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The fossil fuel industry is spending record amounts to keep California from regulating it

Grist - Thu, 08/27/2026 - 01:15

The fossil fuel industry isn’t just raking in record profits amid the war with Iran. In California, it’s also spending big to oppose climate and worker-safety legislation.

According to analyses by a coalition of environmental groups called the Last Chance Alliance, oil and gas companies spent more than $17 million on California lobbying during the first half of 2026. That includes $10.3 million during the first quarter — a new record for the sector — and another $6.8 million during Q2.

Much of the spending was directed against legislation proposing new costs and liabilities for the fossil fuel industry, like a state bill that would make companies pay for rebuilding following climate-intensified natural disasters. But other bills targeted were more milquetoast, seeking to clarify existing workplace-safety laws and ensure more thorough reporting of cleanup costs when oil companies want to decommission projects.

Faraz Rizvi, campaign and policy director for the nonprofit Asian Pacific Environmental Network — a member of the Last Chance Alliance — criticized companies for “aggressively lobbying” against straightforward measures to protect communities and boost transparency. “They’re not actors that have consumers’ or communities’ interests at heart,” he told Grist.

Last Chance Alliance pulled the data from mandatory reporting to the California secretary of state. The top spenders in the oil-and-gas lobbying category included the Western States Petroleum Association, which spent $4.3 million over the first half of the year; Chevron, whose spending amounted to $3.7 million; and Phillips 66, an oil refiner that spent just over half a million dollars. Much of the money went to consultants and alleged “front groups” that present themselves as grassroots operations but are funded by the fossil fuel industry, like Californians for Energy Independence.

One big target of the sector’s lobbying was California’s cap-and-invest program, which requires companies to pay for a finite — and declining — number of emissions permits each year. The program covers roughly 80 percent of California’s economy and is considered critical to achieving the state’s climate targets, including carbon neutrality by 2045. Earlier this year, oil and gas interests successfully lobbied regulators to green-light a mechanism that could make a vast pool of free pollution permits available to fossil fuel companies. If finalized, the plan could deprive the state of billions in funding that would have otherwise gone toward public transit and housing. The change is currently facing a legal challenge from environmental groups and objections from some Democratic lawmakers.

The sector also fought a bill, currently awaiting passage by the state Senate, to extend California’s Displaced Oil and Gas Workers Fund. Established under a 2022 law, the $30 million fund distributes grants to help oil and gas industry workers transition to new careers. According to one estimate, the fund has already helped 600 people find new lines of work, and supporters have been discussing the potential for new forms of support, including wage replacement during transition periods and financial support during apprenticeships. 

Other pending bills that oil companies lobbied against propose creating a task force on safe staffing guidelines for oil refineries; preventing fossil fuel companies from abandoning methane-leaking oil wells; and adding new safety and public comment requirements for offshore oil pipelines. One bill would force companies to submit formal retirement plans before they shutter their oil refineries. The bill follows the closure of a Phillips 66 refinery in L.A. County that environmental groups claim was poorly handled

A number of the targeted bills have been defeated, giving the oil and gas industry a series of wins. These include SB 1245, which sought to stabilize California’s gas supply, and SB 982, which addressed California’s home insurance crisis. The latter bill would have allowed the state attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies for damages following climate-related disasters like wildfires. It was meant to help pay for skyrocketing property insurance, disaster mitigation, and other expenses that are currently straining the state’s insurer of last resort. Oil and gas lobbying also helped to defeat a bill that would have made it harder for fossil fuel companies to abandon methane-leaking oil wells. There are more than 100,000 of these wells in California, and companies are often able to evade responsibility for plugging them.

Read Next As climate lawsuits advance, the oil industry enters ‘panic mode’

Hollin Kretzmann, deputy political director at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, said it’s been a generally disappointing year for Golden State climate policy. “This legislative session was just a huge missed opportunity for California. We didn’t get to show what the world’s fourth-largest economy could accomplish when it comes to protecting our economy, protecting our health.”

