role is to prevent and abate water pollution — not to create new industrial water supplies for oil and gas operators or speculative development projects. Many Commissioners raised questions about bias, concerned with who is paying for the NM Produced Water Consortium and the studies that result therefrom; they were also concerned with the accuracy of statements in the Petition.

At its core, the situation is simple: the science is not settled. It is evolving, incomplete, and deeply uncertain. That is exactly why the Commission previously prohibited discharge and reuse of produced water outside tightly controlled pilot projects in 2025. Until comprehensive science, toxicology, and enforceable regulatory safeguards exist, allowing widespread reuse or discharge would place New Mexico’s groundwater, rivers, communities, and future generations at unacceptable risk.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 13, 2026

Bold Statement Re: Summit Carbon Solutions’ Alternate Plan to Route Risky CO2 Pipeline Through Nebraska

Landowners with the Nebraska Easement Action Team will oppose Summit’s efforts to acquire land; any attempts to use eminent domain will face court challenges

Hastings, NE – Bold issued the following statement after Summit Carbon Solutions issued an announcement that it now intends to attempt to seek a route through the state of Nebraska for its proposed risky carbon dioxide (CO2) pipeline:  

“Transporting a dangerous waste product across the entire state of Nebraska so that a private company can capture billions of dollars of our tax dollars is not a public use, and surely is not in the public interest of Nebraskans. Bold and the Nebraska Easement Action Team will oppose Summit’s latest scheme to appease its investors,” said Shelli Meyer, Director of Bold’s Nebraska Easement Action Team (NEAT) landowners’ legal co-op. “Nebraskans are not willing to expose our families and farms to the risks of a CO2 pipeline rupture, like what happened in Satartia, Mississippi in 2020, where vehicles attempting to flee stalled and dozens were hospitalized due to lack of oxygen, with some experiencing negative health impacts to this day.”

After the citizens of South Dakota voted overwhelmingly to ban the use of eminent domain to seize landowners’ private property for CO2 pipelines, Summit was confronted with a “pipeline to nowhere,” as the company initially intended to pipe the CO2 through South Dakota into North Dakota, where it would be injected into underground sequestration well waste dumps.

Now, Summit says its new plan is to instead attempt to obtain a pipeline route directly across the entire state of Nebraska, to an alternate underground CO2 waste dump site in Wyoming. The company will also switch focus from offering ethanol plants a way to improve their “carbon scores,” to “enhanced oil recovery” as a potential use for the captured CO2 – erasing whatever climate benefits the company and its ethanol plant partners are claiming from the project, if the CO2 will instead be utilized to extract and burn more oil. 

Just like an alliance of landowners stood together to defeat the proposed Keystone XL pipeline through Nebraska, landowners with the Nebraska Easement Action Team landowners’ legal co-op are organizing landowner and community opposition within impacted counties threatened by Summit’s potentially deadly carbon pipeline. NEAT landowners and their attorneys stand ready to file litigation should Summit attempt to seize Nebraskans’ farmland via eminent domain. 

Bold’s Easement Teams in Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota have also been organizing landowner opposition to the Summit CO2 pipeline for years. Bold’s Easement Teams are helping fund attorneys who have represented landowners at agency hearings that resulted in pipeline permit rejections in North Dakota and South Dakota, and the most-contested project in the history at the Iowa Utilities Commission, where landowners with the Iowa Easement Team also continue to challenge Summit’s pipeline route approval in the courts.  

About Bold’s Easement Action Teams: 

The Easement Action Teams are a project of the Bold Education Fund. The EATs work with local communities to provide immediate legal representation to landowners facing pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Our first priority is to protect landowners’ property rights and water. We believe landowners should have the ultimate right of what does and does not happen on their land. We stand against the use of eminent domain for private gain. (https://easementteams.org) The first landowners legal co-op formed was the Nebraska Easement Action Team, which successfully organized landowners to fight the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, and currently works with landowners fighting carbon pipelines in the state. (https://neeasement.org) 

About Bold Pipeline Fighters Hub: 

The Bold Pipeline Fighters Hub, a project of the Bold Education Fund, provides technical, legal, story telling and organizing assistance to any community fighting pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure, with the goal of protecting the land and water. (https://pipelinefighters.org)

About Bold:

The Bold Alliance and Bold Education Fund are coordinating state-based groups with our Pipeline Fighters Hub and landowner legal groups called the Easement Action Teams to stop pipelines from using eminent domain for private gain. (https://boldalliance.org)

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BALTIMORE – The National Audubon Society has received a $13 million grant that will support large-scale marsh restoration projects across Maryland, addressing the rapid loss of salt marsh habitat...

The Wednesday, May 13, 2026, Climate Justice Forum radio program, produced by regional, climate activists collective Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), features an Earth Day panel discussion facilitated by Bill Moyer of Solutionary Rail, with environmental justice and labor organizers Ryan Calbreath of the UE Union Green Locomotive program, Jess Conard of Rail Watch, mark! Lopez of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Tabitha Tripp of Public Rail Now, and Andrea Vidaurre of People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, talking about shifting harmful, private, Wall Street-extractive, Class 1 railroads into beneficial, public, electrified, rail and transmission infrastructure systems that could provide better accountability and community safety and services. We also share news, videos, and reflections on the proposed, unpermitted, bedrock blasting under rivers for construction of the Enbridge Line 5 tar sands pipeline, rerouted around a Wisconsin indigenous reservation near the Great Lakes, and Idaho citizen objections to Snake River Oil and Gas plans to drill the Miller 1-15 methane well and extract their privately-owned resources via forced leasing, close to hundreds of Fruitland residences, businesses, and water wells. Broadcast for fourteen years on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow, every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm Pacific time, on-air at 90.3 FM and online at KRFP and the Pacifica Network AudioPort, the show describes continent-wide, grassroots, frontline resistance to fossil fuels projects, the root causes of climate change, thanks to generous, anonymous listeners who adopted program host Helen Yost as their KRFP DJ.

New: Enbridge’s Line 5 Reroute Blasts through Bedrock Without Permits, Threatening the Great Lakes, May 7, 2026 Unicorn Riot

WIRT Comments and CAIA Objection with Attachments Opposing Snake River Oil and Gas Miller 1-15 Methane Well Drilling Application, April 20, 2026 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

Panel Discussion: Solutionary Earth Day Special — From Problem to Solution, May 2, 2026 Solutionary Rail

Any animal that triggers a cyanide bomb can asphyxiate and die in just minutes.