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OIL & GAS: Major oil and gas companies have donated millions of dollars to universities for climate initiatives that often resulted in research affirming their policy positions, a congressional report finds. (Axios)
ALSO: California’s petroleum industry mounts a multi-pronged campaign to block legislation aimed at easing oil and gas pollution’s burden on underserved communities. (Inside Climate News)
TRANSPORTATION:
SOLAR:
CLIMATE:
PIPELINES: The rupture of a Louisiana pipeline that released 107,000 gallons of carbon dioxide raises concerns about similar issues among opponents of a proposed carbon pipeline in South Dakota. (Verite News, SDPB)
RENEWABLES:
MANUFACTURING: The developer of a low-emissions aluminum plant receiving $500,000 in federal funding is considering sites in Kentucky and surrounding states, which could mean a huge influx of jobs and nearby renewable energy development. (Grist)
EFFICIENCY: New federal water heater efficiency regulations will generate more energy savings than any single previous appliance rule, the U.S. Energy Department says. (Utility Dive)
As a mother and former truck driver, Ticole Smith, better known as Colah B Tawkin, has experienced both being unhoused and receiving international recognition through her popular podcast Black in the Garden.
From her home base in Atlanta and through her collaboration with Atlanta public radio station WABE, Atlanta Botanical Garden, and speaking engagements across the country, Tawkin works to (re)connect Black and Brown people in primarily — but not exclusively — urban environmental justice communities with their innate connection to the natural world as a means of resilience against disinvestment and climate change.
It’s well established that BIPOC communities disproportionately bear the dual burden of disinvestment and adverse environmental impacts from the effects of climate change. At the same time, the climate movement lacks diversity — specifically, leadership remains overwhelmingly White, and to a somewhat lesser extent, male. Added to the mix is a persistent and inaccurate perception that people of color, and especially Black folks, don’t care about environmental issues, and are fundamentally disconnected from nature.
“There is no relationship more sacred than that between Black folks and the natural world. Within the roots and branches of trees, Black folks find mirrors to their deep ancestral strength and resilience. These earthly wonders narrate our lives, weather our storms and bear witness to histories untold. They remind us of who we once were, and who we are meant to be,” said Tawkin during a recent virtual interactive presentation with the Morton Arboretum, located in the Chicago suburb of Lisle, Illinois.
Events like these are par for the course for Tawkin, who represents one of a handful of Black female advocates in the environmental realm.
“There’s not a lot of Black people doing the kind of stuff that I do. So naturally, when the word gets around where [environmental organizations] are trying to figure out, ‘How do we diversify our programming?’, my name tends to come up at the top of the list,” Tawkin said during an interview.
Tawkin also views herself as a pioneer — her very presence a challenge not only to the predominantly White composition of the environmental movement, but also active resistance among White people who refuse to embrace change.
“Being a Black woman in a world that I know does not really represent me in a very robust way makes me feel like a pioneer, and pioneers are revered when we’re looking in hindsight at history and people who started something. But we don’t so closely consider what the experience of a pioneer is like, and how they had to be the first person to venture into a territory that very well could have been hostile.
“I don’t feel like there is a lot of hostility on a frequent basis, but I do know, at the very least [there are] people who see what I’m doing and know what I’m capable of and they’re not okay with that … [but] I do not think about those people. I think about who does want to support me,” Tawkin said.
Tawkin’s work with the Black in the Garden podcast and related endeavors reflect not only a deep and longstanding love of nature, but a recognition of a need for greater Black, Brown and Indigenous presence in the green movement.
“I’ve always had a vision for this from the start, so failure was never an option,” she said. ‘That’s precisely why I chose the name Colah B Tawkin — because I’m always talking. It’s a stage name that reflects my readiness to start the podcast. When you hear my name, you know exactly what I do.”
She also aimed high, targeting her podcast for the national public broadcasting market and structuring the format and the length of her show accordingly. That has paid off with a newly announced partnership with Atlanta-based WABE, which will distribute the show online as part of the NPR Podcast Network.
