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Page Updated:
Mar 23, 2025

• • 24 States Sue the E.P.A. for Renouncing
  Its Power to Fight Climate Change

  The Suit Accuses the Agency of Illegally Repealing the Endangerment Finding, the Scientific Assessment That Required It to Regulate Greenhouse Gases

  
  

  Mar. 19, 2026 -A coalition of 24 states, along with a dozen cities and counties, sued the Trump administration on Thursday over its decision to relinquish the government’s legal authority to fight climate change.

  The lawsuit was filed in the ?U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It is expected to be consolidated with a case that environmental groups filed in February, making for one of the largest legal challenges to date against the Trump administration’s unraveling of federal climate policy.

• • FEMA to Relaunch Climate Resiliency
  Grants, Complying With Court Order

  A Judge Ruled in December That the Agency Could Not Cancel a Program That Had Helped States Invest Billions of Dollars in Disaster Readiness

  
  

  Mar. 18, 2026 -The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday it would relaunch a canceled grant program that had helped states invest billions of dollars in projects that made local communities more resilient to floods, fires and other disasters.

  The announcement came days ahead of a deadline imposed by a federal judge who ruled in December that the Trump administration’s decision to end the program, known as Building Resilient Communities and Infrastructure, or BRIC, last April was illegal. In a March 6 court order, Judge Richard G. Stearns of U.S. District Court for Massachusetts gave FEMA two weeks to comply with his ruling and reinstate the program.

• • Administration to Convene ‘God Squad’
  With Power to Override Environmental Law

  The Meeting, Planned For This Month, Will Focus On Oil and Gas Drilling In the Gulf of Mexico

  
  

  Mar. 16, 2026 -The Trump administration plans to convene the so-called God Squad, a high-level federal panel that has the power to override protections under the Endangered Species Act, for a meeting related to oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

  The meeting, scheduled for March 31, will be the first time in three decades that the group, officially called the Endangered Species Committee, will gather.

• • Louisiana Nears Deal With ConocoPhillips Over Coastal Erosion

  Gov. Jeff Landry Said the State is Close to a Settlement With the Oil Major That Would Help Restore the Bayou State’s Disappearing Coast
  
  {GREENWIRE}
  
  

  Mar. 10, 2026 - Louisiana has reached a tentative agreement with ConocoPhillips to settle years of litigation over the oil major's contribution to the state's shrinking coastline.

  Gov. Jeff Landry announced at a coastal advisory commission meeting last week that the state and the energy company are “words away from resolving the longstanding coastal litigation claims.”

• • Ruling in Belgian Farmer’s Climate Lawsuit
  Against TotalEnergies Postponed to September

  Belgium’s First Climate Lawsuit Targeting a Multinational Corporation
  
  {EARTH.ORG}
  
  

  Feb. 27, 2026 - A Belgian court on Wednesday postponed its ruling in a groundbreaking climate case between a Belgian farmer and one of the world’s biggest oil companies.

  The Commercial Court of Tournai was expected to hand down the verdict at 1 p.m. local time in Belgium’s first climate lawsuit targeting a multinational corporation. But the verdict was postponed until September 9.

• • BHP Wins Bid to Throw Out UK
  Contempt Case Linked to Brazil Dam Collapse

  BHP Unsuccessfully Tried to Throw the Case Out Last Year, But the ?Court of Appeal Overturned That Decision On Monday, Bringing the Contempt Proceedings to an End

  
  

  Mar. 16, 2026 -BHP (BHP.AX), opens new tab on Monday won its bid to throw out a contempt of court case in Britain over the funding of litigation to ?try to prevent some Brazilian municipalities suing the mining giant in London over one of Brazil's worst environmental disasters.

  The judgment comes as BHP waits for a decision on whether it can challenge a ruling that it is liable for the 2015 collapse ?of the Mariana dam in southeastern Brazil that was owned and ?operated by BHP and Vale's (VALE3.SA), opens new tab Samarco joint venture.

• • Her Lab Worked to Future-Proof Fruits and Vegetables

  Erin McGuire Ran A Research Network That Studied How to Get Healthy Food to Marginalized Populations Around the World

  
  

  Mar. 12, 2026 -Erin McGuire: I grew up in rural Maine, where my dad was a farmer. I was also on the food stamp program, now known as SNAP, and free and reduced-price school meal programs. And that experience informed my career, where I have focused on: How do you get healthy food to marginalized populations?

  The Horticulture Innovation Lab, which was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, was an absolute dream job. The lab was one of the only organizations focused on fruit and vegetable research, which is chronically underfunded.

• • One Year After Green Bank’s Demise,
  Court Mulls Future of Grant-Based Climate Policy

  The Trump Administration Faced Skepticism in Court Over Its Claim of an Unfettered Right to Break Contracts

  
  

  Mar. 11, 2026 -One year ago today, Environmental Protection Agency< Administrator Lee Zeldin announced he was terminating the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, one of the biggest climate initiatives of the Biden administration, after weeks of alleging the $20 billion in grants had been awarded in a “criminal” scheme.

  But the Trump administration never was able to show the federal courts evidence of wrongdoing with regards to the fund, which Congress created in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act< to spur private investment in clean energy and climate solutions.

• • The Latest Tactic for Silencing Ecuador’s Environmental Defenders

  Shuttering Their Bank Accounts

  
  

  Mar. 10, 2026 -It was a sweltering January afternoon in the Amazonian town of Puyo when Andrés Tapia realized his daughter’s public school fees were due. Like many Ecuadorians, he reached for his phone to make a mobile transfer.