The lobbying is a particularly bad look, he added, given the oil and gas industry’s recent earnings. Late last month, Chevron reported $12 billion in net profits during the second quarter, nearly five times as much as it earned during the same period in 2025. Exxon Mobil made $14.5 billion, more than double its second-quarter earnings from last year. These profits have been driven by oil supply disruptions linked to the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, particularly the monthslong closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Supply shortages and higher oil prices have benefited oil producers that don’t depend on the strait to export products, as well as companies with oil refineries in the West.

Still, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth has said threats to oil supplies are straining his company. “Every day that goes by, the situation gets more difficult,” he told CNBC in late July. His company has also blamed California energy policies for high gasoline prices, deflecting accusations of price gouging. Chevron, Phillips 66, and Californians for Energy Independence did not respond to Grist’s requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Western States Petroleum Association declined to comment.

Ryan Schleeter, communications director for the nonprofit The Climate Center, said curtailing Big Oil’s influence over the California Legislature should be a priority moving forward. He suggested starting with the reduction of public subsidies — including from the cap-and-invest program’s free allocations, but also from tax loopholes that allow companies to report only a fraction of their global earnings to the state. “We’re essentially subsidizing their profit margins,” he told Grist. 

Kretzmann said more measures are needed to limit both the number of lobbyists visiting Sacramento and the amount of money they’re allowed to spend; otherwise, legislators and environmental advocates will keep running into the same problem year after year. “It gets to the heart of why our policies in California don’t reflect the will of the people,” he said. “I don’t have an easy solution, but we need our legislators to listen to the public … rather than oil industry lobbyists.”

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The fossil fuel industry is spending record amounts to keep California from regulating it on Aug 27, 2026.

Categories: H. Green News

A Hard-Won Rule to Cut Chemical Plant Pollution Is Being Unraveled

Yale Environment 360 - Thu, 08/27/2026 - 01:01

In 2024, the Biden administration enacted wide-ranging regulations to protect communities near petrochemical plants from air toxics. The Trump administration has since granted exemptions to scores of polluting facilities and is working to rewrite the long-awaited rule.

Read more on E360 →

Categories: H. Green News

Applications Open for VCRD’s Climate Catalysts Innovation Fund

Green Energy Times - Thu, 08/27/2026 - 00:34

The Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) announces the opening of applications for the sixth round of the Climate Catalysts Innovation Fund, a small catalytic grant program for local innovative climate projects.

VCRD launched the fund in 2021 to support local innovators in developing climate and energy solutions for which a small  grant could have a meaningful impact. To date, this fund has awarded 109 local innovators with over $345,500 in collective support for community-led climate and energy projects. Last year, CCIF recipient COVER Home Repair of White River Junction built a solar trailer that provides power to everything from work site tools to sound systems during events.

“I’m so grateful to VCRD for providing COVER with the grant funding to make this solar trailer project possible,” said Conor Teal, Work Crew Leader at COVER. “It’ll make our worksites safer, more efficient, and hopefully inspire our volunteers and other contractors to move toward installing solar power systems at their workplaces or in their homes.” 

In collaboration with multiple funding partners, VCRD supports projects that deliver community-scale impact with solutions that strengthen community resilience, reduce energy use, and create new approaches to local challenges.

“Five rounds of flexible, accessible funds have been distributed to individuals and organizations around Vermont moving climate projects forward,” said Laura Cavin Bailey, Climate Economy director. “The projects continue to show a wide range of ideas and inspiring action.”

Grants are awarded based on criteria that combine innovation, resilience, collaboration, replicability, and service to marginalized communities and those most affected by natural disasters. Eligible applicants include municipalities, town committees, schools, businesses, volunteer groups, and non-profit organizations.

Applications will close October 14th at 5pm. To apply, see past projects, and learn more, visit https://www.vtrural.org/climate-economy/climate-catalysts-innovation-fund/. For more information, contact Laura Cavin Bailey at laura@vtrural.org or (802) 234-1646.

