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The National Labor Relations Board’s Region 13 Office in Chicago moved to block the originally scheduled Sept. 17 NLRB union election at Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, Ill., in light of credible allegations that a free and fair election is not possible at this time due to Prime Healthcare’s substantial and flagrant violations of the National Labor Relations Act.

Following the Trump administration’s move to exempt oil projects from environmental review in the Western Arctic, Alaska Wilderness League Arctic Campaign Manager, Katie Umphlett, released the following statement: 

“The Trump administration has made it clear from day one that their priority is catering to industry and not the American public. With this latest move in the Western Arctic, they are essentially letting the oil industry write its own rules. At a time when oil companies and executives are already making record profits, the last thing we should be doing is bending the rules to make it easier to pad their bottom lines at the expense of our public lands, wildlife, and communities.” 

Coal is by far the dirtiest of the world’s major energy sources. It accounts for almost half of the cumulative global carbon emissions since the industrial era began — as much as oil and natural gas combined. And it generates much more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than either oil or gas. Most climate experts agree that phasing out coal power is the single biggest change the world could make to slow down global warming. 

For almost 20 years, the United States has whipsawed on the question of whether the federal government should try to speed up that phaseout. After Barack Obama failed to push a carbon tax through Congress, his administration drafted the “Clean Power Plan,” which would have forced electric utilities to cut their emissions by shifting away from coal. President Donald Trump repealed that rule during his first term, and the Supreme Court later said that the president could not unilaterally force utilities to give up the fuel.

Instead of forcing utilities to abandon coal, the Biden administration tried to work around the Supreme Court ruling in its 2024 rule by giving utilities a choice. They could either retire their coal plants sometime in the 2030s, or they could equip them with new machines that would capture almost all the carbon dioxide that would come out of their smokestacks. The result either way would be a significant drop in carbon emissions from the power sector.

The Trump administration is now repealing that rule. The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Monday that it plans to wipe away all federal regulations for carbon emissions from the electricity sector, essentially allowing utilities to warm the Earth as much as they want. The agency used the same justification as it did in its repeal of climate regulations on motor vehicles earlier this year, arguing that the science of climate change was uncertain and that the repeal would save consumers money on power bills.

“For over 15 years, the Obama and Biden administrations implemented a war on coal to destroy reliable and affordable energy,” said Trump’s EPA chief Lee Zeldin at an international energy summit in Texas. “We are working to go even further so that American energy can be fully unleashed. Realizing the full potential of American energy means more jobs, lower prices, and a more prosperous America.”

This repeal deals a significant blow to the federal government’s efforts to force the power sector away from coal. The whiplash between Democratic and Republican administrations has been so frequent and so severe that neither the Obama nor the Biden rules have done much to speed the decarbonization of the power sector, especially when compared to other federal efforts like the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies for solar and wind.

“The reason to have a target is that it sends a clear signal to decision-makers in companies,” said Kenneth Gillingham, a professor of environmental economics at Yale University and an economic adviser to the Obama administration, where he helped draft the Clean Power Plan. “If you’re on the fence between choosing two things, you might as well choose the one that’s in line with the target. That’s been undermined. There has to be some teeth behind it.”

Even though the Obama and Biden rules never took effect, coal power has still been plummeting in the United States over the past 20 years. That’s thanks to the shale fracking boom, which lowered the cost of natural gas and made it cheap for utilities to replace their coal plants with gas plants. When burned, natural gas does warm the Earth, but slower than coal, and the shift has caused overall power sector emissions to fall in the U.S. by almost half.

The repeal of the Biden rule will likely delay that phaseout and will have significant effects for the nation’s public health. Coal plants also release harmful toxins like mercury and particulate matter, leading to thousands of premature deaths around the world. Inasmuch as the Biden rule would have sped up coal closures, it would also have prevented around $370 billion in health damages from climate change and air pollution. The Biden administration predicted that in 2035, the rule would have prevented hundreds of thousands of asthma flare-ups, hundreds of emergency room visits, and more than 1,200 premature deaths.

The artificial intelligence boom is also slowing the phaseout of coal. The Biden administration drafted its 2024 rule at a time when coal was expected to keep shrinking on its own; the rule projected a “continued decline in projected coal-fired steam generating unit capacity as well as a steady decline in annual operation of those [plants] that remain online,” driven largely by “eroding economic opportunities for coal-fired steam generating units to operate.” Now the rapid growth in power demand from data centers has led to a resurgence in demand for coal plants, and has led many utilities to push out the retirement date for their legacy coal assets. For coal power plants that sell into wholesale markets like the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic, high prices have made it worthwhile to stay online. (The Trump administration has also ordered some coal plants to stay online past their planned retirements, a move that a federal court found to be unlawful earlier this month.)

A case in point is Southern Company, the massive utility that produces energy for states including Georgia and Mississippi. Under the Biden administration, the utility had planned to retire its major Mississippi coal plant by 2028, but Southern announced last year that data centers would necessitate keeping it online well into the 2030s. The company’s previous efforts to install carbon capture at its coal units, meanwhile, have ended in failure. Environmental groups have criticized these decisions and argued that AI demand is inflated, but the Trump administration is happy to give utilities leeway to keep coal online.

