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Page Updated:
August 14, 2026

• • NIPSCO Wants MISO Ratepayers to Cover the
  $38M it Spent Running a Coal Plant Under Federal Orders

  So Far, the DOE’s Emergency Orders to Fossil Fuel Plants Around the Country Have Cost Ratepayers Over $400M
  
  {energy central}

  August 12, 2026 -The hole: The two Indiana coal units cost $116.7M to operate this January-March…but they earned $33.5M. Now, NIPSCO is preparing for potential DOE emergency orders through late 2028.

  For context: The DOE’s 202(c) authority lets the feds force generators to stay online in the name of reliability. For NIPSCO’s plant, Energy Sec. Chris Wright first invoked 202(c) on Dec. 23; these retirement-blocking orders have been renewed every 90 days since (and they’re currently set to expire on Sept. 19).

• • Amazon Accused of ‘Greenwashing’ Seafood Products

  Something 'Fishy' Here

  

  August 5, 2026 -On Amazon, some seafood products are labeled “wild caught” and “responsibly sourced,” but a lawsuit filed Friday suggests there’s something fishy going on.

  In a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in Seattle federal court, two consumers accused the e-commerce giant of “greenwashing,” or falsely marketing seafood products as sustainable. The lawsuit targets dozens of tuna, salmon and other seafood products sold by Amazon online and in stores under brands including Chicken of the Sea, Bumble Bee, StarKist and 365 by Whole Foods.

• • Federal Appeals Court Revives Lawsuit
  Over Colorado Refinery Pollution

  A Lower Court Judge Was Too Quick to Dismiss a Challenge From Environmental Groups, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Ruled
  
  {POLITICOPRO}

  August 3, 2026 -An environmental lawsuit over alleged air pollution from a Suncor refinery in Colorado is getting a second life after a federal appeals court on Monday reversed a lower court that had tossed the case.

  The question of when groups can sue over pollution from power plants, refineries and other industrial facilities comes as the Trump administration has eased off environmental enforcement. It intervened in a different citizen suit over emissions from an xAI data center in Memphis for the novel purpose of quashing the challenge.

• • Migrant Crisis Pits Spain’s Leader Against Critics Across Europe

  Prime Minister Lashes Out at EU Colleagues Who Blame His Policies For Ceuta Episode
  
  {THE WALL STREET JOURNAL}

  August 3, 2026 -As most migrants left a tiny Spanish territory in North Africa this weekend, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pivoted to a new crisis—one playing out in Europe’s halls of power.

  His country had just experienced an extraordinary breach of sovereignty, with some 50,000 migrants illegally pouring into Ceuta from neighboring Morocco.

• • Revealed: Major Oil Firms Make $93Bn
  Profits Amid War and Climate Crisis

  Iran Conflict Windfall Over Three Months Reignites Calls For Companies ‘Cashing In On Human Misery’ to Pay For Environmental Damage

  

  August 2, 2026 -Eight of the biggest oil companies amassed profits of more than $90bn (£67bn) in just three months as the Iran conflict sent energy prices soaring and the emissions-fuelled climate crisis caused deadly heatwaves.

  The windfall war profits have reignited calls for oil and gas supermajors such as Saudi Aramco and BP to pay for the environmental damage caused by “cashing in on human misery” and fund a rapid transition to renewable energy.

• • Michigan Lawmakers Move to Block
  State’s Climate Case Against Oil Companies

  The State Attorney General Said She Doesn’t Need the Legislature’s Permission to Sue Fossil Fuel Producers For Contributing to Climate Change
  
  {E&E NEWS}

  July 30, 2026 -Lawmakers in Michigan have found a new way to target climate lawsuits against the oil and gas industry: cut off funding to the lawyers.

  A new provision in the state’s 2027 budget prevents the state attorney general from “joining a multistate lawsuit or taking part of a lawsuit against the federal government or an oil or gas entity” without legislative approval. The language appears to have been added during budget negotiations between Democrats who control the Senate and Republicans who control the House.

• • The Case For Making Polluters Pay Moves Into the Mainstream

  With Fossil Fuel Firms Set to Report Huge Profits Off the Back of the Iran War Amid Heatwaves and Wildfires in Europe, Public Debate is Asking Who Should Pay For the Damage?
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}

  July 28, 2026 -This coming week, as record-breaking heat has morphed into killer wildfires, major oil and gas companies will report their second-quarter earnings and are widely expected to announce profits that have doubled or even quadrupled in the last three months. The obscenity of that contradiction is impossible to ignore.

  Oxfam analysis, released as the Q2 earnings season gets underway, shows that the world’s six largest fossil fuel corporations - BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies - are on course to nearly double their combined net income compared with the first quarter of the year, from $23 billion to around $45 billion.

• • Boulder Asks the Supreme Court to
  Keep Its Climate Lawsuit Alive

  The Fossil Fuel Industry has Argued That Federal Law Bars the Lawsuit. But...
  
  {E&E NEWS}

  July 28, 2026 -Two Colorado communities are asking the Supreme Court to allow them to continue suing fossil fuel producers for climate change, saying the lawsuit is an “exercise of traditional state power.”

  In a brief filed Monday, the city and county of Boulder outlined their arguments in Suncor v. Boulder, a blockbuster climate case the court will take up in the fall that could derail nearly two dozen similar lawsuits against the oil and gas industry.

  The governments are asking the court to reject the industry’s bid to overturn a 2025 Colorado Supreme Court decision that allowed the lawsuit to proceed in state court.