 Vermont Council on Rural Development

The Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of the locally-defined progress of Vermont’s rural communities. VCRD is a dynamic partnership of federal, state, local, nonprofit and private partners. Actively non-partisan with an established reputation for community-based facilitation, VCRD is uniquely positioned to sponsor and coordinate collaborative efforts across governmental and organizational categories concerned with policy questions of rural importance. The organization has successfully completed over 100 community visits, resulting in locally defined projects like new childcare centers, wastewater infrastructure, downtown redevelopments, and more.

Workforce Alliances an Opportunity for Canadian Unions to Shape Future Industrial Strategies

Centre for Future Work - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 23:50

A new report co-published by the Centre for Future Work and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives reviews six new ‘Workforce Alliances’ being established by the federal government as part of its economic strategy responding to Donald Trump’s trade war. The report concludes that the Alliances have potential to improve training, labour supply, and labour standards – but Canadian unions must be ambitious and assertive to ensure that they fulfil this potential.

The report, Hinge Moment for Canada’s Workforce and Industrial Policy, is based on research presented at the recent Canadian Industrial Relations Association conference at Université Laval in Québec.

The federal government is advancing these new Alliances to strengthen the labour side of major new investment and industrial policies. Somewhat reminiscent of the previous tripartite era of sector councils from the 1990s, unions are once again being invited to participate. 

Ottawa has announced six Workforce Alliances, which largely mirror the government’s industry, energy and transportation infrastructure initiatives. On a parallel track, a historic $6 billion funding stream to support Red Seal skilled trades training has also been launched. 

Unions have ample experience with supply-side training programs. Too many have focused solely on meeting the labour supply needs of employers, with limited benefits for workers and no opportunity to build union power. Could this iteration of workforce policy be an opportunity for the labour movement to do better? Does it create an opening to influence industrial policy, labour standards and worker rights? 

At a special panel during the 2026 conference of the Canadian Industrial Relations Association (CIRA) at Université Laval in June, union experts and labour studies academics came together to review the Workforce Alliances and their associated training initiatives, and examine the opportunities for genuine trade union engagement.

The presentations to the CIRA conference are collected in this compendium. The goal is to start a bigger discussion among trade unionists and progressive researchers about a labour strategy that links workforce policy with labour standards and conditionalities across the industries and sectors receiving federal funding, including a larger role for unions in shaping industrial policy. 

Several common themes emerge from the contributions collected here. First, workforce policy cannot be reduced to labour supply measures aimed solely at meeting employers’ skills needs. Second, sectoral institutions and public investments must be linked to stronger labour standards, worker retention and equitable employment outcomes. Finally, the Workforce Alliances raise broader questions about industrial governance and whether unions can use these new institutions to exercise meaningful influence over economic strategy and democratic decision-making. 

Fred Wilson’s introduction traces the evolution of workforce policies from the old sector councils, to industry-led labour market information programs and now back to partial joint governance in the Workforce Alliances. In each case, the primary purpose has been to provide “labour market information,” or LMI, and training programs to meet employer needs. Yet, in this latest version of workforce policy, to meet the government’s promise of “not just jobs, but careers” will require going well beyond the LMI model. Labour’s goals in the new workforce policies must address sector and industry-based standards and industrial policies that create and sustain high-quality, value-added jobs. 

Ken Delaney, the managing director of the Canadian Skilled Trades Employment Coalition (CSTEC), Canada’s longest-standing “sector council” model, speaks to the limits of the former sector councils that were confined by government agendas. CSTEC’s work highlights the promise of workforce programs to address worker transition, equity and inclusion, especially if workers are allowed to maintain EI benefits in training. The organization’s programs also demonstrate how the career-building potential of Red Seal training can be adapted to meet the needs of skilled workers in manufacturing and other sectors. Delaney encourages unions to seize the opportunity in the Workforce Alliances to integrate industrial policy with labour market policy. 

Professor Evelyn Dionne’s study of the construction sector in Quebec warns that sector programs to increase labour force supply and speed up construction can lead to “a downward spiral marked by declining skill levels, lower-quality housing, inefficient green buildings and high turnover.” Dionne calls for project labour agreements (PLAs) to be incorporated into housing and construction projects in order to establish common and high-quality terms and conditions governing all workers and contractors. “By embedding training, equity and labour standards into procurement processes,” she writes, “PLAs can help ensure that accelerated construction does not come at the expense of quality or working conditions.” 

