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When lithium mining starts, who benefits, and who’s at risk? Inside this Salton Sea case.

Two non-profits filed arguments with the Fourth District Court of Appeal last week, asking the court to reconsider a claim they filed in 2024 that the environmental impact report for the Hell’s Kitchen lithium mine near the Salton Sea neglects potential problems with air quality, water use, hazardous materials and tribal cultural resources.

In summary Two non-profits filed arguments with the Fourth District Court of Appeal last week, asking the court to reconsider a claim they filed in 2024 that the environmental impact report for the Hell’s Kitchen lithium mine near the Salton Sea neglects potential problems with air quality, water use, hazardous materials and tribal cultural resources. Critics of a proposed lithium mine near the Salton Sea entered round two of their fight to force stricter environmental review of the project. It’s the latest stage in a legal impasse over the massive lithium project. Environmental groups are trying to make sure nearby residents get the benefits of lithium production, while guarding against harmful impacts. The company says critics are using court challenges to stall an important energy project. The nonprofits Comite Civico del Valle and Earthworks filed arguments with the Fourth District Court of Appeal last week, asking the court to reconsider a claim they filed in 2024, which a superior court judge dismissed earlier this year. READ MORE >>> Geologically rich but economically poor, Salton Sea communities want a say in their lithium future In their appeal filed Sept. 11, the groups argue that the environmental impact report for the Hell’s Kitchen lithium mine neglects potential problems with air quality, water use, hazardous materials and tribal cultural resources. “The project would create a high-water demand in an arid desert environment where the drying out of the Salton Sea worsens severe air pollution impacts,” the brief stated. Lauren Rose, a spokesperson for Controlled Thermal Resources, the parent company of Hell’s Kitchen, denounced what she called a “frivolous legal appeal.” “This group’s ongoing actions are a clear abuse of the original intentions of (the California Environmental Quality Act) and only serve to delay progress on clean energy projects that are essential to the community, California, and the nation,” she said in a statement to CalMatters. Hell’s Kitchen promises to unearth thousands of kilotons of lithium, a mineral essential to electric car batteries, cellphones and other electronics.  Officials with the nonprofits say they’re in favor of lithium production, but want to ensure it doesn’t compromise the health and environment of surrounding communities. “We make the case that the project must be corrected to meet the standards that protect our community and our environment,” Luis Olmedo, executive director of Comite Civico del Valle, told CalMatters. “The lawsuit isn’t about stopping clean energy. We are for clean energy.” The groups also released a report summarizing their call for heightened scrutiny of the project’s impacts. And they laid out demands that included creating a Lithium Valley joint powers authority with a local advisory commission, dedicating more of the state’s lithium extraction excise tax to areas closest to the project, and enacting an additional environmental mitigation fee on lithium produced there.  Under the existing formula, Bombay Beach, a small hamlet on the Salton Sea near the project, would get $8,631 to offset impacts of the project, while larger areas such as El Centro, Calexico and Imperial would get six-figure payments. READ MORE >>> The rotten egg smell at the Salton Sea isn’t just a nuisance. It can make people sick. Bari Bean, deputy CEO of natural resources for Imperial County, said in a statement to CalMatters that the lithium tax formula is “a practical and balanced framework that considers both population size and geographic proximity to the lithium resource.”  Bean said a joint powers authority would duplicate existing systems for community input. Imperial County wouldn’t support additional lithium fees, she said, since California already has stricter environmental protections than other states, “making development in California more challenging and often less cost competitive.” State and federal officials have predicted that the area around the Salton Sea that they call  “Lithium Valley” could become one of the world’s biggest sources of the “white gold,” freeing the U.S. from dependence on other countries for the critical mineral. Imperial County Supervisor Ryan E. Kelley said the project will advance both regional economic growth and U.S. energy goals. “This initiative will position Imperial County as a leader in clean energy, contribute to California’s sustainability goals, and strengthen the United States’ critical mineral supply chain,” Kelley said in a statement to CalMatters.  However, Rose said the ongoing court challenge has halted that momentum, and risks stalling lithium production in California. “Just a few short years ago, Imperial County was leading the charge for clean energy and sustainable critical minerals development in the United States,” she said. “Now, billions of investment dollars have flowed to other states, including Nevada, Utah, Texas, and Arkansas, leaving California in the dust.” Olmedo said his group has never called for injunctions against the project, but wants safeguards on its operations. Hell’s Kitchen would extract lithium and other critical minerals from super-heated brine in the Salton Sea aquifer and then reinject the brine into the earth, in what the company calls a closed loop system that’s cleaner than other lithium mining systems. Cal Poly Pomona Professor James Blair, an advisor to Comite Del Civico and member of Imperial County’s Lithium Valley Academic Taskforce, said the environmental review doesn’t prove that claim. Blair said direct lithium extraction is framed as a “cleaner, greener method of lithium extraction compared to open mine or brine ponds,” but research on similar systems show that they use lots of fresh water. If that’s the case at Hell’s Kitchen it could worsen the decline of the shrinking Salton Sea. “Novel technologies bring unknown results,” Blair said. “We don’t really know how much water is needed.”

Water
Energy
Pollution

Reclaiming the Udall Legacy: The Meaning of Conservation in Trump’s America

The environmental and legislative accomplishments of Stewart, Mo, and Tom Udall offer a roadmap for recovering from the damage of the Trump administration. The post Reclaiming the Udall Legacy: The Meaning of Conservation in Trump’s America appeared first on The Revelator.