The next president who seeks to take action on climate change will face much the same coal challenge that Obama did: how to speed up the phaseout of a fuel that is declining, but not dying? Gillingham argues that the short-term boost provided by Trump and the data center boom may not help rescue the coal fleet. The nation’s coal plants are only getting older, and many utilities will choose to replace them with gas or other fuels rather than repair them. The next president may still need the regulatory “stick,” but by that time the sector may be on its last legs.

“We have more electricity demand than we did before, which is, on the margins, going to make it easier for a coal plant to stay on,” said Gillingham. “But the trend is pretty clear, and you can only fight markets so much.”

toolTips('.classtoolTips4','The process of reducing the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that drive climate change, most often by deprioritizing the use of fossil fuels like oil and gas in favor of renewable sources of energy.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump topples the last pillar of Biden’s climate agenda on Sep 14, 2026.

This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Josh Gabbatiss, Daisy Dunne, Molly Lempriere, Dr Simon Evans

Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, has emerged as a major force in UK politics in recent years – pushing anti-net-zero policies, alongside vehement opposition to immigration.

The hard-right populist party is currently mired in a funding controversy and only has a handful of MPs, yet, until recently, it had been leading in national polls for more than a year.

As seen with many similar parties across Europe and beyond, a rejection of climate science is central to Reform’s ideological outlook.

Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, is a vocal critic of what he calls “net stupid zero” and has incorrectly blamed “the sun or volcanoes” for human-caused global warming.

As Reform’s energy spokesperson, Tice has also been clear that, if the party were ever to form a national government, it would scrap the UK’s net-zero target, support fossil-fuel expansion and tear up existing contracts for renewable energy.

While less vocal on the subject, Farage has, nevertheless, expressed climate-sceptic views and falsely blamed net-zero policies for the “deindustrialisation of Britain”.

These views draw on long-standing, inaccurate climate-sceptic narratives and are reflected in Reform’s election manifestos, its actions in local government and the opinions of many of its supporters.

Here, Carbon Brief gathers together by topic and factchecks 45 false or misleading claims made by the party’s leadership relating to climate change, renewables and net-zero.

• Climate science

• Net-zero target

• Energy costs

• Oil and gas

• Impacts and adaptation

• Clean energy

Climate science

FALSE

Tice: “There’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change climate change…The Norwegian government’s own equivalent of our ONS [Office of National Statistics] has recently produced a report along the lines of what I’m saying.”

Sky News, February 2025

The world’s authority on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says it is “unequivocal” that humans have warmed the planet, primarily through releasing greenhouse gases.

The IPCC says that, due to human activities, concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) “have increased at rates that have no precedent on centennial timescales in at least the past 800,000 years”.

It adds that concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are now higher than they have been for at least the past two million years.

The report that Tice is referring to is by two independent authors, with Statistics Norway clarifying in 2024 that their views are “not the official stance” of the statistics bureau. (It has also not been formally peer reviewed.)

A factcheck of the Norwegian report by a climate scientist for RealClimate describes it as “misguided” and a “distraction due to errors”.

Another factcheck published by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found it “contains standard talking-points of climate denial”.

MISLEADING

Tice: “Look, the climate’s always changed for millions of years. And it goes through cycles, long, medium and short.”

Bloomberg, May 2026

Global temperatures are currently around 1.4C hotter than when the industrial era first began in 1850-1900, as shown in the figure below.

The IPCC says that this amount of warming is likely to have made Earth hotter than at any time in about 125,000 years.

Data from NASA GISTEMP, NOAA GlobalTemp, Hadley/UEA HadCRUT5, Berkeley Earth, Copernicus ERA5, JRA-3Q, DCENT, and China-MST. Temperature records are aligned over the 1981-2010 period and use the WMO approach to calculate warming relative to pre-industrial levels (1850-1900).

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that approximately 100% of this warming has been caused by humans. 

There are also natural influences that can affect Earth’s climate on shorter timescales, such as El Niño events, volcanic eruptions and small variations in the output of the sun. However, scientists have found that these have only a limited effect on the underlying trend of long-term global warming.

When looking at longer timescales of millions of years or more, Earth has experienced multiple ice ages interspersed with warmer periods.

These changes in climate were triggered by variations in Earth’s orbit around the sun, in combination with subtle fluctuations in the tilt and rotation of the planet, over tens of thousands of years. However, the resulting changes to CO2 levels in the atmosphere also played a role.

This should serve as a “cautionary example”, according to Dr Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist and Carbon Brief contributor, “because human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases push the Earth further out of the range of climate conditions that have characterised the past few million years”.

FALSE

Tice: “The idea that you can stop the power of the sun or volcanoes is simply ludicrous.”

BBC Breakfast, June 2024

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that humans have caused 100% of recent climate change.

Tice’s suggestion that the sun or volcanic eruptions are behind current warming is false.

As the video below explains, the sun and volcanic eruptions have little bearing on the long-term trend of global temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution.

Click here to read the rest

The fracking company Cuadrilla has secured the very time extension to restore its Lancashire shale gas site that councillors refused nine months ago.

Dismantled acoustic fencing at Preston New Road, August 2026. Photo: Maple Independent Media

Unknown to residents and campaigners, Lancashire County Council agreed to extend the deadline to return the Preston New Road site to farmland by six months to 30 June 2027.