• • Johnson & Johnson to Pay $5.5bn
  Settlement In Talc Cancer Lawsuit

  Landmark Deal Covers About 76,000 Claims and Could End Contentious, Decade-Long Legal Battle

  

  July 28, 2026 -Johnson & Johnson said it would pay an estimated $5.5bn to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its baby ?powder and other talc products caused ?ovarian cancer, in a landmark deal that could end a contentious, decade-long legal battle.

  Johnson & Johnson on Monday said the settlement covers about 76,000 claims, including ones consolidated in a federal court in New Jersey, and related cases in state court,representing nearly all of the remaining talc claims against the company.

• • Climate-Impacted Communities Across
  Asia Are Taking Their Fight To Court

  Communities In South Korea, the Philippines, India and Indonesia Are Increasingly Turning to the Courts to Demand Justice and Accountability
  
  {EARTH.ORG}

  July 25, 2026 -When Super Typhoon Rai – equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane – began battering Batasan Island in Bohol, Philippines, in December 2021, Trixy Elle and her husband, two children, and father waded into the storm, fearing they would be trapped in their home. Holding on to one another, they were determined not to let go.

  By morning, the house Elle and her husband had spent years building was gone. So was much of the island. They were left with just the clothes on their backs. In the days that followed, the family survived in conditions that stripped life to its barest terms, at one point, eating livestock they had found dead in the storm’s aftermath.

  The 35-year-old mother felt a deep sense of injustice. The typhoon – locally known as Odette – affected 10.6 million people in the Philippines, killing more than 400 and displacing 1.4 million from their homes. Elle began to question why communities like hers had to endure such devastation despite contributing so little to the climate crisis. “Why are we the ones struggling the most?”

• • Two Dozen States Sue Trump White House
  For Politicizing FEMA Disaster Aid

  The 25 Democratic Attorneys General Say Administration Imposed ‘Unlawful’ Conditions On Federal Disaster Grants

  

  July 24, 2026 -A group of 25 Democratic attorneys general led by California’s Rob Bonta are taking the Trump administration to court for imposing “unlawful” conditions on federal grants for disaster preparedness and response.

  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) have been placing stipulations on federal grants that amount to a “campaign of coercion” designed to force states to adopt the White House’s preferred voting and immigration policies says the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Rhode Island on Thursday.

• • Flash Floods Kill at Least 23 in Afghanistan

  Dozens Remained Missing After Floods Swept Through a city in Nuristan...

  

  July 21, 2026 -At least 23 people died and more than 80 others were injured in flash floods that struck a province in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, local officials said, adding that the death toll would likely rise as dozens remained missing.

  The floods, caused by heavy monsoon rains, hit communities in Parun, the capital city of Nuristan Province on the border with Pakistan. Torrents of muddy water cascaded down surrounding mountains in the middle of the afternoon and killed Parun’s mayor, according to Faraidoon Samim, a spokesman for Nuristan’s governor.

• • Allegations of Harm At China-Backed
  Transition Minerals Projects Rise

  The Growth In Recorded Abuses Linked to Chinese Investments Comes As a New Mediation Mechanism Between Companies and Communities Gets Underway
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}

  July 21, 2026 -Reports of human rights and environmental abuses linked to Chinese companies’ overseas investments in the mining and refining of minerals needed for the clean energy transition are on the rise, research by a monitoring group has found.

  The number of recorded allegations of harm at projects tied to Chinese firms have increased every year since 2021, rising to 148 in 2025, according to the Business and Human Rights Centre (BHRC). On Wednesday it released new data showing that a total of 434 allegations of abuse were made against Chinese-backed projects over the five-year period in projects across the world.

• • Trump Officials Withhold $1 Billion
  in Medicaid Funds From 2 States

  The Administration Accused California and Minnesota of Fraudulent Activity in Their Public Health Insurance Programs

  

  July 21, 2026 -The Trump administration announced Tuesday it was withholding an additional $1 billion in Medicaid funds from California and Minnesota, the second time it has targeted the two states with Democratic governors for suspected fraud in their public health insurance programs.

  The federal government will hold more than $867 million in payments from California and about $200 million from Minnesota until they can provide proof that certain claims were legitimate, officials said.

• • Hundreds of Rohingya Vanish at Sea

  ‘They Are Invisible People’:

  

  July 17, 2026 -When Nur Kalima’s two young children ask where their father is, she tells them he will be back soon. In reality, she is convinced he has been dead for weeks.

  She said that she thinks her husband, Abdul Rahman, was on one of the two boats that the United Nations says sank off the coast of Myanmar early this month. The vessels were headed to Malaysia, where its passengers, mostly members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority of Myanmar, had hoped to build a better life. On Thursday, the U.N. said that it fears more than 500 people died.

• • The Report Oil Companies Are Worried
  About: Climate Attribution Science

  New Report Says Our Ability to Tie Weather Damages to Climate Change is Improving
  
  {arsTECHNICA}

  July 17, 2026 -Climate change is being driven largely by the greenhouse gases we’ve pumped into the atmosphere, which trap more of the Sun’s energy there. That added energy increases the odds of extreme events: longer, more intense heat waves and droughts, interspersed with excessive precipitation. But these sorts of events have happened in the past—how can we tell if any given weather disaster has been made more likely by the climate?

  It’s a question with implications for everything from building codes to disaster preparedness. And there’s some good news: According to a report released by the US National Academies of Science on Thursday, the field of climate attribution is growing increasingly mature and can answer some questions for us with far greater confidence than it could just a decade ago. The report also notes that there are still important limits and suggests steps to address them.