The Udall name once meant something in the American West. For anyone anchored in the arc of modern conservation and environmental protection, to say “I worked for Tom Udall” was to evoke a legacy that coursed through some of the nation’s boldest acts: the Alaska Lands Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Wilderness Act, the creation and expansion of our parks and wild places. Yet standing recently in a room at Arizona State University’s Pastor Center for Politics and Public Service, introducing myself as a former press secretary to then-Rep. Tom Udall, I was met with puzzlement. The same when I mentioned Reps. Mo and Stewart Udall: blank faces. The loss is not just one of memory but of a deeper severing from the traditions that once tethered Arizona and the West to the idea that government must be a steward — a protector — of the land and its wild inheritances. This is not an accident of history. It is the product of years of unraveling, a process on full display under the Trump administration’s second term — a litany of reversals, repeals, and budget cuts whose cumulative effect is not merely policy drift but a deliberate retreat from the standards of stewardship once defined by the Udalls and those they inspired. In 2025, that wreckage is plain for all to see. The Dragon Bravo fire — born of lightning on July 4, ignited amidst the ponderosa and pinyon along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon — became, by August, the seventh largest wildfire in Arizona history, consuming over 145,000 acres. The firestorm devoured the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, the visitor center, cabins, employee housing — displacing hundreds of workers, obliterating irreplaceable cultural heritage, and closing the North Rim for an entire season. The devastation is not an act of nature alone but of policy: the result of shifts in land management, the expansion of industrial logging, and the hollowing out of federal firefighting resources. California, too, smoldered. The winter of 2025 brought 14 wildfires to the Los Angeles basin and San Diego County, driven by an overheated, drought-parched landscape and hurricane-force Santa Ana winds. Some 18,000 homes gone. Thirty lives lost. Fires now routinely surpass 100,000 acres. The Gifford fire alone burned over 104,000, emblematic of the new breed of “megafires” searing the American West with a frequency and intensity that is anything but natural. Yet in the teeth of these disasters, what does Washington offer? Not support, but a mandate to cut. FEMA — built to provide federal relief in times of catastrophe — faces deep reductions, the elimination of grant programs, and talk of outright abolition by December 2025. Money that once flowed to states for disaster planning, preparedness, and training is now “refocused” or slashed, in line with a Project 2025 playbook that makes every calamity a state or private problem. “States should do more,” the refrain goes, as if wildfires, hurricanes, and floods observed state lines. Yes, floods, like the ones that rains brought to Texas. Not the soft rains that nourish, but rains that fell like verdicts — hour after hour, day upon day, drumming against rooftops until walls buckled and rivers claimed the streets. In Houston, in Beaumont, in the low-lying neighborhoods of Port Arthur, water rose with a slow, implacable certainty, swallowing whole blocks and leaving only the pitched tips of roofs visible above the brown flood. This was not some act of God beyond imagining. The Army Corps of Engineers had warned for years of the vulnerabilities — levees unreinforced, reservoirs undersized, drainage systems designed for storms of a century past. But budgets were trimmed and plans shelved. In the second Trump term, disaster mitigation was not a priority; it was a line item to be cut. When the Brazos and Trinity rivers spilled over their banks, the toll was measured not just in the 68 confirmed dead, or the hundreds injured, but in the erasure of whole communities — trailer parks where families lived paycheck to paycheck, coastal towns whose tax bases will never recover. The survivors tell of a smell — oil, sewage, and rot — that lingered in the air long after the waters receded, a reminder that the flood was not just a natural disaster but a civic one, born of choices made in distant offices. And still, from Washington, the refrain: the states should do more. As if Texas, reeling from billions in damages, could single-handedly muster the resources once marshaled by a unified federal government; as if climate change respected state borders or political talking points. Everywhere, one sees the marks of a presidency not merely indifferent to the land, but hostile to it. This is not stewardship. It is liquidation. In the fevered logic of Trump’s second term, a national forest is not a refuge but an untapped ledger entry; a wildlife refuge is wasted potential until it yields oil or timber; a scientific agency is a nuisance until it can be defunded or dismantled. NOAA? Gutted. The Endangered Species Act’s definition of “harm”? Stripped so bare that the bulldozer becomes a legitimate management tool. The California condor, the ocelot, the Houston toad — each now stands closer to the abyss, not because of some unavoidable cataclysm, but because the law designed to save them has been willfully blunted. And yet, the Udall legacy endures because it was never about nostalgia — it was about action. Stewart Udall knew that progress came from building coalitions, passing laws with teeth, funding them without apology, and holding the line when industry or indifference threatened to breach it. That is still the roadmap. What must happen now: Restore and strengthen the Endangered Species Act — reverse habitat rollback rules and return “harm” to its full ecological meaning. Rebuild NOAA and FEMA’s capacity — not as partisan spoils, but as the scientific and logistical backbones of disaster resilience. Block industrial logging and extraction in public lands — using litigation, state-level protections, and direct action where needed. Invest in climate adaptation for vulnerable species — from condor release programs to amphibian habitat restoration. Mobilize locally and nationally — because the federal government, as we have just seen, can just as easily become the arsonist as the fire brigade. The Udalls gave us the scaffolding: laws, institutions, and an ethic that tied prosperity to preservation. Trump has shown us how quickly it can be dismantled. The choice before us is whether to stand by while the scaffolding is kicked away, or to rebuild it — stronger, higher, and impossible to topple. We do not lack for guideposts. We lack only the will to follow them. Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here. Previously in The Revelator: The Myth of the Cowboy and Its Enduring Influence on Public Policy The post Reclaiming the Udall Legacy: The Meaning of Conservation in Trump’s America appeared first on The Revelator.

Conservation
Climate
Government

Wildfire smoke could soon kill 71,000 Americans every year

The haze may already kill 40,000 people in the U.S. each year — the same number who die in traffic crashes. Climate change will only make matters worse.

You may live many miles away from a wildfire, but it could still kill you. That’s because all that smoke wafting in from afar poses a mortal risk. The threat is so great, in fact, that any official tally of people killed in a fire most likely is wildly low, given that it counts obvious victims, not those who later died after inhaling its far-flung haze. Los Angeles’ catastrophic blazes in January, for instance, killed 30 people according to authorities, but more like 440 according to scientists, who determined excess deaths at the time were likely due to smoke. As climate change makes such conflagrations ever more catastrophic, that mortality is only going to escalate. A new study in the journal Nature estimates that wildfire smoke already kills 40,000 Americans each year — the same number who die in traffic crashes — and that could rise to more than 71,000 annually by 2050 if emissions remain high. The economic damages in the United States may soar to over $600 billion each year by then, more than all other estimated climate impacts combined. And the problem is by no means isolated to North America: A separate paper also publishing today estimates that 1.4 million people worldwide could die prematurely each year from smoke by the end of this century — six times higher than current rates.  Together, the studies add to a growing body of evidence that wildfires are killing an extraordinary number of people — and are bound to claim ever more if humanity doesn’t rapidly slow climate change and better protect itself from pollution. “The numbers are really striking, but those don’t need to be inevitable,” said Minghao Qiu, an environmental scientist at Stony Brook University and lead author of the first paper. “There are a lot of things we could do to reduce this number.” The core of the problem is desiccation: As the planet warms, the atmosphere gets thirstier, which means it sucks more moisture out of vegetation, turning it to tinder. Scientists are also finding more weather whiplash, in which stretches of extra wet conditions encourage the growth of plants, followed by stretches of extra-dry conditions that parch all that biomass. Droughts, too, are getting worse, making landscapes exceptionally flammable.  Tragically enough, wildfires have grown so intense and deadly in recent years that scientists have been getting bountiful data to make these connections between the haze and cascading health problems downwind. “We totally underestimate the total burden when we don’t consider the smoke that is generated, that can be transported miles and miles away,” said Tarik Benmarhnia, a climate epidemiologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who studies the impacts of smoke but wasn’t involved in either of the new papers. “That is by far the biggest factor for mortality and other health issues associated with this type of pollution.” Bigger, more intense infernos are belching smoke not just for days or weeks, but sometimes months at a time. This year’s blazes in Canada, for instance, have consistently blanketed parts of the U.S. in unhealthy air quality. That adds to the haze produced by domestic fires, especially in the West, making for dangerous conditions across the country. Indeed, Qiu’s modeling estimates that annual wildfire emissions from the western U.S. could increase by up to 482 percent by 2055, compared to the average between 2011 and 2020. In the global study published today, researchers estimate that worldwide, this deadly pollution could grow by nearly 25 percent by the end of the century. But it won’t be evenly distributed: Africa could see 11 times more fire-related deaths by that time, compared to Europe and the U.S. seeing one to two times as many. “Africa has the world’s largest burned area due to extensive savannas, forests, and grasslands, combined with long dry seasons,” said Bo Zheng, an associate professor at Tsinghua University in China and coauthor of the paper, in an email to Grist. “This widespread burning drives disproportionate smoke exposure and health impacts.” The major concern with wildfire smoke is PM 2.5, or particulate matter smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter, which burrows deep into the lungs and crosses into the bloodstream. More and more research is showing this irritant is far more toxic than that from other sources, like industries and traffic. “We have mountains of evidence that inhaling these particles is really bad for a broad range of health outcomes,” said Marshall Burke, an environmental economist at Stanford University, who coauthored the paper with Qiu. “They’re small enough to sort of spread throughout your body and cause negative health impacts — respiratory impacts, cardiovascular impacts. Most, I would say, bodily systems now show responses to air pollution and small particle exposure.” Making matters worse, wildfires aren’t just turning plants into particulates. Those Canadian conflagrations have been burning through mining regions, where soils are tainted with toxicants like arsenic and lead, potentially mobilizing those nasties into the atmosphere. And whenever fires burn through the built environment, they’re chewing through the many hazardous materials in buildings and vehicles. “It burns up cars, it burns up bicycles, it burns up anything that’s in your garage,” Burke said. “That’s incinerated, aerosolized, and then we’re literally breathing cars and bicycles when we are exposed to that smoke.” All told, even brief exposures to wildfire smoke can be devastating, exacerbating respiratory conditions like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as well as cardiovascular diseases, since PM 2.5 is entering the bloodstream. Those issues can continue for years after exposure, and other toxins like carcinogens in the haze can cause still more problems that might last a lifetime.  Qiu and Burke’s new modeling estimates that cumulative deaths due to wildfire smoke in the U.S. could reach 1.9 million between 2026 and 2055. That’s a tragic loss of life, but it also comes at a major economic cost of lost productivity. And that doesn’t even include the impacts that are non-lethal, like the degradation of mental health and people missing school and work because of poor air quality. There are ways to blunt this crisis, at least. Reducing carbon emissions will help slow the worsening of wildfires. Doing more controlled burns clears built-up fuel, meaning the landscape might still ignite, but less catastrophically. And governments can help their people get air purifiers to run during smoky days. “If climate change continues apace, but we reduce the amount of fuel loading in our forests and are better able to protect ourselves, then our projections are going to be overestimates of the damages, and that will be a good thing,” Burke said. “These damages are not inevitable.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Wildfire smoke could soon kill 71,000 Americans every year on Sep 18, 2025.