In December 2025, this date has been unanimously refused by the council’s planning committee.

It has also emerged that Cuadrilla appealed over other dates enforcing the clean up of the site, near Blackpool.

The developments began three months ago, when Cuadrilla failed to meet an approved timetable for the Preston New Road restoration.

The county council took enforcement action. The enforcement notice required the site to be returned to farmland by January 2027.

But Cuadrilla worked behind the scenes with officials to get agreement on the very extension it had previously applied for and been refused.

The extension has taken residents and campaigners by surprise. The first some local people knew about it was a social media post by a councillor last week.

At the time of writing, there has been no media release from the county council.

Reaction

Nick Danby, of the campaign group, Frack Free Lancashire, said:

“We have just learned that the timetable for the restoration of the Preston New Road fracking site has been extended – yet again. The site was to have been fully restored by next January but now it seems that we might not see this matter resolved until June.

“Cuadrilla have turned dragging their feet into an art form and they have received no sanction whatsoever. Frankly, they have run rings around the regulators and Lancashire County Council and we have absolutely no confidence that they will meet the new timetable nor that they have any intention of doing so. We will be keeping a close eye on developments, if there are any.

“The community has been completely failed. Just as we always predicted. This should have been properly resolved a long time ago and the fact that we are still waiting is completely unacceptable.”

Another opponent of Cuadrilla’s operation, Preston New Road Action Group, said:

“In June we were encouraged by the fact that Lancashire County Council (LCC) had finally taken action to enforce Cuadrilla’s blatant failure to restore the site at Preston New Road. We were looking forward to this blot on the landscape being removed by December 2026.

“It is now very disappointing to find out that, following an appeal by Cuadrilla, LCC have rolled over and given them until June 2027 to restore the site – exactly the extension Cuadrilla applied for in 2025 which was refused by the LCC Development Committee.

“This is another fine example of Cuadrilla playing the LCC planners and getting the upper hand. We can only hope that this really is the final deadline for Cuadrilla.”

DrillOrDrop has been trying to make sense of what happened over the restoration plans, enforcement action, Cuadrilla appeal and the agreement with officials.

Lancashire County Council told us repeatedly that there had been no extension of the final deadline. But this is contradicted by several documents.

Timeline 4 December 2025: Cuadrilla refused more time

Councillors voted by nine to nil, with no abstentions, to refuse Cuadrilla’s request for an extension until 30 June 2027 for the return of Preston New Road to farmland. At the time, officials said:

“The proposed extension of time for the retention of the site in its current form would result in unnecessary and unacceptable harm to the rural character of the area.” Details

Campaigners called for immediate restoration of the site. Details

3 June 2026: original enforcement notice served

Lancashire County Council served an enforcement notice on Cuadrilla over the restoration of Preston New Road. The notice was due to come into force on 8 July 2026 unless there was an appeal against it.

The enforcement notice set three deadlines for the work.

1. “All plant, buildings, security and acoustic fencing, pollution control membranes, aggregates and concrete hard standings forming part of the drilling compound for hydrocarbons shall be removed from the land” This was to be by 8 November 2026, within four months from the date the notice became effective.
2. The upper layers of the subsoil material shall be subsoiled to a depth of 600mm using a heavy duty winged subsoiler prior to the replacement of topsoils to relieve compaction and remove materials injurious to plant life and ay rock, stone or other materials capable of preventing or impeding normal agricultural use or land drainage operations. This was to by 8 December 2026 – within five months
3. Following treatment of the subsoil the topsoil from the soil storage mounds on the Land shall be distributed evenly across the Land to a minimum depth of 150mm and shall then be ripped, cultivated and left in a state that will enable the Land to be brought to a standard fit for agricultural use. This was to be by 8 January 2026 – within six months.

1.0 Enforcement Notice LCC 3.06.26_Redacted(1)Download

8 June 2026: media announcement

Lancashire County Council issued a media release on the enforcement notice. Details

Councillor Joshua Roberts, cabinet member for Rural Affairs, Environment and Communities, said:

“This situation has gone on for far too long.

“Local residents have had to live with this site for longer than they should have, and it is right that we have now taken firm action to bring this to a conclusion.

“It is positive that work is beginning to remove infrastructure from the site, but it is essential that the full restoration is completed within the required timeframe.

“We will not hesitate to take further steps if necessary.”

The media statement repeated the three deadlines in the original enforcement notice.

24 June 2026: Cuadrilla asks for an extension

On 24 June 2026, Cuadrilla confirmed the final deadline of 8 January 2027 in the enforcement notice. But it asked Lancashire County Council to “exercise its discretion” under planning legislation to change the final date to 30 June 2027.

The company also confirmed that 30 June 2027 was the date it had asked for in its planning application, refused in December 2025.

Cuadrilla cited the following reasons for its requested delay:

• The restoration work was “extensive in scope and require careful sequencing”
• The work would be best carried out in April-September, not the winter
• The company could procure contractors on “appropriate terms and enable them to mobilise effectively”
• Working in the winter could cause further harm to the soil structure and agricultural quality of the land
• The company had not appealed against the refusal of planning permission

Cuadrilla proposed to remove the acoustic fencing by 30 September 2026. It also said it would remove concrete structures, drainage materials, the stone platform, fencing, bulk earthworks and the access track by May 2027, subject to weather conditions and availability of contractors.