After pressure from within the Liberal caucus, reinforced by advocacy from social policy and feminist advocates, the federal government agreed to establish a Workforce Alliance for the care economy. Laurell Ritchie, a member of the Care Economy Initiative, emphasizes that in the care economy, worker retention is as important as recruitment. Like industrial sectors, meeting workforce goals in the care economy will require sector-based programs and standards, and strong government leadership. The inclusion of the care economy among the Workforce Alliances is itself recognition that industry and workforce policy can be influenced by advocacy from unions and women’s organizations. 

Unifor Research Director Angelo DiCaro’s contribution on the interrelationship between industrial policy and workforce policy underscores the need for the state to act as a “conductor” of a complex orchestra involving multiple public and private players. A weak state role leaves the government as a passive enabler of the private sector, resulting in “industrial improvisation” rather than industrial strategy. For the Workforce Alliances to make a real difference, they must go beyond workforce development—filling vacancies, and sponsoring training—to become well-rounded tables for “peak-level social dialogue” with “a whole-of-supply-chain approach” to labour standards and industrial growth. 

As DiCaro aptly puts it, the Workforce Alliances could be “a vital cog in the wheel of industrial growth and rising workplace standards.” Alternatively, they could become an “unambitious and burdensome exercise, simply facilitating training fund transfers, and entirely delinked from future-facing industrial strategy.” 

Prime Minister Carney has described this as a “hinge moment” for Canada, as Canadians collectively face up to the unprecedented threat posed by Donald Trump and aggression from Washington. It is also a hinge moment for labour. The potential reorientation of Canada’s economy away from deep dependence on U.S. export markets, with a greater role for active industrial policy and public investment, carries both opportunities and risks for unions and the workers they represent. 

The Workforce Alliances are an opportunity for unions to shape this historic economic moment, leveraging workers’ position at the point of production to demand both material progress and democratic power as this pivot unfolds. Canada’s unions must demonstrate that they have the organizational capacity and political leverage to bring a working-class agenda to the Workforce Alliances, and help to shape this new era of industrial policy in favour of workers. 

Please see the full paper here.

The post Workforce Alliances an Opportunity for Canadian Unions to Shape Future Industrial Strategies appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Categories: A2. Green Unionism

Nepal Flash Floods: Early Assessment by ANPFA Indicates Extensive Damage in Villages Near the Border

ANPFA has mobilized its cadres and district organizations for search, rescue, and relief work alongside security forces and local government. Its provincial committees in Bagmati are coordinating support for displaced families.

The post Nepal Flash Floods: Early Assessment by ANPFA Indicates Extensive Damage in Villages Near the Border appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Pemersaingan Menanas Situs Slot Gacor ini Naik Pesat

Socialist Resurgence - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 22:40

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Categories: D2. Socialism

Thursday’s Headlines Are Living for the City

Streetsblog USA - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 21:01
  • Angie Schmitt wrote about how the big-box retail model is killing smaller stores and thus walkable neighborhoods, forcing everyone who lives downtown to drive miles to the suburbs just to pick up a tube of lipstick. Sure, Costco is cheaper, but in the long run how much are you saving if you need to buy an SUV to get there? (Love of Place)
  • Meanwhile, shopping malls are becoming more like downtowns in that they’re starting to charge for parking — which, as Donald Shoup taught us, is never actually free. (USA Today)
  • Sprawl has been the key to the Sun Belt’s success because cities can keep building more cheap housing without any opposition from existing neighborhoods. Now that temperatures are rising, they have to figure out how to cool down all those asphalt ovens. (We Can Have Nice Things)
  • This just might be a conflict of interest: More than 300 local governments seeking federal funding to recover from damage caused by climate change hired lobbyists who also work for the fossil fuel industry. (The Guardian)
  • The Trump administration’s justification for building roads on remote federal lands is to fight forest fires, but bringing more people into those areas is likely to cause more fires. (Heatmap; registration required)
  • Two programs in California and Denver show that people really like e-bike rebates. (Government Technology)
  • South Carolina and the Federal Highway Administration are spending $2.7 billion to fix one freeway interchange. (The State)
  • Seattle’s Sound Transit could use a value capture tool called tax increment financing to pay for the Ballard Link. (The Urbanist)
  • Bus rapid transit on Maryland Parkway in Las Vegas has cut commuting times by 20 percent. (Sun)
  • Columbus is still tweaking its bikeshare and e-scooter policies. (Axios)
  • Wichita is testing a Douglas Avenue road diet for six months. (KAKE)
  • The Transit Brief takes a look at what Montreal could have built if construction costs in Canada were as low as Europe’s.
  • Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers are the big winners of Trump’s war on Iran, which has lifted EV sales everywhere but the U.S. (Yale Climate Connection)