Climate
Crisis
Government

Forests Are Raining Plastic: New Study Reveals Shocking Pollution

Forests store microplastics carried in from the air. These particles accumulate in soils through rain, leaf fall, and decomposition. Microplastics and nanoplastics are not only contaminating oceans, rivers, and agricultural land but are also present in forests. This finding comes from geoscientists at TU Darmstadt, whose study has just been published in the journal Nature [...]

For the study, the research team took samples at four forest locations. Credit: Collin WeberForests store microplastics carried in from the air. These particles accumulate in soils through rain, leaf fall, and decomposition. Microplastics and nanoplastics are not only contaminating oceans, rivers, and agricultural land but are also present in forests. This finding comes from geoscientists at TU Darmstadt, whose study has just been published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment. How plastic particles enter forests According to a new study, harmful microplastics are not only stored in agricultural and urban soils, but also in forests. The majority of the tiny plastic particles enter the forests from the air and accumulate in the forest soil. “The microplastics from the atmosphere initially settle on the leaves of the tree crowns, which scientists refer to as the ‘comb-out effect’,” explains lead author Dr Collin J. Weber from the Institute of Applied Geosciences at TU Darmstadt. “Then, in deciduous forests, the particles are transported to the forest soil by rain or the autumn leaf fall, for example.” Microplastics and nanoplastics not only pollute oceans, rivers, and fields, but also forests. Credit: Collin WeberOnce in the soil, leaf decomposition becomes a key factor in trapping these pollutants. The researchers found that the highest concentrations of microplastics occur in the upper layers of leaf litter that are only partially decomposed. However, large amounts are also found deeper in the soil, carried downward not only by decomposition itself but also through the activity of organisms that contribute to breaking down organic matter. Sampling and new methods To conduct their study, researchers from the Department of Soil Mineralogy and Soil Chemistry collected samples at four forest locations east of Darmstadt, Germany. They applied a newly refined analytical technique that allowed them to measure the concentration of microplastics in soil, fallen leaves, and atmospheric deposition (the movement of substances from the Earth’s atmosphere to its surface). The team then used spectroscopic methods to chemically analyze the samples. In addition, they created a model estimating atmospheric microplastic inputs since the 1950s, helping them assess how much these inputs have contributed to overall storage in forest soils. The research team developed a customized method for analyzing microplastics on leaf surfaces. Credit: Collin Weber“Our results indicate that microplastics in forest soils originate primarily from atmospheric deposition and from leaves falling to the ground, known as litterfall. Other sources, on the other hand, have only a minor influence,” explains Weber. “We conclude that forests are good indicators of atmospheric microplastic pollution and that a high concentration of microplastics in forest soils indicates a high diffuse input – as opposed to direct input such as from fertilizers in agriculture – of particles from the air into these ecosystems.” The study is the first to demonstrate the pollution of forests with microplastics and the direct link between atmospheric inputs and the storage of microplastics in forest soil, as these issues had not previously been scientifically investigated. The results provide an important basis for assessing the environmental risks posed by microplastics in the air and soil. “Forests are already threatened by climate change, and our findings suggest that microplastics could now pose an additional threat to forest ecosystems,” says Weber. The findings may also be relevant for assessing health risks, as they highlight the global transport of microplastics in the air and thus also in the air we breathe. Reference: “Forest soils accumulate microplastics through atmospheric deposition” by Collin J. Weber and Moritz Bigalke, 26 August 2025, Communications Earth & Environment.DOI: 10.1038/s43247-025-02712-4 Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.

Forests
Nature
Pollution

This rural congressional district would be upended by redistricting

Modoc County, meet Marin County. It might be your new political boss.  A ranching region along the Oregon border with just 8,500 residents, Modoc flies flags advocating secession from California. Now, if Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new redistricting plan goes through, Modoc would instead get pulled into the heart of liberal California.  CalMatters political reporter Jeanne […]

