Inside Climate News

A federal appeals court has struck down the Trump administration’s use of emergency powers to require a coal-fired power plant in Michigan to remain open, ruling that the U.S. Department of Energy exceeded its authority. The 3-0 decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a rebuke of the administration’s […]

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a trove of documents this week that shed new light on the air quality around the World Trade Center after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Some of these documents suggest, contrary to statements by former mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani, that harmful levels of asbestos remained in […]

The Trump administration is moving to accelerate oil and gas drilling across the Western Arctic with a new proposal that would slash environmental review and public input.  The proposal could bring industrial activity to wide areas of wilderness and subsistence hunting grounds for Alaska Natives before President Donald Trump leaves office. The move is the […]

A gas export terminal on the Gulf Coast of Texas has routinely violated air pollution permits for years with little consequences from state regulators, according to a report released this week by Oilfield Witness, an environmental watchdog.  The Texas-based activist group cited thousands of pages of documents and a month of optical gas monitoring in […]

The artificial intelligence boom poses serious health risks while the Trump administration is dismantling crucial safeguards designed to protect the public, according to former officials at the federal agency responsible for environmental protection. A report released Thursday by the Environmental Protection Network—an organization led by former Environmental Protection Agency staffers—outlines h…

Jon Rosenthal, a Democratic state representative from Houston, is facing off against Bo French, a far-right Republican culture warrior from Fort Worth, for a seat on the commission that regulates the oil and gas industry in Texas.  In an interview with Inside Climate News during a campaign visit to El Paso this month, Rosenthal shared […]

In 1998, unusually hot ocean temperatures stressed corals worldwide, causing them to expel the microalgae living within their tissues that normally nourish the tiny animals and give them color. Over the next year, more than 20 percent of the world’s reefs turned white during the first global coral bleaching event on record.  Fortunately, some of […]

CLEMMONS, N.C.—The man came out of nowhere, but he seemed to be on their side.  Dozens of residents of Clemmons, a small village south of Winston-Salem, were alarmed about a proposed asphalt plant that could be built in their neighborhood, Rolling Green Village.  The man, who said his name was Chris Sanderson, told neighbors he […]

This article was originally published by Public Health Watch, a nonprofit investigative news organization. Find out more at publichealthwatch.org. GALVESTON, Texas—Maya Hart’s hand stung as she gripped her Dodge Ram’s stick shift. She winced in pain and slammed on the brakes — a routine the 45-year-old mother had mastered in the 24 hours since she […]

Florida’s wildlife agency has proposed new rules to strengthen protections for sloths imported into the state, four months after an Inside Climate News investigation revealed dozens of wild sloths from South America died at a planned Orlando tourism attraction.  The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission already requires individuals and businesses in Florida to obtain […]

This story is a collaboration between Inside Climate News and CityView NC, part of The Assembly Local Network. North Carolina and a handful of local governments agreed to settle with Chemours over its pollution in the eastern part of the state, the parties announced on Thursday. The company will pay the state and 11 entities […]

Natural gas is fading from California’s electricity mix more quickly than seemed possible just a few years ago. The state hit its peak for gas-fired electricity in 2014 and has fallen in eight of the 11 years since. The retreat is accelerating, with a 15 percent decrease in 2025 compared to 2024, and a 26 […]

As I drove 500 miles across Pennsylvania and back in a little blue Chevrolet Bolt EV, a charging station near a dumpster at the back of a Pizza Hut parking lot proved to be a convenient stop. But after spending two hours charging there on back-to-back days and encountering more feral cats (four) than other […]

An ambitious bill to keep toxic “forever chemicals” off California produce lost its teeth after the chemical and agricultural industry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying against it. The bill that landed on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk last week simply requires regulators to track and disclose pesticide applications in the state.  It’s “a shell […]

Two-thirds of Utah voters support restoring the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments to the previous boundaries they had before President Donald Trump reduced them to less than a quarter of their original size. That’s according to new polling commissioned by the Grand Canyon Trust, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the Four […]

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in South America this week, he carried a familiar message: The United States wants access to minerals and an expanded military presence in the region.  That agenda is being welcomed by newly elected right-wing governments in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru that rose to power on hard-line security platforms […]

For more than a decade, the Chinese government has overseen a trillion-dollar building spree across the globe, helping construct and finance a vast network of mines, ports, railways and other infrastructure outside its borders.  These projects through its Belt and Road Initiative are increasingly shaping global development, especially in emerging economies. What does it look […]

New York City is getting hotter, and for some residents, staying cool can be a matter of life and death. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has declared at least three heat emergencies this summer, some lasting more than two days and the city’s latest heat mortality report estimates that around 500 people die prematurely from heat every […]

In July, the Trump administration relegated endangered leatherback turtles, sea lions and whales to mere collateral damage in its race to profit from the oceans. Now, fisheries science is in the government’s crosshairs. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced new agency priorities last week that they say are a commitment to “cutting bureaucracy, […]

Hours after President Donald Trump predicted on Truth Social that oil prices would fall precipitously once the United States wins its war with Iran, strikes on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure by Iranian-backed Houthis Tuesday caused global oil prices to spike to nearly $100 per barrel. The latest runup, bringing the global crude price up 33 […]