NYC Mayor Doubles Down On Robert Moses’s Great Mistake And Will Rebuild An Urban Highway

Streetsblog USA - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 21:00

Mayor Mamdani will not tear down the deteriorating triple-cantilevered stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and instead pursue his own version of long-stalled plans to rebuild the segment over 10 years using a bypass structure that city officials say will be temporary.

Mamdani’s plan, which he will unveil on Monday, differs from previous plans for a temporary highway structure by not expanding the highway’s footprint through the Brooklyn waterfront. Construction will start in 2030, wrap up in 2040 and extend the structure’s lifespan to 2080, city officials told reporters at a closed briefing last week.

Past attempts to rebuild the city-owned “BQE Central” segment of the highway fizzled out under mayors Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams, who attempted to get federal funding for the effort.

The city spends $160 million a year maintaining the structure in lieu of a long-term solution, the administration said. DOT bean counters insist that any shutdown would risk diverting a “significant portion” of the 130,000 daily car and truck trips onto local streets.

“For decades, prior administrations have failed to deliver urgent long-term repairs to BQE Central — but we can no longer afford to wait for the perfect solution,” Mamdani said in a statement. “This plan allows us to safely fix the BQE without slowing our city down or wasting decades more on magical thinking. The cost of inaction is too high, and the risks to New Yorkers are too important to delay any longer.”

We're done kicking the can down the road. Here's how we're fixing the city-owned section of the BQE. pic.twitter.com/ln0it98s1w

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) August 24, 2026

The Department of Transportation plans involve building a temporary two-tiered bypass highway next to the 0.4-mile cantilever along Furman Street, between Atlantic Avenue and Columbia Heights. The detour road will continue over the Brooklyn Bridge approach at Vine Street to connect back into the rest of the BQE, though its exact route near the bridge is still under consideration.

Mamdani and his team vowed not to increase the BQE’s footprint, and to keep it at two lanes in each direction, after his predecessor Eric Adams proposed rebuilding the highway as a three-lane road. But officials who briefed the media last week reiterated the city’s longstanding position that tearing the road down entirely would unleash its traffic onto local streets — despite growing calls for the city to seize the chance and phase out the BQE.

“While the city and the state must right the wrongs of Robert Moses with the BQE and other infrastructure plowed through urban communities, decades of political paralysis have left us out of options,” DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn said in a statement. “Confronting the reality of cracked concrete, exposed steel and extensive rust damage simply cannot wait for another blue-ribbon commission.”

In another statement, Deputy Mayor for Operations Julia Kerson warned the highway’s collapse would force “cars and heavy trucks…onto local streets” and disrupt “key freight transportation networks.”

“We must and will act now,” Kerson said.

If realized, the decade-long project will cost $4 billion and effectively lock the highway in place for the next half-century, but Mamdani will likely encounter local resistance.

In 2018, the de Blasio administration faced stiffed resistance to its plan to build a six-lane replacement highway atop the popular Brooklyn Heights Promenade. De Blasio ultimately kicked the can down the road, making patchwork fixes and converting the highway segment from three lanes to two to lighten the load on the aging structure. His successor Eric Adams unsuccessfully pitched the federal government to rebuild the BQE to last for another century and flirted with rewidening the highway to six lanes at the behest of car-first Brooklyn Democratic Party bigwigs, but never got sign-off from Uncle Sam.