Emma Harris holds a belt buckle she was awarded as a prize for winning a branding competition, at the Brass Rail Bar & Grill on Sept. 3, 2025. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters Modoc County, meet Marin County. It might be your new political boss.  A ranching region along the Oregon border with just 8,500 residents, Modoc flies flags advocating secession from California. Now, if Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new redistricting plan goes through, Modoc would instead get pulled into the heart of liberal California.  CalMatters political reporter Jeanne Kuang traveled to Modoc to speak with residents there, who say they’re most concerned Newsom’s Prop. 50 is a death-knell for rural representation. They told her their views on water, wildlife and forest management would be overshadowed in a district that includes Bay Area communities that have long championed environmental protection. Nadine Bailey, an agricultural water advocate: “They’ve taken every rural district and made it an urban district. It just feels like an assault on rural California.” Newsom’s proposal calls for splitting up the 1st Congressional District, which is comprised of 10 rural counties and is solidly Republican. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a rice farmer, would likely lose his seat.  Here’s Jeanne: Modoc County and two neighboring red counties would be shifted into a redrawn district that stretches 200 miles west to the Pacific Coast and then south, through redwoods and weed farms, to include the state’s wealthiest communities, current Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman’s home in San Rafael and the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, all in uber-liberal Marin County.  Read the full story here. CalMatters events: Join us Sept. 24 in Sacramento for a special event celebrating CalMatters’ 10th anniversary and Dan Walters’ 50th year covering California politics. Hear directly from Dan as he reflects on five decades watching the Capitol. Plus, attendees can enter a raffle and win a private dinner with Dan. Members can use the code “MEMBER” at checkout for a discounted ticket. Register here. Another event: CalMatters, California Forward and 21st Century Alliance are hosting a Governor Candidate Forum on Oct. 23 in Stockton at the California Economic Summit. Top candidates for governor will address pressing economic challenges and opportunities facing California, and field questions on why they are best suited to lead the world’s fourth-largest economy. Register here. Other Stories You Should Know The ethnic studies classes that never happened A student uses their laptop in an ethnic studies class at Santa Monica High School in Los Angeles on March 28, 2023. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters Right now, California’s high schools should be teaching a one-semester class focused on marginalized communities, thanks to a mandate passed by the state Legislature in 2021.  However, that effort has been hindered by a lack of funding in the state budget and the Trump administration’s campaign against diversity and inclusion programs.  As Carolyn Jones reports:  The class was meant to focus on the cultures and histories of African-Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Latinos, all of whom have faced oppression in California. The state’s curriculum also encourages schools to add additional lessons based on their student populations, such as Hmong or Armenian.  Albert Camarillo, Stanford history professor: “Right now, it’s a mixed bag. Some school districts have already implemented the course, and some school districts are using the current circumstances as a rationale not to move forward.” Read more here. And lastly: The fate of health care legislation Pharmacist James Lee gives a patient information about her prescription at La Clinica on Sept. 26, 2019. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters A series of health care bills on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk would improve access for Californians who can’t afford prescription drugs, shorten delays to medical decisions, and address threats to personal privacy. Kristen Hwang and Ana B. Ibarra have the details. California Voices CalMatters columnist Dan Walters: How Newsom channeled Jerry Brown 1.0 in his flip flop on oil.  CalMatters contributor Jim Newton: Why Alex Padilla changed his tune on nonpartisan redistricting. Other things worth your time: Some stories may require a subscription to read. UC employees sue Trump for forcing ‘ideological dominance’ and ‘financial collusion’ // LA Times  Republican leaders in DC are worried about California’s AI regulation // Politico

Culture
Forests
Health

These rural Californians want to secede. Newsom’s maps would pair them with Bay Area liberals

California Democrats’ redistricting plan would split the state’s traditional Republican stronghold into a sprawling coastal district with Bay Area liberals. North State conservatives say it would silence rural voices.