The company added that it would complete the return of subsoil to a depth of 600mm by May or June 2027 and prepare the site for agricultural use by 30 June 2027.

Cuadrilla described this as a “pragmatic and cooperative approach”.

It would, the company said, “avoid poorer environmental/agricultural outcomes from winter works and allow the Land to be restored properly and in a manner consistent with the Council’s own planning policies and the objectives of the original planning permission”.

2.0 Cuadrilla Letter 2405261_RedactedDownload 30 June 2026: council extends one deadline

Lancashire County Council agreed to extend the deadline to 30 June 2027 for work on the subsoil, topsoil and preparation for farming. But it said plant, buildings, aggregates, pollution control and hard standings must still be removed by 8 November 2026.

3.0 LCC Response on enforcement notice PNR 30.06.26_RedactedDownload 2 July 2026: Cuadrilla threatens appeal

Cuadrilla agreed to the extensions to 30 June 2027 for subsoil, topsoil and agricultural preparation. But it said the 8 November 2026 deadline for buildings, aggregates, pollution control and hard standings was “not achievable once allowance is made for procurement, mobilisation and the practical sequencing of works”.

The company asked for an extension for all site work to 30 June 2027.

It added:

“Unless the Council is able to confirm that amendment, the Company intends to submit an appeal on 3rd July 2026 seeking variation of the compliance period for requirement (i) accordingly.”

4.0 Cuadrilla Letter 0207261_RedactedDownload 3 July 2026: Council replies

Lancashire County Council replied a day later.

It said it had “carefully considered” Cuadrilla’s request for an extension to 30 June 2027 for all works. But it said it could not agree to any further extension or the requested amendment.

It concluded:

“The Enforcement notice will take effect on 8th July 2026 unless an appeal is made against it beforehand”.

6 July 2026: appeal confirmed

The Planning Inspectorate informed the council it had received an enforcement appeal from Cuadrilla.

Cuadrilla issued a statement of its appeal case against the council’s 8 November 2026 deadline to remove all plant, buildings, fencing, pollution control membranes, aggregates and concrete hard standings.

It said the company

“considers that compliance should be structured around a single milestone for completion of restoration (30 June 2027), allowing works to be sequenced appropriately within that period. Interim requirements for removal of hard-standing risk forcing work to be undertaken in sub-optimal conditions, contrary to best practice.”

Cuadrilla said the “sequencing of individual work elements should be retained within the control of the restoration programme rather than prescribed through interim compliance milestones.”

Confirmation of the appeal meant the enforcement process was put on hold.

27 August 2026: Withdrawal of appeal

There is no published correspondence between Cuadrilla and Lancashire County Council until a letter dated 27 August 2026. On that date, Cuadrilla said it was withdrawing the appeal with immediate effect.

28 August 2026: Withdrawal confirmed

The Planning Inspectorate confirmed the appeal had been withdrawn.

Why did the council agree to changes?

We asked the council about the reason for the changes to the enforcement notice.

A spokesperson said:

“To be clear, the deadline for the full restoration has not changed, it is still June 2027, as it always was. The only changes are that the acoustic fencing must now be removed by the end of September, and some earthworks can take place outside the winter period as long as everything is completed by June 2027.”

We have shown, confirmed by Cuadrilla and the first enforcement notice, that the final date for site restoration, was originally 8 January 2027.

The council spokesperson said:

“The reason these changes have been agreed is to avoid a situation where Cuadrilla’s appeal continued and all enforcement action is suspended while that appeal is considered.

“If that happened, the Council would be unable to force any restoration work during the appeal, which could potentially delay the restoration beyond June 2027. By agreeing these changes, the Council can continue to enforce the original June 2027 deadline and take further action if the restoration is not completed in full.”

The spokesperson confirmed that there had been no consultation or correspondence with residents.

We asked where we could see the enforcement notice. The spokesperson said:

“The letters have been sent to Cuadrilla and landowners”.

The correspondence is online and has been tracked down, using advanced searches, by a resident. The link is here: https://planningregister.lancashire.gov.uk/Planning/Display/LCC/2026/0025#

DrillOrDrop asked Cuadrilla to comment on the extension. This article will be updated with any response.

Puget Sound Energy is fighting to increase your energy rates and invest in more fossil fuels. Megan Larkin Mon, 09/14/2026 - 12:44 pm

Nearly four and a half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, July offered fresh evidence of how difficult it remains to disentangle Russia from the Western nuclear industry. Germany approved production of fuel for Russian-designed reactors using Russian technology, while new data from Europe and the United States showed that Rosatom retains a substantial share of Western uranium conversion and enrichment markets.

Meanwhile, at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the killing of the station’s Russian-appointed chief engineer underscored a different consequence of the war: the continuing danger faced by those working at Europe’s largest nuclear power station—

ZNPP chief engineer killed amid continuing military activity

On July 15, Rosatom chief Alexey Likhachev said a drone strike on a service vehicle between the Zaporizhzhia plant and the neighboring city of Enerhodar had killed the station’s Russian-appointed chief engineer, Alexander Yakovlev, and his driver. Russia blamed Ukraine, while Kyiv denied responsibility and said there was no independent confirmation of Moscow’s account.