  Carrying cash is too risky these days. Ecuador is in the grip of an ongoing security crisis, with transnational criminal organizations spilling in from neighboring Colombia and Peru. But when Tapia tried to log into the Banco Pichincha mobile banking app, a message flashed on the screen: There was a problem with his account, and he should visit the nearest branch.

• • The Feds Pulled $1.5B From Tribal Clean Energy

  Tribes Are Finding Another Way

  
  

  Mar. 10, 2026 -Across tribal nations, hosting a convening with dinner and a tour of an ambitious new project is a familiar scene. But for David Harper, a member of the Colorado River Indian Tribes and CEO of the newly created tribal energy financing organization Huurav, a recent gathering felt different. Last week, at the Bluewater Resort and Casino on the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation in western Arizona, Huurav met with tribal leaders, investors, and farmers to kick off the tribe’s first agrivoltaics project: a practice that allows for growing crops beneath solar panels.

  The project marks a significant breakthrough for the tribe and the broader tribal clean energy landscape, arriving on the heels of a devastating blow to federal support..

• • Is the FBI Investigating Environmental Activists?

  A Recent Visit By an FBI Agent to a Climate Activist Hints at a Broadening Trump Administration Effort to Target Political Opponents

  
  

  Mar. 8, 2026 -The group in the Brooklyn studio seemed harmless. There was a graduate student, a Yiddish teacher, a hairdresser. Fifteen people had gathered on a Wednesday night for a training offered by Extinction Rebellion NYC and Climate Defiance, two climate activist groups that engage in nonviolent civil disobedience and theatrical protest.

  They sat in metal folding chairs eating pizza, surrounded by banners and art supplies, discussing how to gain a crowd’s attention without prompting immediate boos.

• • How Trump’s EPA Rollbacks Give
  US States New Tools in Climate Suits

  Vermont and New York Face High Stakes to Protect Climate Superfund Laws as It Faces Attacks From Trump’s DoJ

  
  

  Mar. 8, 2026 -By rolling back a bedrock climate legal determination, the Trump administration has undercut its attacks on a groundbreaking state climate accountability law, green groups have argued in court.

  Trump’s justice department has asked a judge to kill a first-of-its-kind 2024 Vermont “climate superfund” policy requiring major polluters to pay for damages caused by their past planet-heating pollution, partly on the grounds that that federal law, not state law, governs greenhouse gas emissions. But last month, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed the endangerment finding, the scientific determination giving federal officials the authority to control those very pollutants.

• • Justice Advances in Cancer Alley

  As the Mississippi River Winds Its Way From Baton Rouge, Louisiana Down to New Orleans, It’s Flanked By Hundreds of Industrial Plants That Refine and Transform Oil and Gas Into Chemicals and Plastics
  
  {living on earth}
  
  

  Mar. 6, 2026 -Descendants of enslaved people fighting pollution in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ have been greenlit for a trial. Their lawsuit alleges the St. James Parish government discriminated against Black residents by repeatedly permitting industrial plants in predominantly Black districts while shielding mostly white districts from industry. Monique Harden, a longtime environmental justice attorney and advocate, joins Host Jenni Doering to explain how the 13th amendment outlawing slavery plays into the case

• • An Island Nation in the South Pacific Leads
  the Latest Push for Climate Justice at the UN

  Vanuatu Urges the U.N. to Support a Landmark International Court Of Justice Climate Opinion That Says Governments Have Legal Duties to Confront Climate Change

  
  

  Mar. 6, 2026 -Led by the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, a coalition of countries are introducing a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly that could reinforce countries’ legal obligations under international climate laws and treaties.

  The resolution would back a July 2025 climate advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice that frames climate commitments as requirements rather than political suggestions and would recommend a U.N. process to document climate-related losses and damage experienced by vulnerable countries and communities.

• • New Lawsuit Aims to Halt Expansion of a Montana
  Coal Mine Blamed for Drying up the Land Above It

  The Proposed Expansion of Signal Peak Energy’s Bull Mountains Mine has Also Revived Scrutiny of a Controversial Land Swap Bill That Would Deprive Musselshell County of Tax Revenue

  
  

  Mar. 3, 2026 -Environmental groups sued Tuesday to halt an expansion of the Bull Mountains Mine, claiming that the “energy emergency” underpinning its revival is nonexistent and that regulators have been aware for decades that underground coal mining would irrevocably damage the area’s water.

  The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, comes eight months after the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement issued an environmental impact statement that cleared the way for the expansion. In 2023, the same court vacated a previous environmental analysis that allowed the mine, which is operated by Signal Peak Energy, to extract coal in federal land. The new document was issued as part of President Donald Trump’s “energy emergency,” and the agency did not make a draft available for public comment.

• • Everyone Hates Interior’s Colorado River Plan

  As the Administration Prepares Water Supply Cuts Across the West, States Are Raising the Alarm and Laying the Groundwork For a Court Fight
  
  {GREENWIRE}
  
  

  Mar. 3, 2026 -Western states that have been brawling over the drought-stricken Colorado River have finally found something they can agree on: a shared hatred of the Trump administration’s plans for managing the waterway.

  Without an agreement for reducing demands along the West’s most important river, the Interior Department is preparing to make the decisions itself. But states, farm districts, cities, tribes and other major players on Monday unabashedly laid into the options the Bureau of Reclamation has laid out for doing so.