• • New Climate Report Adds Fuel to Billion-Dollar Legal Fight

  Both Sides of the Political Spectrum Are Using a National Academies Review of Attribution Science...
  
  {E&E NEWS}

  July 17, 2026 -The credibility of research linking climate pollution to specific natural disasters got a major boost Thursday. But the multibillion-dollar battle over the implications of that finding is just beginning.

  On one side of the fight are scientists, environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers. They argue that a new review of extreme weather attribution science by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has more clearly established that fossil fuel companies are responsible for exacerbating heat waves, floods and hurricanes that have damaged the U.S. in recent years.

• • How to Abandon Your Climate
  Commitments and Get Away With It

  Big Business Made Big Promises About Saving the Planet, But...

  

  July 17, 2026 -Not so long ago, many of America’s biggest companies were making bold promises about saving the planet.

  They pledged to stop polluting, get off fossil fuels and use recyclable materials. Some even promised to reinvent their core business practices, speaking aspirationally about a new, more sustainable economy.

• • Britain: Southern Water Fined £7M After
  Illegally Dumping Sewage Off Kent Coast

  Firm Pleaded Guilty to 13 Offenses Over Discharges at Margate and Broadstairs Wastewater Pumping Stations

  

  July 17, 2026 -Southern Water has been fined more than £7m after illegally dumping sewage off the Kent coast between 2019 and 2021.

  The company, described by the judge as having a “record of criminality” that was “an exceptionally serious aggravating factor”, pleaded guilty to 13 offense at Medway magistrates court last April over sewage discharges at Margate and Broadstairs wastewater pumping stations between 2019 and 2021.

• • Top Science Panel Backs Research Linking
  Extreme Weather to Climate Change

  That Could Support Lawsuits Seeking Damages For Severe Events Worsened By Global Warming

  

  July 16, 2026 -The nation’s top scientific advisory body issued a report on Thursday backing a growing field of science that could help governments hold oil, gas and coal companies responsible for the damage caused by extreme weather.

  The field, known as extreme event attribution, seeks to answer an increasingly common question: How much was the latest heat wave, downpour, drought or wildfire worsened by climate change?

• • Italy Braces For a Verdict On Its Bridge Disaster

  The Price For Aging Infrastructure
  
  {The Economist}

  July 16, 2026 -On Thursday an Italian court sentenced Giovanni Castellucci, the former toll-road boss responsible for Genoa’s Morandi motorway bridge disaster, to 12 years. The collapse of the bridge in August 2018 killed 43 people. Mr Castellucci is currently serving a six-year term related to a separate highway crash that killed 40 people. He is one of 57 defendants in the Genoa trial.

  The incident exposed the fragility of Italy’s ageing infrastructure, much of it built during the post-war economic boom. Researchers estimate that at least 250 bridges in Italy have collapsed since 2000, though most caused no fatalities.

• • Lawsuit Claims San Isabel Electric is
  Responsible For the Aspen Acres Fire

  Four People Have Filed a civil lawsuit against the San Isabel Electric Association...
  
  {DENVER7}

  July 16, 2026 -Four people have filed a civil lawsuit against the San Isabel Electric Association, claiming the company is allegedly responsible for the Aspen Acres Fire and the damage it caused.

  All four people who filed the lawsuit live in either Pueblo or Custer counties.

  Four people have filed a civil lawsuit against the San Isabel Electric Association, claiming the company is allegedly responsible for the Aspen Acres Fire and the damage it caused.

  Lawsuit claims San Isabel Electric is partially responsible for the Aspen Acres Fire

  All four people who filed the lawsuit live in either Pueblo or Custer counties.

  The lawsuit alleges that on the morning the Aspen Acres Fire started, June 29, 2026, a witness reported seeing a large tree leaning on a power line in the area

• • Major Emitting Countries Knew of Climate
  Risks Decades Earlier Than Claimed

  Governments Have Known Since At Least the 1960s That Fossil Fuel Use Was Warming the Planet
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}

  July 15, 2026 -Much has been written about when fossil fuel companies knew their products cause harm to the climate, public health, and the environment. Less attention has been paid to just how long governments have known, too, and what they did or failed to do with that knowledge. That information is not just a matter of historical record - it’s a matter of legal responsibility.

  A year ago this month, the world’s highest court affirmed that countries have been under an obligation to curb climate change since they knew about the foreseeable risks it posed and to remedy its harms. This historic advisory opinion opened the door for States to be held accountable not only for failing to act on climate change, but also for making it worse by perpetuating its primary cause: fossil fuel production and use.

• • High-Profile Report Linking Disasters
  to Climate Change Coming Thursday

  The National Academies Report Has Been the Subject of Intense Scrutiny By Energy Industry Allies Ahead of Its Release
  
  {POLITICOPRO}

  July 15, 2026 -One of the nation's most respected scientific institutions is expected to release a report on Thursday that could be used to support billion-dollar climate lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry.

  The report has been under development for more than three years by a panel of experts assembled by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which Congress created 163 years ago to advise policymakers on pressing scientific issues.

• • He Sued the Oil Industry For $51B

  Now He Faces Republicans in a Private Grilling
  
  {E&E NEWS}

  July 14, 2026 -It’s a rare occurrence for a private lawyer to be hauled before a congressional committee and be deposed. But in the sharply political world of climate and energy litigation, Roger Worthington is no ordinary lawyer.