The incident quickly became the subject of competing claims. A Telegram channel subsequently alleged that Yakovlev had opposed allowing Russian personnel access to Westinghouse nuclear fuel stored at the plant and suggested that a dispute over that access might have contributed to his death. The claim has not been independently established.

Bellona nuclear expert Alexander Nikitin cautions against drawing conclusions from such speculation.

“Both sides (Russia and Ukraine) predictably accused each other of the killing,” Nikitin writes. “Who killed one of the several hundred people who die every day in Ukraine, and what the specific reason for this killing was, will never be established. The reason could have been anything, including domestic, financial or other motives, so there is no point in guessing or trying to investigate it. The war will write everything off.”

For Nikitin, Yakovlev’s death instead illustrates the larger danger created by the continued militarization of the plant and surrounding area. “Not only facilities are being destroyed, but people are also being killed, including personnel working at ZNPP and their families living in Enerhodar,” he writes.

Germany allows VVER fuel production using Russian technology

Germany, meanwhile, has approved a controversial plan that will preserve another form of Russian involvement in Europe’s nuclear industry.

On July 22, authorities in Lower Saxony approved an application by Advanced Nuclear Fuels, a subsidiary of France’s Framatome, to expand its Lingen plant to manufacture hexagonal fuel assemblies for Russian-designed VVER reactors.

The fuel will be manufactured under Russian licenses and using Russian technology through cooperation with Rosatom’s fuel subsidiary TVEL. The decision came despite objections from some 11,000 people and concerns about espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks and Russian access to critical German infrastructure. Authorities imposed safeguards, including restrictions on access by Rosatom and TVEL personnel and security inspections of Russian equipment.

Bellona nuclear expert Dmitry Gorchakov calls the decision “rather strange” and warns that it undermines efforts to reduce European dependence on Russia.

“Unfortunately, this shows the absence of a single clear policy and principles regarding contacts with official Russian structures, both within Germany itself and within the EU,” Gorchakov writes.

More importantly, he argues, allowing Framatome to meet its VVER fuel commitments with Rosatom’s involvement “may slow the development of its own French VVER fuel independent of Rosatom and prolong Rosatom’s dependence and influence on this market in Europe.”

“Bellona does not approve of this decision by the German authorities or of this cooperation between Framatome and Rosatom,” Gorchakov concludes.

Western uranium markets remain dependent on Russia

New figures published in July show why severing those ties remains difficult.

The Euratom Supply Agency reported that European suppliers significantly expanded uranium enrichment services in 2025, increasing their share of the EU market from 63.9% to 72.9%. The volume of Russian enrichment services also increased by 11.6% in physical terms. However, their share of the total volume of European orders declined by 22.55% compared with 23.55% a year earlier and 37% in 2023. Russia supplied nearly 16% of the EU’s natural uranium and 24.4% of its conversion services.

The situation is likewise complicated in the United States. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Russia remained the largest single source of enrichment services purchased by American nuclear operators in 2025, providing 3.284 million SWU — about 26% of the total. That was more than the share supplied by U.S. enrichment capacity itself.

“The published statistics in the EU and the US show the continuing dependence of Western nuclear power plant operators and nuclear fuel cycle enterprises on Russian supplies of uranium and its conversion and enrichment services,” Gorchakov says.

“Despite the existence of major European competitors to Rosatom and technical alternatives, up to 20–25% of nuclear materials and nuclear fuel cycle services in European and US markets still originate in Russia.”

For Gorchakov, market forces alone are unlikely to break that dependence. “Only official restrictions and sanctions can break this trend,” he writes, arguing that firm limits would both force reductions in Russian purchases and give Western suppliers confidence that investments in new capacity will pay off.

Taken together, the developments underline a contradiction that has persisted since the beginning of the war. Russia’s occupation of Zaporizhzhia has created unprecedented nuclear safety risks in Ukraine, yet Rosatom remains deeply embedded in nuclear supply chains in the countries supporting Kyiv. Europe and the United States are developing alternatives, but July’s figures — and Germany’s decision in Lingen — suggest that breaking those ties will require political decisions as much as new technology and production capacity.

The post Russian nuclear ties persist in the West as war claims another life at Zaporizhzhia appeared first on Bellona.org.

EWG statement on UN confirming PFAS contamination is a global human rights crisis Monica Amarelo September 14, 2026

WASHINGTON – The United Nations Human Rights Council today presented a landmark report saying the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS are found in the blood of nearly every person on the planet, posing health threats that justify phasing out non-essential uses of PFAS.

The report, presented at the council’s ongoing 63rd session, in Geneva, also calls for a legally binding global strategy to ultimately stop using the entire chemical class of PFAS. It also says governments should adopt stronger domestic protections and advocates for urgent medical monitoring and remedies for frontline communities living in “PFAS sacrifice zones.” 

The report is unambiguous that PFAS contamination prevention, not cleanup, has to be the goal.

The Environmental Working Group stands with North Carolina’s Clean Cape Fear, the National PFAS Contamination Coalition, and communities across the U.S. and around the world in urging governments to act on the report’s findings without delay.