In summary California Democrats’ redistricting plan would split the state’s traditional Republican stronghold into a sprawling coastal district with Bay Area liberals. North State conservatives say it would silence rural voices. Over several rivers and through even more woods, flags advocating secession from California flutter above hills dotted with cattle, which outnumber people at least sixfold. This ranching region with a libertarian streak might have more in common with Texas than the San Francisco Bay Area.  But it’s not Texas. Five hours northeast of Sacramento on an easy day, Modoc County and its roughly 8,500 residents are still — begrudgingly — in California.  And California is dominated by Democrats, who are embroiled in a tit-for-tat redistricting war with the Lone Star State that will likely force conservative Modoc County residents to share a representative in Congress with parts of the Bay Area.  Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to split up the solidly Republican 1st Congressional District covering 10 rural, inland counties in the North State as part of his plan to create five more Democratic seats to offset a GOP-led effort to gain five red seats in Texas.  That would mean Republican Doug LaMalfa, the Richvale rice farmer who represents the district, would likely lose his seat.  Modoc County and two neighboring red counties would be shifted into a redrawn district that stretches 200 miles west to the Pacific Coast and then south, through redwoods and weed farms, to include some of the state’s wealthiest communities, current Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman’s home in San Rafael and the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, all in uber-liberal Marin County.  “It’s like a smack in the face,” said local rancher Amie Martinez. “How could you put Marin County with Modoc County? It’s just a different perspective.” Amie Martinez at the Brass Rail Bar & Grill in Alturas on Sept. 3, 2025. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters The proposal would even likely force Modoc residents to share a district with the governor, who moved back to Marin County last year and splits his time between there and Sacramento. Modoc County voted 78% in favor of recalling him, and voters asked about redistricting there view it as a publicity stunt for Newsom’s presidential ambitions. The ballot measure known as Proposition 50, on voters’ ballots Nov. 4, has sparked outrage in the North State. Yet for a region known for its rebellious spirit, residents are also resigned: they know they’re collateral damage in a partisan numbers game. The map would dilute conservative voting power in one of the state’s traditional Republican strongholds. It would cut short the career growth of politicians from the state’s minority party and make room for the growing cadre of Democrats rising up from state and county seats, jockeying for bigger platforms. But locals say they’re most concerned it’s a death-knell for rural representation. They worry their agricultural interests and their views on water, wildlife and forest management would be overshadowed in a district that includes Bay Area communities that have long championed environmental protection. “They’ve taken every rural district and made it an urban district,” said Nadine Bailey, a former staffer for a Republican state senator who now advocates for agricultural water users and the rural North State. “It just feels like an assault on rural California.” Though Modoc County supervisors have declared their opposition to Prop. 50, there’s little else locals can do. Registered Republicans are outnumbered by Democrats statewide nearly two-to-one. Rural residents represent an even smaller share of the state’s electorate.  “It’ll be very hard to fight back,” said Tim Babcock, owner of a general store in Lassen County, a similar and neighboring community that’s proposed to be drawn into a different liberal-leaning congressional district. “Unless we split the state. And that’s never going to happen.” An isolated county Far-flung but tight-knit, the high desert of Modoc County has been an agricultural community for generations.  In the west, cattle graze through a series of meadows and valleys into the hills of the Warner Mountains. Hundreds of them are sold weekly at an auction yard Martinez’s family runs on the outskirts of Alturas. The 3,000-person county seat consists of a cluster of government buildings, a high school and empty storefronts. In the east, migratory birds soar over vegetable farms on the drained Tule Lake bed that the U.S. granted to World War II veteran homesteaders by picking names out of a pickle jar. Not far away sit the remains of an internment camp where the government imprisoned nearly 19,000 Japanese Americans.  The sheer remoteness and harsh natural beauty are a point of pride and a source of difficulty. Residents live with the regular threat of wildfires. A fifth of the county’s residents live below the poverty line. There’s no WalMart and no maternity ward, and there are few jobs outside of agriculture. Like other forested counties, local schools are facing a fiscal cliff after Congress failed to renew a source of federal funding reserved for areas with declining timber revenues. Cattle graze on farmland in Modoc County on Sept. 4, 2025. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters First: Businesses in downtown Alturas, on Sept. 4, 2025. Alturas, in Modoc County, is one of the communities that would be affected by the current redistricting efforts led by state Democrats. Last: Historical structures at the Tule Lake Relocation Center in Newell on Sept. 4, 2025. The Tule Lake Relocation Center was a concentration camp established during World War II by the U.S. government for the incarceration of Japanese Americans. Photos by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters It’s so sparsely populated that local Republican Assemblymember Heather Hadwick, who lives in Modoc County, represents 10 neighboring counties besides her own. She puts in hundreds of miles on the road holding town halls between Sacramento and home, and struggles to imagine a congressmember reaching her county, with winding roads and the Klamath Mountains between Modoc and the coast. “It’s just not good governance,” she said. Modoc County went for Trump by over 70% last fall. Its sheriff, Tex Dowdy, proudly refuses to fly the California flag over his station out of grievance with the state’s liberal governance. In 2013, Modoc made headlines for declaring its intent to secede from California and form the “State of Jefferson” with neighboring counties in the North State and southwest Oregon. County Supervisor Geri Byrne said she knew it was a longshot — but thought, “when’s the last time The New York Times called someone in Modoc County?” Byrne, who is also chair of the Rural County Representatives of California and of the upcoming National Sheepdog Finals, said the secession resolution was about sending a message. “It wasn’t conservative-liberal,” she said. “It was the urban-rural divide, and that’s what this whole Prop. 50 is about.” Even a Democratic resident running a produce pickup center in Alturas observed that her neighbors are “not that Trumpy.” Instead, there’s a pervasive general distrust of politics on any side of the aisle. In particular, residents who live by swaths of national forests bemoan how successive federal administrations of both parties have flip-flopped on how to manage public lands, which they say have worsened the risk of wildfire and prioritized conservation over their livelihoods. Flourishing wolves are a problem At the moment, all anyone can talk about is the wolves.  The apex predator returned to California more than a decade ago, a celebrated conservation success story after they were hunted to near-extinction in the western U.S. Now they’re flourishing in the North State — and feeding on cattle, throwing ranching communities on edge. Federally, they’re still listed as an endangered species under the landmark conservation law signed by President Richard Nixon.  Under California rules, ranchers can only use nonlethal methods to deter the wolves, like electrifying fencing or hiring ranch hands to guard their herds at night.  First: Signs related to wolves hang on a trailer in Lassen County, near Nubieber, on Sept. 3, 2025. The gray wolf population has grown in Northern California, causing tension between local residents and animal protection advocates. Last: Teri Brown, owner of Modoc Farm Supply, at her store in Alturas, on Sept. 4, 2025. Alturas, in Modoc County, is one of the communities that would be affected by the current redistricting efforts led by Democrats. Photos by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters “That whole issue is softened by the organizations that mean well for the animals, but this is our absolute existence here,” said Teri Brown, owner of a local feed store, who said she’s had cows go missing that she suspects were killed by wolves.  It’s one of the rural issues Brown, a registered Republican, said voters closer to the Bay Area wouldn’t understand. She said she doesn’t support gerrymandering anywhere — in Texas or California.  In town to visit his bookkeeper, rancher Ray Anklin scrolled through his phone to show videos of wolves trotting through his property and grisly photos of calf kills. He said last year, wildlife killed 19 of his cattle — a loss of over $3,000 per head. He’s set up a booth at a nearby fair, hoping to get public support for delisting wolves as an endangered species, and wants any representative in Congress to take the issue seriously. As California’s battlegrounds increasingly take shape in exurban and suburban districts, rural North State conservatives at times feel almost as out of touch with their fellow Republicans as they do with Democrats.  Few Republicans in the state and nation understand “public lands districts,” said Modoc County Supervisor Shane Starr, a Republican who used to work in LaMalfa’s office. “Doug’s the closest thing we’ve got.” Modoc County Supervisor Shane Starr at the Hotel Niles in Alturas on Sept. 4, 2025. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters “This whole thing with DEI and ‘woke culture’ and stuff,” he said, referring to the diversity and inclusion efforts under attack from the right, “it’s like, yeah, we had a kid who goes to the high school who dyed his hair a certain color. Cool, we don’t care. All of these things going on at the national stage are not based in our reality whatsoever.” At a cattlemen’s dinner in Alturas one recent evening, Martinez said she once ran into LaMalfa at a local barbecue fundraiser for firefighters and approached him about a proposal to designate parts of northwestern Nevada as protected federal wilderness. Her 700-person town of Cedarville in east Modoc County is 10 minutes from the state line. Martinez worried about rules that prohibit driving motorized vehicles in wilderness, which she said would discourage the hunters who pass through during deer season and book lodging in town. Even though the proposal was in Nevada, LaMalfa sent staff, including Starr, to meetings to raise objections on behalf of the small town, she said.  “I know we won’t get that kind of representation from Marin County,” she said. Reached by phone, Huffman defended his qualifications to represent the region.  Adding Siskiyou, Shasta and Modoc counties would mean many more hours of travel to meet constituents, but Huffman pointed out his district is already huge, covering 350 miles of the North Coast. And it includes many conservative-leaning, forested areas in Trinity and Del Norte counties. A former attorney for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, he’s the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, where LaMalfa also sits. Emma Harris holds a belt buckle she was awarded as a prize for winning a branding competition, at the Brass Rail Bar & Grill on Sept. 3, 2025. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters First: A mural depicts a cowboy riding Red Rock the famous bucking bull in Alturas, on Sept. 4, 2025. Last: Ranchers chat during a cattlemen’s meeting at the Brass Rail Bar & Grill in Alturas on Sept. 3, 2025. Photos by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters Huffman said he would run for re-election in the district if voters approve its redrawing, and “would work my tail off to give them great representation.” As for the wolves, he doesn’t support delisting their endangered status and said he only supports nonlethal methods of managing the population.  “There are plenty of win-win solutions,” he said of conflict between ranchers and environmentalists. “I’m not an absolutist. I’m a problem solver.” For Democrats, ‘I don’t think there’s any option’ On the other side of the aisle, North State Democrats are gearing up to support Prop. 50, even as parts of it make them uneasy.  Nancy Richardson, an office manager at the free weekly paper in Modoc County (coverage of high school sports remains steady, along with a police blotter announcing a woman’s booking for eavesdropping), said she doesn’t like that it will cost the state as much as $280 million to run the statewide election on redistricting.  But she thinks it has to be done.  “I don’t like that Texas is causing this problem,” she said. In Siskiyou County’s liberal enclave of Mt. Shasta, Greg Dinger said he supports the redistricting plan because he wants to fight back against the Trump administration’s targeting of immigrants, erosion of democratic norms and a federal budget that is estimated to cut $28 billion from health care in California over the next 10 years.  The effects are expected to be particularly acute in struggling rural hospitals, which disproportionately rely on Medicare and Medicaid funding. LaMalfa voted for the budget bill. Dinger, who owns a web development company, said normally he would only support bipartisan redistricting. But he was swayed by the fact that Trump had called for Republicans to draw more GOP seats in Texas.  “Under the circumstances, I don’t think there’s any option,” he said. “There’s the phrase that came from Michelle Obama, ‘When they go low, we go high.’ Well, that doesn’t work anymore.” In an interview, LaMalfa said the impacts to rural hospitals were exaggerated. He blamed impending Medicaid cuts instead on California’s health care system being billions of dollars over budget this year, in part because of rising pharmaceutical costs and higher-than-expected enrollment of undocumented immigrants who recently became eligible. (California doesn’t use federal dollars to pay for undocumented immigrants’ coverage.) “Basically what it boils down to is they want illegal immigrants to be getting these benefits,” he said in response to criticism of the spending bill. “Are the other 49 states supposed to pay for that?” LaMalfa has criticized Prop. 50 and said no state should engage in partisan redistricting in the middle of the decade. But he stopped short of endorsing his Republican colleague Rep. Kevin Kiley’s bill in Congress to ban it nationwide, saying states should still retain their rights to run their own elections systems.  The proposed new maps would make Kiley’s Republican-leaning district blue. They would turn LaMalfa’s 1st District into a dramatically more liberal one that stretches into Santa Rosa.  But LaMalfa said he’s leaning toward running for re-election even if the maps pass, though he’s focused for now on campaigning against the proposition.  “I intend to give it my all no matter what the district is,” he said.  He would likely face Audrey Denney, a Chico State professor and two-time prior Democratic challenger who has already said she’d run again if the maps pass. Outgoing state Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, a Healdsburg Democrat who was instrumental in coming up with the proposed new maps, is also reportedly interested in the seat; McGuire’s office did not respond to a request for comment. In her renovated Queen Anne cottage in downtown Chico, Denney buzzed with excitement describing how the proposition has galvanized rural Democrats.  She emphasized her own family’s roots as ranchers in the Central Coast region, and said she has bipartisan relationships across the North State. Audrey Denney at her home in Chico on Sept. 3, 2025. Denney is considering running as a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in Calfornia’s 1st District if voters approve the new congressional maps. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters “I have credibility in those spaces, growing up in rural America and spending my career advocating for rural America and real, actual, practical solutions for people,” she said.  Denney’s former campaign staffer Rylee Pedotti, a Democrat in Modoc County, shares her optimism — to an extent. A communications professional whose family also owns a ranch, she said she’s not worried Huffman couldn’t represent Modoc.  “More often than not we actually do experience some of the same issues,” Pedotti said: water and irrigation concerns, the loss of home insurance, the rising costs of health care. Yet she’s deeply conflicted about the proposal: on the one hand cheering Democrats for being “finally ready to play hardball as the Republicans have done so well for decades in consolidating power;” on the other fearful of the escalating partisan rancor and the disenfranchisement of her neighbors. She’s considering sitting out the election. “We’ll still be heard,” she said, if the new maps pass. “But I understand the concerns of folks who are on the other side of the aisle. It feels like their voice is being taken away.”