• • A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the
  Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won

  The Victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, Could Open the Door For Similar Lawsuits Globally

  
  

  Feb. 28, 2026 -Due to climate disruption, scientists forecast huge rises in temperatures across the tropics. According to the IPCC, tropical regions are projected to experience significant warming—nearly 6 degrees Fahrenheit—by 2100.

  One region already feeling the increasing heat is the Caribbean, where islands are facing sea level rise. One of those islands is Bonaire, a special Dutch municipality just off the coast of Venezuela. In a landmark January decision, the Hague District Court of the Netherlands ruled that its government must better protect residents of Bonaire from climate change, finding current policies are inadequate and discriminatory. The decision requires a specific, binding climate adaptation plan for Bonaire by 2030.

• • Can Nations Agree How to Mine the Sea?

  This Is the Year, She Says

  
  

  Feb. 28, 2026 -After a decade of debate, by year’s end the world should finally have a rulebook for mining the deep sea, Leticia Carvalho, the head of the International Seabed Authority, said in an interview.

  It’s her job to help make it happen. And in the past year, the Trump administration has made the task far more urgent. She called it “absolutely existential” that the 170 nations in the authority now reach an agreement.

• • Bonaire Residents Fight for Climate Justice

  The Court Ruled That the Netherlands Breached Human Rights By Treating Bonaire Residents as Second Class Citizens Compared to Residents in the Netherlands
  
  {living on earth}
  
  

  Feb. 27, 2026 - The Dutch special municipality of Bonaire in the Caribbean is already experiencing dangerous heat and could see a fifth of its land disappear under rising seas by 2100. But the Netherlands is discriminating against these overseas citizens by failing to adequately reduce global warming emissions and develop adaptation plans to help them cope, according to a January 2026 Dutch court decision. Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon worked with eight Bonaire residents to bring their case.

• • Fossil Fuel Giant Wins $370 Million Tax
  Break For Burning Gas as an ‘Alternative Fuel’

  The IRS Ruling Appears to Allow One of the World’s Largest Exporters of Natural Gas to Claim Its Heavily Polluting Tankers Are Low-Emissions “Motorboats.”

  
  

  Feb. 27, 2026 -The Trump administration has handed a $370 million windfall to one of the world’s largest exporters of natural gas by allowing the company to claim an “alternative fuels” tax incentive for operating some of the planet’s most heavily polluting ships.

  Financial disclosures made Thursday by liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter Cheniere reveal that the IRS green-lit the payment earlier this year, ruling that the company’s tankers powered by liquefied natural gas that ship the fossil fuel worldwide qualified for the incentive.

• • Judge Approves $345 Million Verdict
  Against Greenpeace in Pipeline Suit

  Greenpeace Has Said the Verdict Could Bankrupt It

  
  

  Feb. 27, 2026 -A North Dakota judge finalized a potentially fatal verdict against Greenpeace on Friday, affirming a $345 million jury award against the storied environmental group that Greenpeace has said may force it into bankruptcy in the United States.

  The verdict was reached last year after a bruising trial brought by the pipeline company Energy Transfer over Greenpeace’s role in protests against the >Dakota Access Pipeline, an 1,172-mile pipeline that carries oil from North Dakota to Illinois.

• • Federal Judge Orders Protections For Salmon on Columbia River

  Learn About the Action Taken

  
  

  Feb. 26, 2026 -A federal judge in Portland ordered changes Wednesday to operations of eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers intended to reduce harm to salmon.

  The order comes after the Trump administration last June abandoned a landmark agreement intended to provide a road map for salmon recovery and energy supply in the Columbia Basin.

• • Pipeline Clash Escalates as Enbridge Starts Line 5 Work

  The Company Said It Can Reroute an Oil Pipeline in Wisconsin After Receiving a Federal Permit
  
  {ENERGYWIRE}
  
  

  Feb. 25, 2026 -Enbridge has kicked off construction of a contentious reroute of the Line 5 oil pipeline around a reservation in northern Wisconsin, even as environmental groups try to block the activity.

  The em>Army Corps of Engineers< finalized a permit Tuesday that was first issued in late October, Enbridge spokesperson Juli Kellner said in a statement. The move allows the Canadian company to begin constructing the project.

• • Billions in Climate Grants, Frozen for a Year, Are Back in Court

  The Legal Fight Over the Funds Rages On

  
  

  Feb. 24, 2026 -A lawsuit involving billions of dollars in climate grants is headed back to court on Tuesday, more than a year after the Environmental Protection Agency tried to cancel the awards and claw back the money.

  For the nonprofit groups that were blocked from spending the funds while the legal battle played out, it’s been a long wait. Some have had to cut staff and drastically restructure because the money has been frozen. One asked the E.P.A. to end its participation in the program altogether, despite the fact that its work had barely started.

• • Judge Axes Exxon’s Defamation Suit Against Environmentalists

  But the Case Against the California Attorney General, Prompted By His Lawsuit Over Exxon’s Plastic Recycling Program, Can Proceed in Texas Federal Court

  
  

  Feb. 24, 2026 -A federal judge in Texas has dismissed Exxon Mobil’s bombshell defamation lawsuit against environmental groups that it had accused of trying to sabotage its recycling business in collusion with an Australian mining magnate.

  But the judge allowed a parallel case against California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, to proceed.