But rather than strengthening protections, the Environmental Protection Agency is rolling back drinking water limits for several PFAS. At the same time, the agency is fast-tracking approval of new PFAS pesticides, with the current administration greenlighting five in less than two years. That’s despite EPA data showing serious, unresolved questions about the pesticides’ health and environmental risks.

The following is a statement from Melanie Benesh, EWG’s vice president for government affairs:

The United Nations report confirms what frontline advocates and scientists have known for decades: Toxic PFAS contamination is a global human rights crisis.

PFAS are everywhere, because that’s exactly how the industry designed them. These forever chemicals were engineered never to break down, and they spread across water, soil, food and the bodies of virtually every person alive today.

The science on the harm they cause is clear: PFAS have been linked to kidney, liver, pancreatic and testicular cancers; as well as immune system suppression, thyroid disease, reduced vaccine efficacy, reproductive and developmental harm, low birth weight, increased cholesterol, weight gain in children and dieting adults, and a growing list of serious health effects.

PFAS pollution crosses borders. For decades, U.S. regulators have let industry set the pace on PFAS. Communities pay the price, like in North Carolina, where Emily Donovan’s group Clean Cape Fear is leading the fight to make polluters pay.

The United States helped create this crisis. It has a responsibility to help end it.

The world cannot filter its way out of the forever chemicals crisis. Drinking water treatment helps, but it puts the burden of a problem industry created onto the communities and utilities left to clean it up. 

Real accountability means stopping non-essential PFAS production at the source. That requires the international community to finally treat this chemical class the way the evidence has demanded for years: as a single, urgent problem, not a chemical-by-chemical negotiation industry can slow-walk for another generation.

The world’s governments now have a UN report telling them exactly what needs to happen. The only question left is whether they’ll act on it. We must stop making the problem worse and ensure that polluters – not contaminated communities – pay for the damage.

### 

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Water Toxic Chemicals Chemical Policy PFAS Chemicals North Carolina New report says ‘forever chemicals’ in almost everyone’s blood, calls to phase out PFAS uses Press Contact Monica Amarelo monica@ewg.org (202) 939-9140 September 14, 2026

“We joke that we became a food hub overnight,” said Laura Torres, the Director of the Smoky Mountain Harvest Hub (SMHH) in Waynesville, NC. This food hub, which aggregates from farmers across the region, distributes most of their produce via Haywood Christian Ministry (HCM), the highest volume food pantry in MANNA FoodBank’s service area. What […]

The post If You Give a Food Hub a Chance appeared first on RAFI.

In the coastal bays of Ocean City, Maryland, a floating wooden raft has become a thriving nesting colony for hundreds of sleek, silver-grey Common Terns – a remarkable conservation success story...

AI “doomerism” is going mainstream. This week the heads of major frontier AI companies ratcheted up their rhetoric about how dangerous the technology they are building is, calling for a “pause” on AI development.

Digital rights group Fight for the Future, which has run many of the highest profile campaigns against the use of AI for surveillance and warfare, issued the following statement, which can be attributed to the group’s director, Evan Greer (she/her):

“We can’t trust the AI industry to regulate itself. We can’t really trust anything these self-interested billionaires say. But we should take them seriously that the technology they are building is dangerous. And we should act urgently to demand strict regulation that protects people and holds AI companies accountable for the harm they’ve already done, while also preventing future harm. It’s clear that these industry leaders think they are best positioned to craft AI policy for the good of all humanity. We think that’s horseshit. Lawmakers should be listening to independent experts, researchers, civil society, and the communities most impacted. They should craft policies that address AI harm without undermining open source models or entrenching the largest players. Whether humans use AI to kill each other or AI agent swarms do immense harm, it’s clear that unregulated AI poses an existential threat to human rights and liberty, if not humanity itself. Congress should act, but they shouldn’t just do whatever the AI bros tell them to.”

Solidarity Economy (TG) Members Anchors: Melanie Bush, Halwest Karim Description The Global of Alternative Solidarity Economy Thematic Group aims to: * Share experiences of alternative economy projects around the world; * Consider our commonalities and specificities; GTA

This summer, progress took shape across Crab Meadow Marsh as scientists, volunteers, community members, and partners came together to support the future of this vital coastal habitat.A Promising Sign...

Contact: kayla@unbendablemedia.com

Statement from Mar Zepeda, Legislative Director of the Climate Justice Alliance, on the Trump administration finalizing the repeal of federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants:

“Scrapping limits on climate pollution places public health and our communities at perilous risk . We just lived through the hottest summer on record, with communities across the country enduring health consequences due to brutal heat, floods, storms and drought, and the Trump administration’s response is to give the fossil fuel industry permission to make the crisis worse. Climate change reduces air quality leading to respiratory and cardiovascular conditions, while extreme heat and flooding can lead to illness, injury and death. These risks are not shared equally: they are often faced by the same communities that have spent generations living next to power plants and other polluting industries.

“The previous power plant rule was far from perfect. We said at the time that its reliance on dangerous and unproven carbon capture technology gave the fossil fuel industry another lifeline when we should be moving away from fossil fuels altogether. The answer should have been stronger protections and a faster transition toward clean, affordable energy: not scrap federal limits on greenhouse gas pollution and give polluters free rein.