Agriculture
Animals
Business

The Indiana town suffering under the shadow of a BP refinery: ‘They’ve had way too many accidents’

Whiting residents worried after facility, which has had multiple problems, shut down temporarily after rainIt was the biggest news story around the midwest as the Labor Day weekend approached earlier this month: the unexpected surging price of fuel at the gas station.But for residents of Whiting, Indiana, petroleum has been presenting an altogether bigger problem. Continue reading...

It was the biggest news story around the midwest as the Labor Day weekend approached earlier this month: the unexpected surging price of fuel at the gas station.But for residents of Whiting, Indiana, petroleum has been presenting an altogether bigger problem.A severe thunderstorm moved through north-west Indiana on 19 August, dropping 6in of rain on Whiting, a largely industrial town, flooding streets and temporarily closing schools.The flooding also shut down the BP Whiting Refinery, the largest fuel refinery in the midwest, with a capacity to process around 400,000 barrels of crude oil a day.Residents living around the facility quickly reported oil and gas fumes in their flooded basements, with some reporting feeling dizzy and nauseous. The local conditions, BP admitted, were “severe” with wailing sirens at the facility adding to the climate of fear for residents.“They had a real problem; they had to shut down. Who knows what happened,” says Carolyn Marsh, the administrator of the BP & Whiting Watch Facebook page, who lives within walking distance of the refinery.“The sludge they had to clean out of their system had to go through the water filtration plant [situated on the shore of Lake Michigan]. Who knows what they poured into Lake Michigan.”With the Trump administration dismantling emissions and other regulations for large polluting corporations in July, people living in close proximity to petroleum processing facilities are facing ever greater threats as climate crisis – fueled by burning the same fossil fuels produced by BP and others – promises to deliver increasingly severe storms and weather events.In a summer of relentless rain across parts of the midwest, scientists say heavy, short-lived storm events that can damage key infrastructure are likely to become a more common feature of life in a part of US thought to be relatively safe from the effects of climate crisis.In July, the Chicagoland region that encompasses Whiting recorded a ‘one-in-500-year’ flooding event that saw 5in of rain fall in 90 minutes in one area.According to the World Weather Attribution, climate crisis made storms and weather events that struck the midwest and south last April, killing dozens of people, 9% more intense.A reconnaissance inspection of the BP Whiting refinery conducted by the Indiana department of environmental management on 21 August found that “flood waters left significant oil on the ground”.The following day, the state of Indiana issued BP with a noncompliance notification report having found a “visible hydrocarbon sheen was observed … along 50 feet of [Lake Michigan] shoreline for a period of approximately 3 hours”. A lightning strike from the same storm also temporarily stopped the refinery’s dissolved nitrification floatation process, which reduced its ability to treat wastewater.A BP representative told the Guardian: “The Whiting refinery has detailed plans in place to manage severe weather conditions. We will incorporate learnings from the August rain event as we continue to improve the resiliency of our refinery operations during severe weather.”BP declined to respond to a query asking if the company plans to enact infrastructural upgrades to better protect against future extreme weather events such as floods and storms.Aside from the 19 August flooding causing oil to run into public waterways, BP was also forced to flare large amounts of fuel at the Whiting facility, resulting in huge volumes of damaging CO2, methane and other dangerous gases being released into the atmosphere.Like many of its kind, the Whiting facility has been plagued by issues.In 2008, BP initiated a $4.2bn project at the Whiting refinery to upgrade its infrastructure to process cheaper heavy crude from the Canadian oil sands.But in 2019, the Sierra Club successfully sued BP for violating deadly particle air pollution limits at the Whiting refinery that saw the fossil fuel company pay out $2.75m. BP’s annual revenue stands at $194.63bn.In August 2022, a fire caused the facility to shut down for a week and a half, resulting in a spike in fuel prices for millions of gas consumers around the region. In February 2024, the refinery was shut down again, due to a power outage, while last December, an underground gas pipeline leak was reported which required emergency crews at the scene and prompted a furious response from residents.“We woke up the day after Christmas and it smelled terrible. People were getting sick. There was no word from BP for days,” says Lisa Vallee of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, an environmental nonprofit, who lives in Whiting.“People were really, really upset. We went to our city council, and they said: ‘BP is not telling us anything either.’”Over the course of decades, BP has been responsible for some of the worst environmental catastrophes on the planet. In 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill caused the deaths of 11 people and the release of 3.2m to 4.9m barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico across an area the size of Florida over five months. It was the largest environmental disaster in US history and saw BP pay $4bn in criminal charges and a $20.8bn settlement fee. However, the latter generated a $15bn tax deduction for the oil giant.Oil refineries are particularly susceptible to storms and flooding, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, whose 2015 report also noted that “many of the companies that operate refineries are not disclosing these risks adequately to shareholders and local communities”.And yet, polling suggests climate change is not a concern for Republican voters, with just 12% of those surveyed in one poll last year saying climate crisis should be a top priority for the president and Congress.But fossil fuel conglomerates are not acting to protect communities around their facilities, say environmentalists.“We just cannot trust them,” says Vallee, whose basement flooded for the first time during the 19 August storm. “It’s a really old facility, and that is very frightening.”The Sierra Club settlement saw $500,000 given to the Student Conservation Program non-profit to plant trees around the refinery and in other parts of the community. However, one of the non-profit’s corporate partners is BP.Meanwhile, the refinery continues to loom large for residents of Whiting.“We’re concerned that it’s going to blow up,” says Marsh. “They’ve had way too many accidents over the last few years.

Climate
Conservation
Crisis

Problem Solvers Caucus proposes bipartisan energy deal

The Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats, is taking a swing at an energy deal that has eluded Congress in recent years. The caucus on Thursday morning released a framework for a deal that’s meant to speed up energy projects. A spokesperson confirmed that so far, no actual legislation has been...

The Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats, is taking a swing at an energy deal that has eluded Congress in recent years. The caucus on Thursday morning released a framework for a deal that’s meant to speed up energy projects. A spokesperson confirmed that so far, no actual legislation has been drafted. Speeding up the approval process for energy projects — which has come to be known as “permitting reform” — has been a hot topic in Washington for several years, as industries including energy have pushed for cutting back environmental reviews in favor of faster projects. Members of both sides of the aisle have expressed support for speeding up projects they approve of, with Democrats pushing for faster approval of renewables and powerlines while Republicans have championed faster fossil fuel approvals. But they have yet to get an agreement across the finish line. "By cutting through red tape, we can meet energy demand, lower costs, strengthen national security, and create high quality jobs, while being responsible stewards of the environment. The urgency is real, and the appetite for change is bipartisan," said the framework provided by the caucus. The Problem Solvers’ Caucus is made up of the most moderate members of both parties. While the agreement is a sign that there could be a path forward on the issue, it does not necessarily mean that the deal will get enough buy-in to cross the finish line. The Senate in particular, where 60 votes are needed, could prove difficult, as key members have said they will not move a deal forward if the Trump administration continues to block new renewable energy development. The new bipartisan proposal seeks to speed up approvals for energy projects in general by restricting who can sue to prevent them and setting a statute of limitations for suing over a project to as little as 150 days. While any energy project can prompt a lawsuit, fossil fuel projects are frequently challenged by environmental advocates. It seeks to bolster the buildout of power lines, which could be crucial for getting more renewable energy onto the grid, by requiring the Energy Department to act on applications within 90 days, as well as by allowing some individual lines to be designated as being in the national interest.  It would also bolster nuclear energy by ending mandatory Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearings if “no stakeholders raise objections.” It also seeks to limit state authority to block projects that run through their waters, which blue states have used in the past to block fossil fuel projects such as pipelines. And it seeks to speed up the approval for geothermal energy, which involves drilling into the Earth’s surface to access hot water reservoirs.

Energy
Water

‘A slap in the face’: our expert panel on Australia’s 2035 emissions target

Six experts respond to Labor’s plans for agriculture, resources, the built environment, industry, transport and energy. What did it get right and what more needs to be done?Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereThe 62-70% emissions target is a slap in the face to the people growing Australia’s food. It is nothing short of betrayal to farmers around the country and the generations who come after us. The climate chaos described in Australia’s first Climate Risk Assessment is not inevitable, but with a weak target like this it pushes us towards a future no one wants or deserves. Continue reading...