• • Paris Court Holds Historic Climate Trial in Case Against TotalEnergies

  The Lawsuit Challenges the Oil Major’s Expansion Plans and Could Set a Significant Precedent On Climate Responsibilities For Fossil Fuel Companies

  
  

  Feb. 19, 2026 - In the city where the Paris climate agreement was created, French oil major TotalEnergies is facing trial in a landmark civil climate case that aims to compel the company to curb its oil and gas production and emissions in line with the global accord’s 1.5 degrees Celsius long-term temperature limit.

  The Paris Judicial Court is holding a hearing on the merits, essentially a trial, Thursday and Friday in the case brought by French nonprofit groups and France’s capital city. Judges are examining, for the first time in the country’s history, whether a multinational oil and gas company can be legally required to reduce its fossil fuel production in line with climate objectives, according to a press release from the plaintiffs.

• • Illegal Gold Mining Surges Into New Parts of Peru’s Amazon

  Threatening Rivers and Lives

  
  

  Feb. 17, 2026 -Illegal gold mining is spreading into new parts of Peru’s Amazon, advancing along remote rivers and into Indigenous territories as experts warn of a widening environmental and public health crises that could cause irreparable damage.

  The surge marks a new phase for one of the Amazon’s most destructive industries, as operations move beyond long-established hot spots into previously untouched regions, environmentalists, researchers and Indigenous leaders told The Associated Press.

• • Supreme Court to Weigh Oil-Industry
  Effort to End a Major Climate Suit

  The Case Could Have Significant Bearing On a Range of Other Lawsuits Brought Against the Fossil Fuel Industry

  
  

  Feb. 23, 2026 -The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it had agreed to hear a major climate lawsuit in which the oil industry is claiming it shouldn’t be sued in state courts over its role in global warming. The outcome could have wide bearing on dozens of other lawsuits around the country.

  The court said it would hear arguments on a petition by Exxon Mobil and Suncor, a Canadian energy giant, in a lawsuit brought by the city and county of Boulder, Colo. The suit, first filed in 2018, sought to hold the companies liable for the effects of climate change, citing state laws.

• • He Was a Climate Activist. One Day, the F.B.I. Came Knocking

  As the Trump Administration Cracks Down On Climate Change Activism, Members of Environmental Groups Like Extinction Rebellion Fear They're Being Targeted

  
  

  Feb. 20, 2026 -On a recent frosty February morning, 200 miles north of New York City, a middle-aged man had just had his tea and toast and opened his laptop. He heard a knock on his door. When he answered it, a woman, accompanied by a man, identified herself as a counterterrorism agent with the FBI. She said that she wanted to talk with him about em>Extinction Rebellion, a global environmental group. He was not in trouble, she told him.

  The man’s heart started racing. He told them he had nothing to say. The F.B.I. agent asked if there was someone who could speak on the man’s behalf. He said no. The two agents thanked him and left.

• • EPA Endangerment Repeal Could Expose Industry to Legal Blowback

  Legal experts warn that scrapping the Scientific Finding May Undermine Federal Preemption Defenses, Opening the Door to a Wve of State Lawsuits Against Major Emitters
  
  {E&E NEWS}
  
  

  Feb. 20, 2026 -EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has celebrated driving a dagger into the “heart of the climate religion,” but legal analysts say the agency’s move to revoke a landmark climate finding could open industry to a barrage of new legal and regulatory risks.

  Courts will have the last say on whether EPA can stop regulating heat-trapping emissions permanently in the wake of last week’s endangerment finding repeal. And if the Supreme Court eventually endorses EPA’s central argument — that Congress never gave the agency authority to regulate climate pollution — the decision could have the unintended consequence of wiping away legal protections for the industries that Zeldin was trying to help.

• • New Drone Unit to Investigate Illegal
  Waste Dumping Across England

  Government Announces Tougher Measures to Tackle Unlicensed Sites As ‘Prolific Waste Criminal’ Is Ordered to Pay £1.4m

  
  

  Feb. 20, 2026 -A new 33-strong drone unit is being deployed to investigate the scourge of illegal waste dumping across England, the government has announced.

  The improvements to the investigation of illegal waste dumping – which costs the UK economy £1bn a year – come as the ringleader of a major waste crime gang was ordered to pay £1.4m after being convicted at Birmingham crown court..

• • Paris Court Holds Historic Climate
  Trial in Case Against TotalEnergies

  The Lawsuit Challenges the Oil Major’s Expansion Plans and Could Set a Significant Precedent On Climate Responsibilities for Fossil Fuel Companies

  
  

  Feb. 19, 2026 -In the city where the Paris climate agreement was created, French oil major TotalEnergies is facing trial in a landmark civil climate case that aims to compel the company to curb its oil and gas production and emissions in line with the global accord’s 1.5 degrees Celsius long-term temperature limit.

  The Paris Judicial Court is holding a hearing on the merits, essentially a trial, Thursday and Friday in the case brought by French nonprofit groups and France’s capital city. Judges are examining, for the first time in the country’s history, whether a multinational oil and gas company can be legally required to reduce its fossil fuel production in line with climate objectives, according to a press release from the plaintiffs.

• • EPA Faces Lawsuit Over Scrapping the ‘Endangerment Finding

  A Pillar of Climate Regulation

  
  

  Feb. 18, 2026 -On Wednesday prominent medical and environmental groups challenged the Trump administration’s decision to scrap a 2009 finding that climate change threatens human health.