“This is also a question of who pays. When pollution continues, the costs do not disappear, they are borne by families and communities, environmental damage, extreme-weather impacts and the public costs of responding to them. Federal policy should protect communities, not leave them and taxpayers carrying the cost that polluters are better positioned to prevent.

“People deserve affordable, reliable energy, and the right to live in healthy communities without having to choose between keeping the lights on and protecting their health. Instead, this administration is choosing to keep us tied to an expensive, polluting energy system because it benefits the corporations that profit from it.”

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The post Trump Move to Scrap Climate Pollution Limits After Hottest Summer on Record Is Self-destruction appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to announce today that it will stop regulating carbon dioxide released by power plants burning fossil fuels, according to reports. If allowed to go into effect, the second largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would be allowed to grow unchecked. In response, David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program issued the following statement:

“With this move, Trump again subverts the EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. Allowing more climate-heating pollution from the U.S. power sector will deeply harm Americans’ health and our natural environment. It will also cost us money and put us further behind in the competition over the energy of the future, renewables.

“The EPA’s rationale, that greenhouse gas pollution doesn’t endanger human health or the environment, is absurdly wrong, and the courts should reject it.”

Registered nurses from the Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health systems will hold an joint protest on Sept. 16 to rally for strong contracts to improve patient care at two of the Bay’s biggest hospital systems. Combined at both systems, more than 35,000 nurses are represented by CNA/NNU in active contract negotiations.

According to published reports, the Trump Administration will finalize rules to rollback carbon pollution standards for power plants, as soon as today.

Following is reaction from Meredith Hankins, federal climate legal director at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“With millions of Americans facing wildfires, heat waves and deadly storms fueled by climate change, the Trump administration is cutting the biggest polluters loose to do more damage than ever.

“For the health of our families and good of our nation, this cannot stand. Ignoring the immense harm to the public from this power plant pollution is a clear violation of the Clean Air Act and of Supreme Court precedent. We will be seeing them in court."

According to reporting, Donald Trump’s administration will propose to repeal the Endangerment Finding for power plants today – a move that would permanently strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas power plants under the Clean Air Act. This action would strip EPA of one of its most powerful tools for combating climate change. Combined with the administration’s February repeal of the Endangerment Finding for motor vehicles, today’s proposal is part of a sweeping effort to dismantle the legal foundation for federal climate regulation, leaving the EPA legally unable to act on the two largest sources of carbon pollution in the country.

The proposal is another one of Donald Trump’s attempts to bolster the profits of a struggling coal industry and deliver directly on the promises EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made to the corporate executives at a National Coal Council meeting in July, where he vowed to fulfill the industry’s “wish list.” The administration has already given more than $700 million in taxpayer dollars to the coal industry, despite the immense public and environmental harms associated with burning coal for electricity, and the well-documented evidence that clean energy is now cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable than fossil fuels.

The handouts and regulatory giveaways come as renewable energy continues to outperform fossil fuel-burning power plants in the marketplace. It is now cheaper to build new solar energy than to build new coal or gas plants–even without subsidies for renewable projects. In May, solar energy generated more electricity than coal across the entire country. That same month, Utah generated more energy from solar than any other source. Despite Donald Trump’s best efforts, the coal industry cannot compete with solar—it’s being kept on life support by taxpayer subsidies and regulatory handouts, while ordinary families pay the price in higher electricity bills, dirtier air, and more extreme weather fueled by carbon pollution.

In response, Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender issued the following statement:

“While wildfires rage, floods devastate communities, and families struggle to afford skyrocketing electricity bills and insurance premiums, the Trump administration is handing the fossil fuel industry a license to keep polluting. This is full-throated climate denial while the climate crisis happens in real time and a shocking betrayal of the American public. The Sierra Club will fight back against this reckless and dangerous proposal with everything we have in the courts, in Congress, and in communities across the country.”

Background

The Endangerment Finding is a 2009 scientific determination by the EPA that greenhouse gasses pose a significant threat to public health and the environment. It is the legal cornerstone of the EPA’s authority to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act – the foundation upon which vehicle standards, power plant rules, and other climate protections have all been built. The nonpartisan National Academies of Sciences confirmed last year that the finding “was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.”

Sierra Club has been at the front lines of the fight for federal climate standards longer than any other organization. In December 2002, the Club filed the first-ever climate case under the Clean Air Act in federal court, which ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Clean Air Act covers greenhouse gas pollution and to all of the federal climate standards that followed. Now, two-and-a-half decades later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are trying to destroy those hard-won victories in an effort to double-down on the fossil fuels that are harming the climate and environment, and driving up costs.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact

Milagros R. Elia

Program Manager, Climate and Clean Energy Advocacy

Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments

milagros@envirn.org

914.455.1165

 

Nurses Mark National Truck Driver Appreciation Week With Call for Cleaner Trucks as a Public Health Priority

[USA] — As National Truck Driver Appreciation Week begins, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) is joining organizations across the country in honoring the professional truck drivers who keep our economy and our health care system moving — and calling on trucking industry leaders and manufacturers to invest in a cleaner future for the people behind the wheel and the communities along their routes.