  A champion among environmental activists and a villain to the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, the ambitious attorney’s latest gambit — representing Multnomah County, Oregon, in a $51 billion lawsuit that accuses the oil and gas industry of contributing to a heat wave that killed 69 people in 2021 — has landed him in the hot seat before the <House Judiciary Committee.

• • PG&E Could Owe $22M for a Fire That Burned 76K Acres

  This Settlement Would Add to the Utility’s “Significant” Financial Burden From Recent Wildfires
  
  {energy central}

  July 14, 2026 -The California PUC is proposing a settlement that would “penalize” PG&E for the 2022 Mosquito Fire. During an investigation, the CPUC discovered that PG&E

  The payout: Under the agreement, PG&E would hand $21M in shareholder funds to the state. It would also pay $1M for a third-party review of its transmission inspection practices.

• • Lancashire Chemicals Factory Facing
  Potential Legal Claim Announces Closure

  More Than 90 Residents Have Expressed Interest in Contamination Claim Against AGC Chemicals Europe

  

  July 13, 2026 -A Pfas factory in Lancashire has announced plans to close down, just days after the Guardian revealed that more than 90 residents had signed up to be involved in a potential legal claim over contamination of the local area.

  AGC Chemicals Europe is consulting with employees and their union representatives about plans to cease operations at its manufacturing plant in Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire. The consultation is expected to last for at least 45 days.

• • Corpus Christi Residents and Businesses
  Subsidized Industrial Water Bills for Years

  A Judge Will Hear Arguments This Week in an $80 Million Dispute Over the Texas City’s Water Rates For Chemical Plants and Refineries

  

  July 13, 2026 -For at least a decade, Corpus Christi sold water to a handful of large industrial plants at a steeply discounted rate, according to documents and interviews with city officials. Residents and businesses paid more than $100 million to subsidize water for some of the world’s richest energy companies, the city’s rate models show.

  Three years ago, Corpus Christi doubled the companies’ water rates in an effort to correct the imbalance. But the companies, including Valero, Citgo and LyondellBassell, protested to state regulators, sparking a legal battle that will come to a head today as a public hearing over the matter begins in front of an independent state agency in Austin.

• • Grassroots Justice Group Challenges Trump
  Administration Order to Keep Florida Coal Plant Running

  Advocacy Groups Said the Order Failed to Establish an Energy Emergency

  

  July 10, 2026 -The Trump administration is facing a new legal challenge over an emergency order keeping a Florida coal-fired power plant, which had been scheduled for retirement, in operation.

  The motion, filed by the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and Earthjustice, on behalf of Florida Rising, a grassroots group representing communities of color, asks the Department of Energy to reconsider the order, arguing it fails to show that an emergency actually exists. The groups also say the order exceeds the department’s statutory authority and violates the National Environmental Policy Act.

• • A Court Ruling Leaves Some of New York’s
  Most Important Wetlands Unprotected

  The Decision Opened Gaps in State Protections At the Same Time That Federal Wetland Regulations Were Weakened

  

  July 9, 2026 -Four years ago, the New York State Legislature made a major move to better protect wetlands. Now some of those safeguards are delayed for potentially several more years.

  The 2022 amendment to the 1975 Freshwater Wetlands Act brought more than 1 million additional acres of wetlands under the purview of the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Instead of regulating only previously mapped wetlands—records that had “substantial inadequacies and inaccuracies,” according to the DEC—the agency would protect all wetlands greater than 12.4 acres or of “unusual importance.”

• • New York Sues 3M, DuPont, Others Over
  ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Consumer Goods

  Other defendants Include Chemours, Corteva and EIDP
  
  {CNBC}

  July 9, 2026 -New York sued 3M, DuPont and other companies on Thursday for causing a public nuisance by selling “forever chemicals” that they knew were toxic, for use in consumer products.

  The state’s Attorney General Letitia James accused the companies of hiding the chemicals’ environmental and health risks from consumers for decades, even as they began phasing out some of the chemicals, which are known as PFAS.

• • The Loss and Damage Fund Needs Far
  More Finance to Deliver Climate Justice

  The Fledgling Fund Must Also Help Vulnerable Communities Take Action to Recover From Disasters
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}

  July 9, 2026 -This week, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) faces a significant decision that will determine its ability to address the harms being done by climate change.

  Discussions on the Fund’s Resource Mobilisation Strategy must get the scale and accessibility of the Fund right. Failure to do so would risk undermining its role to channel finance to countries ex­periencing loss and damage, and undermine obligations to climate justice and human rights.

• • Costco Faces Lawsuit Over Orgain
  Protein Powder With Toxic Metals

  Costco Did Not Respond to a Request For Comment

  

  July 9, 2026 -What do tariffs, rotisserie chicken and grain-free dog food have in common? Each has sparked a lawsuit against Issaquah-based warehouse retailer Costco.

  The list doesn’t stop there — protein powder has joined the ranks. On Tuesday, consumers filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Costco in federal court for the Western District of Washington, alleging it sold Orgain’s organic plant-based protein powder knowing it was contaminated with toxic heavy metals and failed to disclose the risk to consumers.

• • As Blue Economy Gathers Pace,
  Communities Must Benefit From Ocean Boom

  As Governments Turn to The Ocean For Jobs, Growth and Climate Solutions, Campaigners At the Our Ocean Conference In Mombasa Warned Coastal Communities Must Not Be Left Behind
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}

  July 8, 2026 -As governments and institutions pledged billions for offshore wind, cleaner shipping and marine protection at last month’s Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, countries are increasingly turning to the ocean as a source of jobs and climate action.