  The suit was filed on February 18 by the American Public Health Association (APHA), the American Lung Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and several other medical and environmental advocacy groups.

• • Texas Alleges ‘Habitual Non-Compliance’ of
  Wastewater Rules at Dow Chemical Complex

  The Lawsuit, Filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Office, Could Shield the Petrochemical Giant From Harsher Litigation

  
  

  Feb. 17, 2026 -The Texas Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit Friday afternoon against Dow Chemical Co., North America’s largest chemical manufacturer, describing hundreds of water pollution violations from its industrial complex on the rural Gulf Coast in Seadrift.

  While the state’s 46-page lawsuit followed a 60-day notice of intent to sue filed in December by a local environmental activist, the lawsuit could actually shield Dow and two other companies by superseding litigation by the citizen group seeking tougher cleanup provisions under the Clean Water Act.

• • Vanguard Settles Case Claiming It Tried to Kill the Coal Industry

  Republican-Led States Had Accused Financial Firms of Colluding Against Coal Producers

  
  

  Feb. 16, 2026 -Vanguard confirmed a $29.5 million settlement on Thursday with a coalition of Republican-led states that had accused the financial giant of conspiring with BlackRock and State Street to drive the coal industry out of business.The agreement blocks Vanguard< from supporting efforts to fight climate change. Vanguard agreed not to advocate that any company it invests in “take any particular course of conduct to reduce carbon emissions.” It also vowed not to join climate-action networks, such as Principles for Responsible Investment, which is supported by the United Nations and bills itself as “the world’s catalyst of responsible investment.”

• • Historic Climate Rollback Makes U.S. a Global Outlier on Tailpipe Rules

  The E.P.A.’s Killing of the “Endangerment Finding” Caps a Year of Deregulation That's Likely to Make Cars Thirstier For Gas and Less Competitive Globally

  
  

  Feb. 16, 2026 -The momentous end to the federal government’s legal authority to fight climate change makes it official.

  The United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be.

  That’s the practical result of the Trump administration’s yearlong parade of regulatory rollbacks, capped on Thursday by its killing of the “endangerment finding,” the scientific determination that required the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases because of the threat to human health.

• • Michigan Tries a New Legal Tactic Against Big Oil

  Alleging Antitrust Violations Aimed at Hobbling EVs and Renewable Energy

  
  

  Feb. 15, 2026 -Michigan is taking on major oil and gas companies in court, joining nearly a dozen other states that have brought climate-related lawsuits against ExxonMobil and its industry peers. But Michigan’s approach is different: accusing Big Oil not of deceiving consumers or misrepresenting climate change risks, but of driving up energy costs by colluding to suppress competition from cleaner and cheaper technologies like solar power and electric vehicles.

  The strategy is risky and might run into challenges, but it could potentially be a game changer if the state can overcome initial dismissal attempts by the industry defendants, legal experts say.

• • States Target Oil Giants’ Wealth as Climate Damages Rise

  Legislators Aim to Use Climate Superfund Programs to Force Oil Companies to Help Cover the Cost of Global Warming
  
  {E&E NEWS}
  
  

  Feb. 12, 2026 -President Trump and the oil industry have sought to smother state-level climate action. But a growing number of state lawmakers, mayors and attorneys general are embracing an aggressive gambit: Going after the fossil fuel industry itself.

  State and local governments are seeking to retroactively charge the biggest fossil fuel companies billions of dollars to account for climate-fueled damage to states, such as wildfires and floods. They’re pursuing two tracks: lawsuits modeled on tobacco litigation, and climate superfund legislation based on conventional pollution cleanup.

• • Black Women Most at Risk From Harmful
  Chemicals in Unregulated Hair Products

  Hair Extensions Used Primarily By Black Women Contain a “Shocking” Range of Dangerous Chemicals

  
  

  Feb. 11, 2026 -Elissia Franklin is an analytical chemist with an infectious laugh, a penchant for braided hair extensions and a fierce commitment to reducing health disparities for Black women. Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, she saw firsthand the systemic barriers Black women face and resolved to help her community benefit from all she learned as she pursued her career as a chemist.

  She never anticipated just how personal her research path would become.

  Eight years ago, Franklin was working on her Ph.D. thesis as a visiting senior research scholar at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. She was developing analytical techniques to characterize different types of fatty compound structures when a paper came out that would alter the course of her career.

• • The Researcher Bringing Dignity
  to Disaster Aid With Cold, Hard Cash

  It Could Have Wide-Reaching Impacts Across the Planet

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -As increasingly extreme weather ravages our planet, this has become a familiar formula: Natural disaster strikes, homes and lives are destroyed, people are in need. Government or donation-funded aid workers then descend with food, temporary shelters, medicine and paperwork. Eventually they leave, and communities feel abandoned, unable to wholly rebuild.

  Miriam Laker-Oketta, a Uganda-based doctor and researcher, is attempting to redraw the often flawed disaster-aid blueprint by forgoing supplies and instead giving victims cold, hard cash. No strings attached. In doing so, she says, she hopes to inject the traditional disaster-aid models with more dignity. Instead of telling people what they need and when they need it, Laker-Oketta believes in empowering them to adapt and recover in their own way.

• • Longtime Exxon Lawyers Retreat
  From Oil Company’s Climate Cases

  Attorneys From the Law Firm Paul, Weiss Are No Longer Representing the Oil Company In At Least Four Lawsuits That Ask the Fossil Fuel Industry to Pay For Climate Impacts
  
  {E&E NEWS}
  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -The law firm that has helped Exxon Mobil notch significant victories in its battle against climate lawsuits from local governments has pulled out of at least four of the court fights.