Agriculture and land: farmers are on the frontline of climate changeThe 62-70% emissions target is a slap in the face to the people growing Australia’s food. It is nothing short of betrayal to farmers around the country and the generations who come after us. The climate chaos described in Australia’s first Climate Risk Assessment is not inevitable, but with a weak target like this it pushes us towards a future no one wants or deserves.The climate crisis is already devastating Australian agriculture. Farmers are facing hotter summers, longer droughts, devastating floods and increasingly unpredictable seasons. These shocks are not just hitting the farm gate; they’re flowing through to supermarket shelves, pushing food prices higher for every Australian family.The Climate Risk Assessment lays out the risks in stark detail: heat stress in livestock slashing productivity and animal welfare; horticulture yields dropping as fruit literally burns on the tree; cropping regions in Western Australia and south-east Australia facing declining rainfall; irrigation systems struggling under dwindling water supplies. Biosecurity threats are set to rise, and dangerous heat is already cutting into agricultural jobs and output. Farmers see the realities of climate change playing out in real time.Australian government announces 2035 emissions reduction target – videoFarmers and rural communities are on the frontlines of climate change, and that’s why we need every sector playing its part, especially the heavy polluting energy sector. Every new coalmine and gas project adds pollution that heats our atmosphere, and these emissions make it harder for farmers to keep producing the food we all rely on. A weak emissions target suggests that the government has more interest in protecting profits from coal and gas corporations and exports than in the safety of Australians.A stronger target means more jobs and investment in rural Australia, it means fewer disasters and a more productive food system. Farmers are already leading with renewable energy, soil carbon projects, and regenerative practices. They’re showing what a low-pollution future can look like. To keep Australians safe from worsening climate harm and unlock opportunities in rural communities, the government needs to strengthen its policies and deal with the polluting fossil fuel industry. We need to move quickly, sensibly, and together. Australia can cut pollution, safeguard our farmers, stabilise food prices, and seize the enormous opportunities of a clean economy. That’s a future worth fighting for. Dr Anika Molesworth, a farmer and agricultural environmental scientist, is a founding director of Farmers for Climate ActionResources: if we are to reduce emissions we must measure them effectivelyThe resources sector plan focuses on decarbonising existing emissions through electrification, using low carbon fuels, and reducing fugitive emissions. While it outlines the technical mechanisms to do this, the policies to actually make this happen are limited. They often rely on government outlays and direction rather than the market incentives that would come with pricing carbon.For example, it is cheaper to use diesel in mining site equipment and vehicles, and this diesel does not pay excise because diesel excise is seen as a road user charge and the resources sector use is off-road. Those seeking to use clean rather than diesel fuel are at a competitive disadvantage without a mechanism to charge for the damage to the environment caused by diesel.There are widespread concerns with the current approach to the measurement of fugitive emissions. We often rely on outdated benchmarks rather than actual measurement at site verified by satellite technology. If we are to reduce our emissions we need to measure them effectively.The resources sector currently often relies on land use offsets to meet its emission reduction obligations under the safeguard mechanism. We need to take further steps to ensure their integrity, yet the sector plan does not seem to focus on this. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletterOf further concern is the heavy reliance on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, which are unlikely to occur as this technology is high-cost and unproven in many applications. The examples given of where it is successful are where it is used to extract more gas from an existing reservoir.Finally, the plan doesn’t appear to connect with the other sector plans and the Treasury modelling which show large declines in coal-fired electricity generation beyond 2030, which is an important way we can reduce emissions. Rod Sims is the chair of the Superpower Institute and enterprise professor at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, faculty of business and economics, University of Melbourne. He is also an expert adviser to the Treasury’s competition taskforce and to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority on digital issues. From 2011 to 2022 he was chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer CommissionBuilt environment: we must improve energy-intensive homesThursday’s built environment sector plan identifies the need to retrofit our existing homes to electrify them, improve their thermal performance and add more efficient appliances. Such a “renovation wave” would have the double benefit of reducing emissions and saving households thousands of dollars from their energy bills every year.The energy performance of our 11m homes can be measured on the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS). This spans from “zero stars” for the worst possible performance to 10 stars for a super “eco-home”. In 2022, the minimum performance required for a new home increased from six stars to seven stars, which should reduce heating and cooling energy needs in a new house by 11-27%. However, while new homes have improved, our existing homes remain leaky, uninsulated and energy-intensive. Over half of all existing Australian homes have a NatHERS rating below two stars, meaning there’s an urgent need for improvement – for our health and the environment.We also need to reduce the emissions from the materials we use to build, and the construction process itself. This is called “embodied carbon” and is responsible for about 10% of all Australian greenhouse gas emissions. Embodied carbon is rarely measured and entirely unregulated in Australia – except recently in New South Wales. What’s more, the emissions from many of the building materials we commonly use, such as cement, steel, glass and plasterboard, don’t come from electricity, but from chemical and heat-related manufacturing processes, making them difficult to decarbonise. The sector plan calls for the use of lower carbon materials – but other strategies such as building smaller homes, and adaptively reusing existing buildings will also be necessary. In 2024 building ministers agreed on a voluntary pathway for commercial buildings to report their embodied carbon. However, if we have any hope of reducing built environment emissions by 70% by 2035, regulating and capping embodied carbon emissions (like France, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have already done) will be a much-needed next step. Philip Oldfield is the head of UNSW’s school of the built environment and a researcher in sustainable and low-carbon architectureIndustry: big progress is possible – with smart supportIndustry will need to contribute to the 2035 targets, but “industry” is a complex, diverse category and one size won’t fit all. There are big cross-cutting challenges like process heat and heavy vehicles – both eventually solvable with a mix of electrification and renewable fuels, though neither replacing major capital equipment nor paying higher fuel costs is easy. But a lot of challenges are very specific to industry subsectors: dealing with eroding carbon anodes in aluminium smelting, how to cleanly reduce iron ore for steel, shifting the mix of inputs and storing or using the carbon output in cement-making, and many more. Technical solutions are visible but often not yet tangible.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Clear Air AustraliaAdam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisisPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe challenge for industry is more than technical, it’s how to make the necessary investments while staying competitive. Policy will have to help in many ways beyond the useful but limited funds announced today. The safeguard mechanism gives a growing carbon value signal, and it will get deeper and likely broader. But business will need a level playing field, so they don’t lose ground just because they face a carbon constraint while their competitors ride free. “Border carbon adjustment” is being rolled out in Europe to ensure equal treatment in critical sectors like cement, and Australia should develop its own approach while respecting our trade commitments.While the safeguard covers most industrial emissions, most individual facilities are too small to be part of it and will never be a good fit. They’ll need different kinds of help to transition: for example, policies more like the “white certificate” schemes to credit energy efficiency and fuel switching that New South Wales and Victoria operate today.Some of industry’s diverse transitions will stretch well beyond 2035. But big progress is possible – with smart support and a focus on building competitiveness. Innes Willox is chief executive of the Australian Industry GroupTransport: we have technological solutions but not the policies to get us thereThe transport sector plan released on Thursday doesn’t have a target for emissions reduction for the sector. That’s a shame – it’s difficult to design policy well without understanding what we’re aiming at.Transport emissions have grown by 14m tonnes or 18% since 2005. The biggest increases have been in aviation (up 68% since 2005) and light commercial vehicles (up 62% since 2005).This happened because we are flying more often, and increasingly buying personal cars that count as “light commercial” – think big 4WD utes.The CSIRO’s work for the Climate Change Authority estimates that transport emissions could be reduced by 20% by 2035, with most of this coming from road transport.Three policies act on transport emissions at the moment: the fringe benefits tax exemption for electric cars, the safeguard mechanism, and the new vehicle efficiency standard.But between these three policies, only 11% of transport emissions are subject to a constraint.The holes in policy are for heavy vehicles – we need incentives for truck owners to switch to cleaner sources, but also more attention on the logistics of providing them with alternative fuel sources. We need charging infrastructure for electric trucks, both at depots and along highways; and we need upgrades to electricity infrastructure to support that. There’s almost no supply chain at the moment for alternative fuels such as biodiesel, and there is no incentive to use alternative fuels. Meanwhile, fuel tax credits provide a disincentive to switch and there’s uncertainty over road user charging. The government announced a $1bn package for low-emissions fuels on Wednesday but we’re yet to see the detailed policy design.Bottom line: the destination is clear, the technological solutions are clear, but it’s a long journey, and we don’t have the right policies yet to get us there. Alison Reeve is the energy and climate change program director at the Grattan InstituteElectricity and energy: there is no excuse for a lack of ambitionDramatically expanding the share of renewables in our electricity system is fundamental to achieving our emission targets. If we can’t decarbonise electricity then we’ll struggle to also reduce emissions from transport and heating of buildings and manufacturing processes, which both hinge on a switch to electric power.Unfortunately, the Albanese government is encountering significant difficulty delivering on its target to grow renewable energy to 82% of power supply by 2030. We’re doing reasonably OK on rooftop solar, extremely well in expanding battery capacity, but falling abysmally short on wind and solar farms due to inadequate transmission links. Yet while we might fall short on targets for 2030, this is no excuse for a lack of ambition on 2035 targets. It is extremely hard to transform the electricity sector within five years because it takes at least five years to plan and build new transmission lines. A 10-year timeframe, however, dramatically expands the scope for change. In addition, rooftop solar drives change by steadily accumulating in small increments, rooftop by rooftop. Over the space of 10 years that can add up to a very large amount of power.But there is also no time to waste. To speed things up the Albanese government must expand its policy suite to options that don’t rely on new transmission lines. This means instituting new policy measures to help households and businesses become more energy efficient and install more rooftop solar. In particular, it has to find a way to push (not just encourage) landlords to upgrade rental properties.We still need to push on with the rollout of wind and solar farms as well. For a small proportion of the population this will mean their rural view will be obscured by transmission lines and wind turbines. That’s unfortunate, but what’s the alternative?

Agriculture
Climate
Energy

Australia Targets at Least 62% Emissions Cut in the Next Decade

Australia has set a new target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by between 62% and 70% below 2005 levels by 2035

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia on Thursday set a new target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by between 62% and 70% below 2005 levels by 2035.Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, leader of the center-left Labor Party, will take his government’s 2035 target to the U.N. General Assembly next week.Under the Paris climate agreement signed a decade ago, nations must increase their emissions reduction targets every five years.“This is a responsible target backed by the science, backed by a practical plan to get there and built on proven technology,” Albanese told reporters.“It’s the right target to protect our environment, to protect and advance our economy and jobs and to ensure that we act in our national interest and in the interest of this and future generations,” he added.Albanese said the target was consistent with the European Union considering for themselves a reduction target range of between 63% and 70% below 1990 levels.Matt Kean, chair of the Climate Change Authority that advises the government on climate policies, said Australia’s 2035 target demonstrated a “higher ambition than most other advanced economies.”Environmental groups had argued for a reduction target exceeding 70%.But business groups had warned cuts above 70% would risk billions of dollars in exports and send companies offshore.The conservative opposition Liberal Party, which has lost the last two federal elections, is considering abandoning its own commitment to net-zero by 2050, its only reduction target.Opposition leader Sussan Ley said the 2035 target was not credible because the government would fail to meet its 2030 target.“These targets cannot be met. They are fantasy: we know, Australians know, and they’re very disappointed in this prime minister,” Ley told reporters.The government maintains Australia is on track to narrowly achieve its 2030 target.Larissa Waters, a senator leading the environmentally-focused Australian Greens, said the government’s actual target was 62%, which she described as “appallingly low.”The government was not addressing Australia’s coal and liquefied natural gas exports, which were among the world’s largest of those fossil fuels, she said.“Labor have sold out to the coal and gas corporations with this utter failure of a climate target,” Waters told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar described the 2035 target as “ambitious.”“One of the biggest issues that industry faces at the moment is the costs that we incur in terms of energy. We’ve got to have a sustainable pathway forward. We’ve got to have energy security and we’ve got to have energy affordability as well,” McKellar said.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

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