  But civil society groups warn that the push to expand the “blue economy” may reproduce familiar inequalities unless coastal communities have a greater say in how projects are designed, financed and governed.

• • Ugandan Farmers Launch UK Court Case
  Against East African Oil Pipeline

  Crowdfunded Lawsuit Filed At London’s High Court Seeks to Enforce Uganda’s Laws Against EACOP Ltd.
  
  {CBS NEWS}

  July 7, 2026 -Four Ugandan farmers filed a case with London’s High Court on Tuesday, aiming to stop the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) from starting to operate by asking the court to apply Uganda’s laws against the project’s UK-registered company.

  The controversial 1,443-kilometre (897-mile) pipeline, majority-owned by French energy company TotalEnergies, aims to carry crude from Ugandan fields for export through neighbouring Tanzania. About 80% has been built so far, according to its developers.

• • Trump Pardons Violators of the Clean Air Act and a Major Donor

  Trump Used His Clemency Power to Further Undermine Environmental Laws and to Help a Political Supporter

  

  July 3, 2026 -The White House announced on Friday that President Trump had issued pardons to 11 men, most of whom had been convicted of crimes related to the Clean Air Act, a bedrock environmental law.

  The president also pardoned Adam Kidan, a major donor to Republicans, including Mr. Trump. He had served about two and a half years in prison for his role in a fraud scheme involving the disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

• • Rights of Nature Laws Are Coming Up
  Against Legal Systems Designed for Destruction

  Landmark Court Rulings in Colombia and Bangladesh Gave Rivers a Voice, but...

  

  July 2, 2026 -Years after landmark court rulings in Colombia and Bangladesh recognized rivers as legal persons, the waterways remain polluted and under threat—an outcome a new study attributes in part to a systemic issue: Legal systems are still overwhelmingly designed to treat nature as an object for humans to use and profit from.

  The report, released Monday by the nonprofit Stockholm Environment Institute, focused on how rights of river laws are being implemented and found that legal recognition is not, by itself, enough to stop toxic contamination and the destruction of ecosystems.

• • Climate Activists Sue TotalEnergies

  Demand Sale Details of Nigerian SPDC Oil Stake

  

  July 1, 2026 -Several nonprofits including Friends ?of the Earth France sued oil major TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA), opens new tab in a French civil court on Wednesday, seeking to obtain environmental documents related to an onshore Nigerian oil asset it is attempting to sell.

  Nigerian regulators have not yet approved the sale announced in January of Total's 10% stake in the asset, which was formerly known as SPDC, to local company Vaaris.

• • Supreme Court Energy Wins Set Up a Blockbuster Climate Fight

  The Justices Gave Big Business Key Victories This Term...
  
  {GREENWIRE}

  July 1, 2026 -The Trump administration and big business scored some notable Supreme Court wins on environmental and energy issues this term.

  But the next major test for the federal government and the oil industry on one of the defining environmental issues of our time — climate change — won’t come until next year.

• • Europe Is Hot as Hell

  Why Doesn’t It Want Air Conditioning?
  
  {THE WALL STREET JOURNAL}

  June 30, 2026 -Luca Funaro, a 32-year-old with a rare genetic illness, suffered through this month’s record-breaking heat wave in his apartment in the French capital without an air conditioning system. His neighbors won’t allow one.

  They have refused his requests to install a unit in the courtyard of his building in the Marais, a bustling neighborhood in central Paris. They said the device would be too loud. Funaro, who relies on a wheelchair and breathes with a ventilator, has taken the neighbors to court, his family spending thousands of dollars on a legal battle that has lasted two years and counting.

• • New Florida Law Bans Local Net-Zero Emissions Policies

  Gov. Ron DeSantis Characterized the Clean Energy Goals the Law Bans As “Radical Climate Policies

  

  June 30, 2026 -A new state law limits Florida communities’ aims to offset greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the global climate and intensifying disasters such as hurricanes.

  Specifically, HB 1217 prohibits local governments from pursuing net-zero emissions goals. At least 10 cities and counties have implemented such policies, including Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando and Leon County, where Tallahassee, the state capital, is located. But the new law will not necessarily upend these policies, said Bradley Marshall, senior attorney at Earthjustice, an advocacy group.

• • Court Rules Against Trump Administration On Air Pollution Limits

  Circuit Court Finds the EPA Under President Joe Biden Had Authority to Issue Stricter Controls On Fine Particulate Matter, the Nation’s Deadliest Air Pollutant

  

  June 26, 2026 -Qiyam Ansari woke from a medically induced coma to the sound of beeping medical equipment. The last thing he remembered was walking up the stairs with a bowl of cereal when he started to feel like he was drowning. Then everything went black.

  Doctors told him his lung had collapsed. And they offered a stern warning: Be wary of tiny airborne pollutants, which can be especially harmful for people with asthma like him.

• • French Court Rules Total Must Revise
  Climate Plan to Account For All Emissions

  Oil and Gas Giant Totalenergies Has Been Given Six Months By a Court to Publish a More Robust Climate Plan
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}

  June 26, 2026 -Amid an unprecedented European heatwave, a Paris court ruled on Thursday that France’s biggest fossil fuel firm TotalEnergies has not fully accounted for its contribution to climate change or identified all the ways it could limit it.

  A group of non-profit organizations and local authorities filed the claim in 2020 under France's then-new duty of vigilance law. This requires all large businesses headquartered in France and international corporations with a significant presence there to set out a clear plan to prevent human rights violations and environmental damage – even among their subsidiaries.