  Exxon and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison attorneys this month notified courts in Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine and Washington state that the firm would no longer represent the oil giant as it fights efforts by governments and individuals in those states to hold the oil and gas industry financially accountable for climate change.

  The filings did not elaborate on the reasons for the moves, but noted lawyers from other firms would remain as counsel. While rare, withdrawals from cases are not unheard of and can be made by either attorneys or clients for various reasons.

• • Federal Judge Blocks Texas Law Targeting Critics of Fossil Fuels

  A Judge Struck Down a Controversial 2021 Texas Law That Blacklisted Financial Firms For “Boycotting” Fossil Fuels
  
  {energy central}
  
  

  Feb. 8, 2026 -A federal judge (and President Trump appointee) ruled the “overly broad” law violated the First Amendment, noting it failed to provide clear standards for what actually constituted a boycott.

  The big picture: This is a blow to the anti-ESG movement—the Texas statute served as the blueprint for similar legislation in 20+ other states targeting firms like BlackRock for their climate policies.

• • Swedish Youth Sue to Force Government to Act On Climate Change

  Young Activists Are Pointing to Recent International Court Rulings Requiring Foreign Governments to Curb Planet-Warming Emissions
  
  {CLIMATEWIRE}
  
  

  Feb 5, 2026 -Swedish youth have launched a second climate lawsuit against their government, arguing the nation’s officials are failing to do their part to limit global warming.

  Their lawsuit comes just a week after a court ordered the Dutch government to do more to protect the low-lying Caribbean island of Bonaire from rising seas and other effects of a warming planet — a first-of-its-kind decision requiring a nation to take concrete climate action.

• • Should Polluters Pay For Climate Change Impacts?

  This RI Bill Could Make It Happen
  
  {The Providence Journal}
  
  

  Feb 5, 2026 -The idea behind the creation of a “Climate Superfund” for Rhode Island is simple: If you make a mess, you should clean it up.

  In the case of climate change and all its impacts, from rising seas to heatwaves to inland flooding, environmental advocates say the perpetrators are fossil fuel companies, whose products are generating greenhouse gases that are warming the planet.

• • EPA Enforcement Plunged to ‘Historic Low’

  The Trump Administration “Is Not Serious About Holding Polluters Accountable
  
  {GREENWIRE}
  
  

  Feb 5, 2026 -The Trump administration brought only 16 lawsuits against polluters for environmental violations last year, a watchgroup group reported Thursday, buttressing previously released evidence of a steep falloff in federal efforts to enforce laws meant to ensure clean air, land and water.

  That total — which the report deems a "historic low" — was far fewer than the 67 suits brought during the first year of President Joe Biden’s term in 2021 and down even further from the 86 filed in 2017, the start of President Donald Trump’s first term, according to the new Environmental Integrity Project report.

• • Amsterdam, Florence Become Latest Cities to Ban Fossil Fuel Ads

  More Than 50 World Cities
  Have Restricted Fossil Fuel Advertisements
  
  {EARTH.ORG}
  
  

  Feb 5, 2026 -The Dutch capital of Amsterdam and the Italian of Florence have approved bans on fossil fuel advertisements, joining dozens of cities worldwide that have introduced restrictions on the promotion of polluting products.

  Last month, Amsterdam’s city council passed a legally binding ban on ads for fossil fuels and meat products in a 27-17 vote, becoming the first capital city to fully prohibit such ads. The ban, set to kick in on May 1, spans high-carbon products and services like flights, petrol and diesel vehicles, gas heating contracts and meat products across all public spaces in the city, including on public transport.

• • A Secret Panel to Question Climate
  Science Was Unlawful, Judge Rules

  The Researchers Produced a Report That Was Central In a Trump Administration Effort to Stop Regulating Climate Pollution

  
  

  Jan. 30, 2026 -A federal judge on Friday ruled the Energy Department violated the law when Secretary Chris Wright handpicked five researchers who reject the scientific consensus on climate change to work in secret on a sweeping government report on global warming.

  The Energy Department issued the report, which downplayed the dangers of warming, in late July without having held any public meetings or made records available to the public. Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, then cited the report to justify a plan to repeal the endangerment finding, a landmark scientific determination that serves as the legal foundation for regulating climate pollution.

• • Dutch Govt. Violated Human Rights By Failing
  to Protect Bonaire Residents From Climate Change

  The Hague District Court Ruled That the Government Failed to Take Appropriate Mitigation and Adaptation Measures To Protect The Inhabitants
  
  {EARTH.ORG}
  
  

  Jan 7, 2026 -The case was brought by eight residents of the tiny Caribbean island in early 2024. Backed by Greenpeace, they accused the Netherlands’ government of not doing enough to protect them from the devastating impacts of climate change, such as rising temperatures and sea levels. Bonaire became special Dutch municipalities in 2010, and roughly 80% of its 26,000 residents have Dutch citizenship.

  The Hague District Court rejected the complaints brought by the individuals but admitted the claim brought by Greenpeace, which is acting on their behalf.

• • Trump’s Biggest Climate Rollback Stalls
  Over Fears It Will Lose In Court

  The Proposal is Too Weak to Withstand a Court Challenge

  
  

  Jan. 29, 2026, -Trump officials have delayed finalizing the repeal of a landmark legal opinion key to their effort to eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules because of concerns the proposal is too weak to withstand a court challenge, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.