The Mamdani administration’s plan seems designed to reduce the backlash this time by building the interim structure lower than the promenade — about at the height of the northbound upper roadway of the cantilever.

DOT will close portions of the scenic walkway for the repairs, however, but officials promised to keep it partially open at all times. DOT also plans to reconstruct the adjacent Columbia Heights overpass during the work as well.

The project will impact a long list of park space, including Squibb Park, Hillside Dog Park, Anchorage Plaza, Clumber Corner, Bar and Grill Park, Adam Yauch Park, and part of Harry Chapin Playground, according to City Hall.

The temporary bypass along Brooklyn Bridge Park will be within Furman Street’s right-of-way, but officials insisted that access to Brooklyn Bridge Park from that road will remain throughout construction.

DOT plans to ask the state to alienate parkland as part of the project, but officials vowed to tear down the temporary roadway and restore the green spaces after the work wraps.

Brooklyn Heights residents and other civic and environmental groups formed a coalition in 2024 calling on the city and state to reimagine the entire BQE corridor, from the Verrazzano Bridge and the Kosciuszko Bridge, and move away from a highway.

There are plenty of successful examples of highway removal projects, like the Cheonggyecheon in Seoul, which officials in the Korean capital turned into a river walk. Closer to home, there’s the removal of Alaska Way Viaduct in Seattle where traffic “just disappeared,” the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, and, of course, the collapse of the West Side Highway in Manhattan.

Gov. Hochul also recently called off an expansion of the Cross-Bronx Expressway following pushback by residents and extensive coverage by Streetsblog.

DOT leaders said such an effort would need buy-in from the state, which controls most of the BQE, to scale back its portion of the expressway as well, along with support from the federal government, since the thoroughfare is also part of the interstate highway system.

DOT took over the cantilever project from the state during the de Blasio era; planning for the project goes all that way back to 2006. The city only owns the 1.5-mile portion of the roadway between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Streets, while the state owns and operates the remaining stretches. Albany has shown no interest in taking down the highway.

Despite DOT’s stated fears of spilling highway traffic to local streets, that already happens with motorists getting off the highway and taking shortcuts around the trenched section in Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill, before getting back on at Atlantic Avenue.

Experts have for years recommended the city close off the Atlantic Avenue interchange to discourage the cut-through traffic and calm the chaotic on-ramps near Brooklyn Bridge Park. DOT has been studying closing the on-ramps as part of a redevelopment of the nearby Brooklyn Marine Terminal, but any work on interchanges would trigger a federal review, officials said.

The city will launch an environmental review by mid-2028, and start construction in 2029, before moving traffic onto the bypass the following year, officials said.

Tejido Global de Alternativas: Declaración Popular de Bandung - [Contacto]

Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 15:40
Tejido Global de Alternativas: Declaración Popular de Bandung [ English ] [ Español ] [ Français ] [ Português] [ Kurdish] Emitida en la segunda Asamblea presencial celebrada en Bandung, Indonesia, del 11 al 17 de abril de 2026. A los pueblos del mundo y a quienes luchan contra todas y cada una de las formas de opresión e injusticia. A toda la vida, incluidas todas las especies no humanas. A los gobiernos de los Estados-nación del mundo y a las instituciones internacionales.

Global Tapestry of Alternatives: People’s Bandung Declaration - [Contact]

Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 15:40
Global Tapestry of Alternatives: People’s Bandung Declaration [ English ] [ Español ] [ Français ] [ Português] [ Kurdish] Issued after the second in-person Assembly of the Global of held in Bandung, Indonesia, 11-17 April 2026 To the peoples of the world and to those struggling against any and all forms of oppression and injustices. To all of life, including all non-human species. To the nation-state governments of the world, and to international institutions.TapestryAlternativesalternativ…

STATEMENT: Restore the Delta calls on legislators to stop Newsom’s attempt to fast-track California Forever

Restore The San Francisco Bay Area Delta - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 15:33

For Immediate Release:

August 26, 2026

Contact:
Ashley Castaneda, ashley@restorethedelta.org

SOLANO, CA — California Forever, a proposed development project in Solano County that would have devastating impacts on the Delta, is once again seeking to circumvent legislative processes to gain preferential treatment. Despite the Solano County Board of Supervisors voting in opposition to California Forever, legislation advancing through the state Legislature and supported by Governor Newsom would create sweeping exemptions from environmental review to move portions of the project forward. 