• • Oil Industry Lawyers Fight a $50
  Billion Climate Case in Oregon

  The Lawsuit Aims to Hold Fossil Fuel Companies Responsible For a Heat Wave in Portland Five Years Ago

  

  June 26, 2026 -Nearly five years to the day that an unprecedented heat dome descended on the Pacific Northwest, dozens of lawyers coalesced in a Portland courtroom this week to debate an extraordinary lawsuit that attempts to hold oil companies responsible for the deaths that resulted.

  The $50 billion lawsuit argues that the deadly heat dome — the most extreme heat event in the region’s recorded history — was a result of the defendants’ decades-long campaign to cover up the dangers of global warming.

• • Paris Court Rules TotalEnergies Must Disclose
  Climate Risks Linked to Emissions of Its Products

  Thursday’s Ruling Marked a Partial Victory For Campaigners and the City of Paris in Their Attempt to Hold Totalenergies Responsible For Global Warming
  
  {EARTH.ORG}

  June 26, 2026 -A French court on Thursday found fossil fuel giant TotalEnergies liable for failing to fulfill its climate vigilance obligations.

  The case was brought by a coalition of French local authorities, alongside five local civil society organizations, who challenged TotalEnergies’ continued expansion of oil and gas production – the primary fossil fuels driving climate change alongside coal – despite extensive and indisputable scientific evidence of their impact on global climate. The France-based multinational is one of the world’s top six “supermajor” oil companies and one of the 20 largest historical emitters of planet-warming greenhouse gases.

• • North Carolina Assails Administration’s PFAS Pollution Deal

  The Settlement Addresses the Dumping of PFAS “Forever Chemicals...

  

  June 25, 2026 -The Trump administration is moving to settle a landmark case with the chemical giant Chemours over its yearslong illegal dumping of PFAS “forever chemicals” across three states. The $480 million settlement would be the first by the federal government to resolve pollution claims against a maker of the chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and other health risks.

  The proposed deal, released Wednesday, immediately came under attack from North Carolina, which said it did nothing to clean up water contaminated by the chemicals. Several environmental groups also called the deal inadequate.

• • Court Dismisses Lawsuit Over Gulf Oil
  and Gas Analysis After ‘God Squad’ Ruling

  A Federal Judge Ruled a Challenge to a 2025 NOAA Fisheries Analysis Was Moot After the Species Extinction Committee Exempted Oil and Gas Activities in the Gulf of Mexico From Endangered Species Act protections
  
  {E&E NEWS}

  June 25, 2026 -A federal judge has ruled a lawsuit seeking more analysis of the effect of oil and gas activities on endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico is moot after the “God Squad” handed down an exemption from federal protections in the region earlier this year.

  In a decision issued from the bench Wednesday, Judge Deborah Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland dismissed a challenge to NOAA Fisheries’ 2025 biological opinion. Environmental groups claimed the analysis was arbitrary and capricious and repeated errors of an earlier biological opinion.

• • Medford Square Shut Down After
  Multiple Manhole Fires Break Out

  Evacuations Ensue
  
  {WCVB5}

  June 25, 2026 -Forest Street to Lawrence Road and down Riverside Ave to River Street have all been closed off as crews put out the fires.

  Drivers and pedestrians have been advised to avoid the area.

  Fire crews tell NewsCenter 5 that businesses in the area are also being evacuated as a precaution.

• • Supreme Court Delivers a Victory For Pesticide
  Companies in Fight Over Cancer Claims

  In a 7-2 decision, the Court Determined That Federal Law Prohibits “Failure to Warn” Lawsuits Against Pesticide Companies For Health Harms Not Formally Recognized By the EPA

  

  June 25, 2026 -A Supreme Court ruling issued Thursday limits Americans’ ability to sue pesticide makers over alleged health harms from their products.

  The 7-2 decision overturned a 2023 Missouri circuit court ruling that required agrochemical company Monsanto to pay John Durnell of St. Louis $1.25 million in compensatory damages for failing to warn customers of the cancer-causing potential of its popular weedkiller, Roundup.

• • Congress Expands Disaster Aid, as Trump Seeks to Limit It

  The Measure Passed By Both Chambers This Week Would Send Billions of Dollars to Lower-Income Communities Reeling From Catastrophe
  
  {E&E NEWS}

  June 24, 2026 -Congress dramatically expanded federal support for disaster recovery by approving legislation Tuesday that could add billions of dollars to rebuilding communities after storms and wildfires.

  The measure is expected to increase the amount of funding that goes to lower-income areas and households through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a move that analysts say would rebalance federal disaster aid by steering some money away from wealthier communities.

• • New York Weakened Its Climate Law

  Now Comes the Hard Part
  
  {CLIMATEWIRE}

  June 24, 2026 -Gov. Kathy Hochul’s success in weakening New York’s climate law will have a cascading impact on the state’s energy policies.

  The changes Hochul secured in the budget shift the battlefield for environmental advocates, utilities, power generators and large energy users and spark a new round of regulatory fights. The governor’s push gives her administration more time and flexibility to determine how to move away from fossil fuels.

• • Peru Just Gave Stingless Bees Legal
  Rights in a World First For Insects

  These Tiny Amazon Bees Can Now Be Represented in Court
  
  {ZME SCIENCE}

  June 24, 2026 -Two municipalities in the Peruvian Amazon have granted native stingless bees the legal right to exist, thrive and be represented in court. This is the first time any insect has been recognized as a rights-bearing entity anywhere in the world, according to a correspondence published in Nature.