  The EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding” concluded that greenhouse gases harm public health, establishing the basis for regulating them under the Clean Air Act. Repealing the finding would end the agency’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.

• • Amid National Call to Make Polluters Pay, Illinois
  Lawmakers Are Prepping a Climate Change Superfund Bill

  As Climate Costs Rise and the U.S. Backslides On Action, Pressure Mounts On States to Fill the Gaps

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026, -Illinois lawmakers plan to introduce a climate change superfund bill in the state legislature this session, the latest in a growing number of states seeking to make fossil fuel companies pay up for the fast-growing financial fallout of climate change.

  As the costs of global warming rise—in the form of home insurance premiums, utility bills, health expenses and record-breaking damages from extreme weather—local advocates are increasingly pushing states to require that fossil fuel companies contribute to climate “superfunds” that would support mitigation and adaptation.

• • Unions Sue FEMA Over Work Force
  Cuts They Say Threaten Readiness

  Recent Dismissals and Plans For Further Cuts Violate Laws Designed to Preserve the Disaster Response Agency’s Independence and Capabilities

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026, - A coalition of unions, scientific groups and local governments filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to block the Federal Emergency Management Agency from cutting its staff, arguing that, by doing so, agency leaders are violating laws mandating that FEMA maintain capabilities to respond to disasters.

  The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, seeks to block the dismissals of hundreds of contract workers at FEMA that began at the start of the year. About 1,000 employees were expected to lose their jobs this month, although the agency paused the cuts last week in anticipation of a winter storm that raged across the country, according to internal FEMA emails reviewed by The New York Times.

• • EPA Wants to Eliminate One of the Few
  Ways That Tribes Can Protect Their Water

  The Agency’s Plan Would Narrow Water Quality Reviews and Make It Harder For Tribes to Enforce Treaty Rights

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026, - Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposal to revise the Clean Water Act, specifically a section of the law that regulates water quality and limits states’ and tribes’ authority over federal projects, as well as how tribes can gain the authority to conduct those reviews. Experts say the move would dissolve one of the few tools tribes have to enforce treaty rights and hamper their ability to protect tribal citizens.

  “What the Trump administration is proposing to modify here is a really important tool for states and tribes, because it gets at their ability to put conditions on or, in extreme cases, block projects that are either proposed by the federal government or under the jurisdiction of the federal government,” said Miles Johnson, legal director at Columbia Riverkeeper, an organization that works on issues affecting the Columbia River.

• • Stretched Thin, Iowa Agency Issues Few Fines for Manure Pollution

  The State’s Environmental Agency Has the Authority to Investigate and Issue Fines For Illegal Spills, But Lacks Sufficient Staff and Resources

  
  

  Jan. 23, 2026 -Over half a century ago, Larry Stone moved to northeast Iowa, drawn by the abundant wildlife and the crisp, spring-fed streams that carve through rocky bluffs. More than half a century later, those waterways have increasingly come under threat.

  In 2017, a 10,000-head cattle feedlot was built in a nearby town at the headwaters of Bloody Run Creek after a protracted battle with citizen and environmental groups. Ever since, Stone has spent what he estimates to be hundreds of hours focusing on the Supreme Beef LLC facility and its effect on one of Iowa’s “outstanding waterways.”

• • Michigan Attorney General Sues Oil Industry Over Allegations
  of Collusion Against Electric Vehicles and Renewable Energy

  A.G. Dana Nessel Pursues a Novel Antitrust Suit Against Major Oil Companies and a Trade Group
  
  {POLITICOPRO}
  
  

  Jan 23, 2026 -Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel launched a novel antitrust lawsuit against several oil companies on Friday, alleging they acted as a "cartel" to obstruct development of electric vehicles and renewable energy.

  The lawsuit from Nessel, a Democrat, takes a different tack than many of the climate-related cases filed by other states and localities in recent years, which focused on allegations about fossil fuels sales under common law and consumer protection laws. Nessel instead based the suit in part on federal antitrust laws, the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act, as well as the Michigan Antitrust Reform Act.

• • Peaceful Protest Against Whaling in
  Iceland Lands Two Activists in Court

  Iceland is One of Three Countries That Still Permits Commercial Whaling

  
  

  Jan. 21, 2026 -At 4 a.m. on Sept. 4, 2023, two environmental activists, Elissa Phillips and Anahita Sahar Babaei, climbed aboard a pair of aging whaling vessels moored side by side in Reykjavík harbor to stop them from heading out to sea. A temporary ban on killing whales in Iceland had just been lifted and the women believed the ships’ crew would soon resume their hunt.

  “We knew it meant watching more whales being butchered unnecessarily,” said Phillips, a British citizen who, prior to boarding the vessels, had volunteered with Sea Shepherd UK, a marine conservation nonprofit now known as the Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK, documenting whale kills in Iceland.

• • Supreme Court to Decide if the Pesticide
  Roundup Is Shielded From Lawsuits

  The Case Could Affect Thousands of Claims That the Widely Used Weedkiller Causes Cancer
  
  

  Jan. 16, 2026 -AThe Supreme Court said on Friday that it would hear a case that asks whether federal law shields a pesticide manufacturer from lawsuits claiming that the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.