Truck drivers perform one of the country’s most essential jobs, delivering the food, medicine, and equipment communities and hospitals rely on every day. They also spend their working lives exposed to diesel exhaust, a pollutant classified as carcinogenic. Nurses see the downstream effects of that exposure firsthand: asthma attacks, cardiovascular strain, and respiratory illness that hit hardest in communities along heavily trafficked freight corridors.

In response to National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments Executive Director Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN issued the following statement: 

“Truck drivers deserve more than our gratitude, they deserve working conditions that support their health and allow them to return home safely to their families. Investing in cleaner trucks is a meaningful way to honor these essential workers while protecting children, older adults, and families in communities located near highways, warehouses, and freight corridors.”

“Nurses care for patients whose asthma, heart disease, and respiratory conditions are worsened by transportation pollution. The trucking industry and vehicle manufacturers have both the ability and the responsibility to reduce these preventable health harms. Delaying clean truck progress prolongs harmful exposures and shifts the health burden onto drivers, patients, families, and already overburdened communities.”

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The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments is the only national nursing organization focused solely on the intersection of health and the environment. The mission of the Alliance is to support nurses in promoting planetary health and equity globally by educating and leading the nursing profession, advancing research, incorporating planet-safe practice, and influencing policy. http://enviRN.org

The post Nurses Mark National Truck Driver Appreciation Week With Call for Cleaner Trucks as a Public Health Priority appeared first on ANHE.

During National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments joins people across the country in recognizing the professional truck drivers who keep our communities, economy, and health care system moving.

Truck drivers perform essential work every day. The food on grocery store shelves, medications in pharmacies, and equipment and supplies used in hospitals and clinics reach their destinations because professional drivers transport them. Their work supports nearly every part of daily life, often requiring long hours on the road and extended periods away from their families. As nurses, we believe that appreciation should be demonstrated through meaningful investments in their health, safety, and working conditions, and in the health of the communities along the routes they travel.

For generations, diesel exhaust has been treated as an unavoidable part of working in and around the trucking industry. Professional drivers may spend thousands of hours each year inside or near diesel-powered vehicles, freight facilities, warehouses, ports, and distribution centers. This occupational exposure is compounded by long hours, demanding schedules, and limited opportunities to avoid polluted air.

Diesel exhaust is classified as carcinogenic to humans. It also contains fine particulate matter and other pollutants associated with respiratory and cardiovascular harm. Nurses witness the human consequences of air pollution in clinics, hospitals, schools, and communities from children struggling to breathe during an asthma attack to adults experiencing worsening heart and lung disease.

The risks extend beyond the people behind the wheel. Communities located near highways, ports, warehouses, and heavily traveled freight corridors often face disproportionate exposure to transportation pollution. Many of these communities are already affected by cumulative environmental hazards, inadequate access to health care, and other social and economic conditions that increase their vulnerability to illness.

The good news is that we have the technology to begin changing this reality. The transition to cleaner, zero-emission trucks can reduce harmful tailpipe pollution, improve air quality, and protect the health of drivers, freight workers, and nearby communities. Clean air is a fundamental condition for protecting health and preventing disease. 

Transition to clean technologies also presents an opportunity to strengthen the trucking industry. Investments in cleaner vehicles, charging infrastructure, workforce development, and dependable supply chains can help create an industry prepared to compete in a rapidly changing global market. Drivers must be included in this process so that the technologies placed into service are safe, practical, reliable, and responsive to the conditions they encounter on the road.

Achieving a cleaner freight system will require leadership across the entire trucking sector. Truck manufacturers must fulfill their clean-vehicle commitments and make cleaner trucks available at the scale and pace necessary to reduce pollution. Fleet operators must prepare for the transition while ensuring that workers have appropriate training, workplace protections, and a meaningful voice in implementation.

Industry associations also have an important responsibility. The American Trucking Associations should help its members prepare for a healthier and more competitive future instead of opposing policies intended to accelerate clean-truck deployment. Efforts to weaken or delay protections such as California’s Advanced Clean Trucks framework risk prolonging harmful exposures for drivers and communities while creating uncertainty for businesses already investing in cleaner technology.

Accountability does not mean placing the burden of this transition on individual drivers or small operators. Policymakers and industry leaders must ensure that funding, infrastructure, technical assistance, and workforce protections are available so the transition is practical and equitable. The people who keep goods moving should benefit directly from cleaner vehicles and healthier workplaces.

National Truck Driver Appreciation Week is an important opportunity to celebrate the skill, dedication, and sacrifice of professional drivers. But appreciation cannot end when the week does. Truck drivers keep America moving throughout the year. They deserve an industry that values their health as much as their productivity and recognizes clean air as an essential workplace protection. Communities along freight routes deserve relief from pollution that has affected their health for far too long.

Nurses have a role in advancing this vision. We can educate patients and decision-makers about the health consequences of diesel pollution, support evidence-based clean-truck protections, advocate for equitable infrastructure investments, and elevate the experiences of drivers and communities most affected by freight-related pollution.

Investing in cleaner trucks is an investment in disease prevention, healthier workers, more resilient communities, and a stronger transportation system. It is also one of the most meaningful ways to recognize the people whose work connects our hospitals, businesses, and homes.

This week, we thank America’s truck drivers. For the years ahead, let us invest in their health—and ours.

 

The post Thanking Truck Drivers Means Investing in Their Health—and Ours appeared first on ANHE.