  The ordinances passed in the municipalities of Satipo and Nauta, in Peru, guarantee the bees’ right to exist, reproduce and flourish. This establishes a legal framework allowing Indigenous groups and conservationists to sue on behalf of the bees.

• • Are Power Companies Still Planning For Climate Regulation?

  Utilities Are Leaning Into a Regulatory Future Free of Carbon Restrictions. But...
  
  {E&E NEWS}

  June 23, 2026 -Power utilities are making future plans with an eye toward coming Trump administration climate rule rollback. Demand is surging, and decarbonization goals are no longer in the driver’s seat.

  But an examination of power providers’ planning documents shows they aren’t ruling out the possibility of a future administration launching new climate change regulations.

  The Trump administration aims to prevent future presidents from using the Clean Air Act to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector. A final repeal of Biden-era power standards is now under White House review, and EPA is expected to soon transfer a supplemental proposal designed to make it impossible for a Democratic administration to use the landmark law to regulate power plant climate pollution.

• • 17 States and Trade Group Sue California
  Over Plastics Packaging Law

  A Cause For Worry

  

  June 23, 2026 -A coalition of 17 states and a trade association representing U.S. wholesalers and distributors have sued California to block the enforcement of a stringent recycling law that aims to reduce plastic packaging waste.

  The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court, argues that California’s recently finalized regulations that will gradually require companies to scale back single-use plastics and ensure all packaging is recycling or compostable should be struck down. The plaintiffs called the regulations “onerous mandates” that will cause steep price increases in everyday necessities that will be passed on, at least in part, to consumers.

• • Wildfire Smoke From Utah Expected to Reach Colorado

  What Doctors Want You to Know
  
  {DENVER7abc}

  June 22, 2026 -Wildfire smoke from fires burning in Utah is likely to drift into Colorado, according to the Blue Sky Canada smoke forecast.

  At Bluff Hills Regional Park in Lone Tree, visitors were enjoying the fresh air on Monday.

• • Justice Department Makes It Easier to
  Bypass Pollution Controls on Pickups

  It Has Stopped Criminal Prosecutions of People Who Install “Defeat Devices,” Which Make Diesel Trucks Faster and More Efficient But Also Dirtier

  

  June 22, 2026 -It was one of the easiest ways to make a diesel truck faster, more powerful and more reliable: Pay a local shop to quietly gut the emissions controls with an illegal “defeat device.”

  Now the federal government has largely stopped prosecuting the people who sell and install them.

• • Environmental Defenders Remain Among
  World’s Most Targeted Activists

  A New Report Found That Environmental Defenders Are Increasingly Encountering Overlapping Networks of Government Officials, and More

  

  June 22, 2026 -Environmental and Indigenous rights defenders remained among the world’s most targeted human rights advocates in 2025, despite landmark rulings by international courts affirming governments’ obligations to protect both the environment and those who defend it.

  At least 358 human rights defenders were killed last year, according to a report released last week by Front Line Defenders, a Dublin-based group that provides support for global human rights activists.

• • Justice Department Makes It Easier
  to Bypass Pollution Controls on Pickups

  It Has Stopped Criminal Prosecutions of People Who Install “Defeat Devices,” Which Make Diesel Trucks Faster and More Efficient But Also Dirtier

  

  June 22, 2026 -It was one of the easiest ways to make a diesel truck faster, more powerful and more reliable: Pay a local shop to quietly gut the emissions controls with an illegal “defeat device.”

  Now the federal government has largely stopped prosecuting the people who sell and install them.

• • Tesla Faces Federal Probe After Model 3 Slams Into Texas Home

  It killed a 76-Year-Old
  
  {CNBC}

  June 22, 2026 -The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Monday that it has opened a special crash investigation into a Tesla incident where a Model 3 slammed into a home in Katy, Texas, killing 76-year-old Martha Avila.

  Harris County authorities said that the driver, Michael Butler, was cooperating with their investigation on the scene and said that he had been using Tesla’s partially automated driving systems when his vehicle barreled out of its lane and into the home in the Houston suburb.

• • Greenpeace’s Dutch Anti-SLAPP Case
  Against Oil Pipeline Giant Advances

  But a $345 million U.S. Verdict Against the Environmental Group Hangs Over the Case

  

  June 21, 2026 -A lawsuit filed by Greenpeace International against the U.S.-based fossil fuel company Energy Transfer in the Netherlands is moving forward after a Dutch court recently ruled in favor of the environmental organization in rejecting the company’s bid to toss out the case.

  The suit is connected to the ongoing litigation in the U.S. between Energy Transfer and Greenpeace International entities over the 2016-2017 indigenous-led protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which resulted in a staggering jury verdict delivered against Greenpeace in North Dakota last year.

• • Global Framework For Reparatory Justice
  Adopted at Landmark Ghana Conference

  More Than Money: the Logic of Slavery Reparations

  

  June 19, 2026 - A global framework for reparatory justice has been adopted at a conference in Ghana, as African and Caribbean leaders demanded formal apologies from countries that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade.

  Heads of state and government and other officials formally approved the strategy on Friday at a gathering in a hotel in the capital, Accra, which was the first major meeting since the adoption of the landmark United Nations (UN) resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.

• • How Shining a Light on Ships Could Help Solve Illegal Fishing

  Sixteen Countries Have Adopted the Mombasa Declaration to Combat Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported Fishing

  

  June 18, 2026 -Mamadou Sarr remembers when an artisanal fisherman in Dakar only had to helm his wooden pirogue a single kilometer offshore to find a rich bounty of sardines and cuttlefish. For generations, Senegal’s near shore was the staging ground for a noble trade passed down from father to son.