  Developed by Monsanto in the 1970s, Roundup is one of the best-selling weedkillers in the world, but it has been dogged by controversy over its effects on human health. The company, which was acquired by the German conglomerate Bayer in 2018, has faced thousands of lawsuits, amounting to one of the largest waves of such litigation in U.S. history.

• • Two Courts Block Trump Administration’s
  Attempt to Halt Clean Energy Projects

  Two Judges In Separate Rulings Instructed the Trump Administration to Reinstate Clean Energy Grants and Allow an Offshore Wind Farm’s Construction to Resume
  
  {EARTH.ORG}
  
  

  Jan. 14, 2026 -On Monday, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the administration’s decision to halt millions of dollars in clean energy grants was “unlawful” as it primarily targeted projects in Democratic-led states.

  “All the awardees (but one) were based in states whose majority of citizens casting votes did not support President Trump in the 2024 election,” Judge Mehta said. “The political identity of a terminated grantee’s state…played a preponderant role in the October 2025 grant termination decisions,” he added.

• • Supreme Court to Hear Case on Louisiana’s Eroding Coast

  Local Governments Are Suing Oil Companies Over Environmental Damage
  
  
  

  Jan. 11, 2026 -Who should pay for saving southern Louisiana’s endangered coastline?

  The Supreme Court is set to take up a sliver of that question on Monday, as the justices hear arguments in connection with more than 40 lawsuits filed by Louisiana officials seeking to hold energy companies liable for environmental damage linked to oil and gas production, some of it dating back to World War II.

• • The War Over a Weedkiller Might
  Be Headed to the Supreme Court

  Bayer Has Asked the Justices to Decide Whether Federal Law Shields Them From Lawsuits Over Its Roundup Herbicide and Cancer
  
  
  

  Jan. 9, 2026 -The Supreme Court is poised to decide whether to take up a case involving weedkillers and cancer that could effectively curtail one of the largest waves of tort litigation in American history.

  The case involves Bayer, the German conglomerate that acquired the pesticide manufacturer Monsanto in 2018. Bayer is petitioning the court for a definitive ruling on whether federal law shields the company from thousands of lawsuits claiming that its widely-used weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.

  Again.

• • In Ecuador’s Battle of Toad vs. Road, Toad Wins

  A Court Invoked Ecuador’s Rights of Nature Laws In Halting a Highway Project to Protect the Jambato Harlequin Toad, Requiring the Government to Prove Construction Won’t Drive The Species to Extinction
  
  
  

  Jan. 7, 2026 -An Ecuadorian court has blocked construction of a highway after ruling it poses an imminent and irreversible threat to the rights of a critically endangered toad, a decision that underscores the country’s unique constitutional protections for nature.

  The opinion, issued Sunday by Judge Milton Gustavo Hernández Andino of a provincial court in Pujilí, suspended all work on the planned highway, citing the risk it poses to the Jambato harlequin toad—a species found nowhere else on Earth but in the parish of Angamarca, in Cotopaxi province.

• • Louisiana Town Fights For Relief After a Billion-Dollar Oil Disaster

  Federal and State Officials Have Sued the Company Behind the Blast, But Roseland, Louisiana, Residents Say the Case Won’t Bring Relief to Their Town
  
  
  

  Jan. 3, 2026 -Four months have passed since a Louisiana oil facility burst apart, spewing a dense black sludge that drifted across homes, farms, and waterways as far as 50 miles away.

  Since then, the U.S. Department of Justice and Louisiana environmental regulators have filed a sweeping lawsuit against Smitty’s Supply, the company that ran the facility storing oil and vehicle lubricants. But residents in the majority-Black town are skeptical that they’ll benefit from the $1 billion federal lawsuit.

• • The Trump Administration Approved a Big Lithium Mine

  A Top Official’s Husband Profited
  
  
  

  Jan. 3, 2026 -A high-ranking official in the Interior Department is drawing scrutiny from ethics experts because she failed to disclose her family’s financial interest in the nation’s largest lithium mine that had been approved by her agency, according to state and federal records.

  In 2018 Frank Falen sold water from a family ranch in northern Nevada to Lithium Nevada Corp., a subsidiary of Lithium Americas, for $3.5 million. The company was planning a $2.2 billion lithium mine nearby called Thacker Pass, and lithium mining requires significant amounts of water.

• • EU’s New ‘Green Tariff’ Rules On
  High-Carbon Goods Come Into Force

  The ‘Border Adjustment Mechanism’ Aims to Create a Level Playing Field While Also Encouraging Decarbonisation
  
  
  

  Jan. 1, 2026 -The biggest shake-up of green trade rules for decades comes into force today, as companies selling steel, cement and other high-carbon goods into the EU will have to prove they comply with low-carbon regulations or face fines.

  But a lack of clarity on how the rules will be applied, and the failure of the UK government to strike a deal with Brussels over the issue, could lead to confusion in the early stages, experts warned.

• • Stingless Bees From the Amazon
  Granted Legal Rights in a World First

  Planet’s Oldest Bee Species and Primary Pollinators Were Under Threat From Deforestation and Competition From ‘Killer Bees’
  
  
  

  Dec. 29, 2025 -Stingless bees from the Amazon have become the first insects to be granted legal rights anywhere in the world, in a breakthrough supporters hope will be a catalyst for similar moves to protect bees elsewhere.

  It means that across a broad swathe of the Peruvian Amazon, the rainforest’s long-overlooked native bees – which, unlike their cousins the European honeybees, have no sting – now have the right to exist and to flourish.