Today at a press conference, when asked by a reporter about the controversial legislative proposal concerning California Forever, Governor Newsom stated that he would have “voted for it in a nanosecond”.

The bill contains several dangerous provisions, including: 

  • The bill contains several dangerous provisions, including: 
  • Eliminating environmental review for a large new industrial site in Collinsville for shipbuilding and other undisclosed industrial uses.
  • Creating vague exemptions that extend the bill’s stated purpose and could allow the construction of data centers tied to shipbuilding.
  • Allowing California Forever to unilaterally end tribal consultation without mitigation measures or agreement from affected Tribes.
  • Overriding the vote of the people of Solano County, who have, since 1984, preserved their right to weigh in on land-use changes through the Orderly Growth Initiative.

Restore the Delta has worked successfully with Solano Together and the Solano County Board of Supervisors to reject this harmful proposal in recognition that it is an attempt to bypass due process, public input, and the priorities of local communities and Tribes. Now, Sacramento must stop this trailer bill to ensure that local residents maintain the right to shape economic planning and development, not billionaires.

We successfully convinced the Board of Supervisors to reject this harmful legislation, but we need Sacramento to stop this trailer bill once and for all. 

Take Action Before It’s Too Late!

1. Tell Governor Newsom and California legislators “No backroom deals for California Forever!”

  • Governor Newsom – (916) 445-2841
  • Speaker Robert Rivas – (916) 319-2029
  • Pro Tem Limon – (916) 651-4021
  • Assemblymember Wilson – (916) 319-2011
  • Senator Cabaldon – (916) 651-4003

Tell them that: 

  • You oppose any attempts to streamline the controversial California Forever Project, which would have direct and detrimental impact on Delta communities and ecosystems; and 
  • Trailer Bills that circumvent the policy process undermine our democratic process and should not be entertained

2. Sign the NEW petition calling on State Lawmakers to not pursue this legislation.

SEND A LETTER TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TODAY!

Categories: G2. Local Greens

‘A dark day for Queenslanders’ rights’: LNP government passes sweeping development laws

Lock the Gate Alliance - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 15:02

Community groups have warned that new state development laws, passed last night by the LNP government, will give the Deputy Premier unprecedented powers to fast-track major projects while stripping Queenslanders of important community, environmental, landholder and First Nations protections. 

Categories: G2. Local Greens

Videos - created

Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 14:38
Videos Here we will publish the videos we made in the Assembly

Report

Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 14:37
Report Here we will publish the PDF report

Portada

Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 14:26
[ Tejedores] TGA es una “red de redes”. Cada una de esas redes actúa en diferentes partes del planeta identificando y conectando Alternativas. Son los Tejedores. [ Apoyos] Diversas organizaciones progresitas, post-desarrollo y/o anti-capitalistas apoyan esta iniciativa. Tambien lo hacen académicos, activistas y referentes.

Democracia radical y autonomía: ¿a qué nos referimos? - Una conversación

Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 14:20
Democracia radical y autonomía: ¿a qué nos referimos? - Una conversación Introducción En todo el mundo, muchas personas sienten que la democracia no está funcionando. La idea de un gobierno basado en la representación mediante sistemas electorales parecía muy prometedora, pero está demostrando fracasar. Quizá el problema sea más profundo que una simple mala implementación: lo que comúnmente se llama democracia conserva, a menudo, los rituales como elecciones, los partidos, la representación y …

It Takes A Village To Raise A Shorebird Chick

Audubon Society - Wed, 08/26/2026 - 13:39
As a shorebird biologist, I watch shorebirds and seabirds navigate a remarkable and increasingly complicated set of challenges each nesting season. Many of the challenges that shorebirds face are...
Categories: G3. Big Green

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