  Today, as a result of industrial overfishing by foreign fleets and the effects of climate change, local fishermen must brave an often dangerous journey almost 100 kilometers into the Atlantic to find the same seafood their communities have depended on for generations.

• • Trump DOJ Wants to Sideline Citizens In Pollution Fights

  In a Court Filing Backing Elon Musk’s AI Company, the Trump administration Said the Federal Government Can Stop Americans From Suing Over Air Pollution
  
  {E&E NEWS}

  June 17, 2026 -The Trump administration is making the case that the federal government can quash citizen Clean Air Act lawsuits against polluters, a move environmental lawyers warn would rewrite decades of enforcement law.

  If successful, the argument, made by the Department of Justice< in a court filing supporting Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, would dramatically undermine the power of U.S. residents to fight pollution at tens of thousands of industrial sites across the country.

  “It would be a pretty sweeping change in the way enforcement works for the federal pollution control statutes,” said Tom Mariani, former chief of environmental enforcement at DOJ.

• • Elon Musk’s A.I. Company Faces
  Lawsuit Over Gas-Burning Turbines

  The Company, xAI, Has Installed Several Dozen Turbines In Memphis Without Proper Permits, Polluting a Nearby Community

  

  June 17, 2026 -Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, which runs the Grok chatbot, is facing a legal challenge led by the NAACP over air pollution from its supercomputer facility in Memphis.

  xAI’s South Memphis data center, near predominantly Black neighborhoods, has been operating natural-gas-burning turbines without the proper permits, the NAACP alleged in a notice of an intent to sue filed on Tuesday. Those turbines were sending noxious emissions toward local homes, said Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP.

• • Science ‘Under Attack’ From Fossil Fuel Interests at UN Climate Talks

  A Coalition of Some Rich Nations and the World’s Most Vulnerable Have Vowed to Protect Climate Science in UN Negotiations
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}

  June 17, 2026 -Dozens of countries have called out growing “coordinated attacks” by fossil fuel interests aimed at undermining the role of climate science in the UN negotiations at the mid-year talks in Bonn.

  Under the banner of ‘Friends of Science’, in an overflowing press conference room lined with negotiators and civil society supporters, diplomats from Fiji, Nepal, the European Union, Switzerland, Sierra Leone and Panama vowed to ensure that decision-making in the UN climate process remains based on the “best available science”. That includes reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's climate science body, they said.

• • DOJ Aims to Block Suit Over Musk Data
  Center Pollution, Citing National Security

  The Justice Department’s Move To Stop Litigation in Mississippi Comes After It Defended Elon Musk’s Firm in a Different Lawsuit.

  

  June 16, 2026 -The Justice Department is seeking to quash a lawsuit against a power plant operating without permits that is run by Elon Musk’s AI company, arguing that its gas-powered turbines are vital to national security interests, including the war in Iran.

  The NAACP and several environmental groups have sued Musk’s xAI, saying the power plant’s turbines violate the Clean Air Act, a statute long used by environmental groups.

• • Bonn Bulletin: Adaptation Fund Stalemate Puts People At Risk

  To Receive Money From the Paris Agreement Carbon Market, the Adaptation Fund Must Change Its Status But That’s Blocked By Divisions On Who’s Responsible For Climate Finance
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}

  June 16, 2026 -Dark clouds are gathering over adaptation finance. The US has all but stopped providing it and European countries are slashing their aid budgets to spend more on their militaries. Much of what is flowing comes in the form of loans and doesn’t reach the most vulnerable, as we’ve reported.

  Over the years, one bright spark has been the Adaptation Fund and its grants to developing countries for pioneering work in communities. It has allocated $1.6 billion to 226 projects, benefiting 90 million people, its website says. And, while rich nations are failing to give the fund all the money it needs to finance its growing pipeline, new revenues are supposed to come in from the Paris Agreement’s new carbon market, known as Article 6.4.

• • UN’s First Paris Agreement Carbon Credits
  Face Human Rights and Climate Concerns

  Civil Society Groups Allege the Cookstove Project in Myanmar Exaggerated Its Climate Impact While Maintaining Ties With Military Junta
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}

  June 15, 2026 -Civil society groups have called for an investigation into the first carbon credits approved under a new UN mechanism, alleging that the project is linked to Myanmar’s military junta - which the UN says is guilty of human rights abuses - and has “massively” overstated its climate impact.

  The programme, which aims to cut emissions by distributing efficient cookstoves across Myanmar, received approval to issue around 650,000 carbon credits from the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body in February, in a landmark moment for the Paris Agreement's carbon market. Only two projects have been given the green light by the mechanism's regulator so far.

• • Tensions Are Rising Among States That Rely on the Colorado River

  A Prolonged Drought Means the Nation’s Largest Reservoirs Are Dwindling, and Litigation Over Access to Water Could Lie Ahead

  

  June 15, 2026 -Water in the Colorado River is dwindling to levels that haven’t been seen in decades, and the seven states whose residents and farmers depend on the river can’t agree on a fair way to divide up what’s left.

  Negotiations are going nowhere despite more than six months of ongoing talks, plus cajoling by the Trump administration, which twice gathered governors in hopes of a breakthrough that never came. States are already sniping at aspects of a water-use plan the federal Bureau of Reclamation is set to unveil this summer and impose later this year, and they’re threatening to sue each other over water deliveries, raising the prospects of prolonged legal battles just as Western states face demands to sharply reduce water use.