“When I started Black in the Garden, I knew 1000% that it would be a successful platform,” she said. “I knew that it would resonate with those who it resonated with.”
“There was no gardening programming that I felt spoke to me, and I recognized that there’s an opportunity for me to start one … there are so many of these stories that are specifically related to our relationship with the land and agriculture and horticulture that really are so just grossly undertold,” Tawkin said.
“I remember in the beginning … people don’t ask me this no more, but in the beginning, Black people would ask me, well, ‘Why Black in the Garden? Like, don’t you want to be relatable to everybody?’ And that put me straight into Toni Morrison mode, and I was just like, we get to tell our stories about us because it’s us and we want to make sure that it’s reaching us. And so, I was intentional from the beginning and including ‘Black’ in the title,” Tawkin said.
And while her audience of “soil cousins” enthusiastically bridges racial and other categories, her focus remains firmly on embracing Black people and overcoming decades of generational hurt from slavery, Jim Crow, redlining and other manifestations of racism — including, she says, “some darker aspects to our relationship with nature.”
“That was why I discussed lynchings in the in the talk that I did … What am I going to talk about if I’m going to emphasize Black people’s relationships with trees?” Tawkin said. “The good, the bad, and the ugly was literally the first thought that came up … and then when I thought about the bad, I was just like, oh no, it gets real bad.
“But it cannot be overstated that nature is just what it is. It’s a very neutral thing.”
Disinvestment in environmental justice communities represents a significant driver of generational pain among Black, Brown and Indigenous communities. The work of stakeholder-based organizations is essential in working toward healing this generational hurt, Tawkin said.
At the same time, she said, nonprofit organizations — as well as government at all levels — also bear a level of responsibility in providing financial and other resources to address these challenges.
“So in order to be able to cope with all of the challenges that come with attaining liberation, and just get through it to actually enjoy liberation, resilience is kind of like the fuel, or it’s the fuel,” Tawkin said. “What other choice do we have besides to be resilient?”
During her presentation for the Morton Arboretum, Tawkin explained that witness trees, such as The Survivor Tree in Oklahoma City, serve as living reminders of significant points in history.
“They are often found near sites of historical significance, and serve as living witnesses to events, such as slavery, civil rights, struggles, and African American settlements, and so much more when you consider the age of trees,” Tawkin said.
The survivor tree sits near the site of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and was almost chopped down to recover evidence of the deadly terrorist attack.
“We may be able to identify or not identify, but rather find, like blast shards, bullets, or something that could penetrate a tree, could actually be lodged in that tree,” Tawkin explained.
For Tawkin, trees — and specifically witness trees — also bear a vital role in promoting resiliency, especially among people of color, who often create and maintain spiritual rituals in green spaces.
“There are trees that are connected to different cultures across the diaspora and different parts of the world that have deep spiritual meaning. People of color and Indigenous people in particular have these spiritual kinds of practices that are connected to trees,” she said.
“The ritual literally takes place with the tree being a physical … Basically, it’s a sanctuary,” Tawkin said.
The Oklahoma survivor tree “absorbed some physical evidence” of the explosion, not only “witnessing the events that it was there for, but the spirits around it, like people are dying around it,” Tawkin said during a subsequent interview. “It’s easy to believe that these spirits are able to connect with or merge into the tree.”
As an example, she cited a particular tree located at the Fairchild Botanic Garden in Miami, whose presence and its network of thick sprawling roots swirling along the ground around its trunk draws many visitors who come specifically to conduct spiritual rituals.
“When we were talking about that particular tree, [people] were telling me how it has a lot of spiritual significance to many people just around that physical area. And so people would come into the garden, but they would be coming for that tree in order to engage in certain spiritual rituals,” Tawkin said.
“What better example do we have of what resilience looks like than an ancient tree, a witness tree?”
For Tawkin, her appearance is also an essential element to appealing to young people, and to providing representation in the green space for people who look like her.
“I’m showing up the way that I show up … for those who need to see someone who looks as much like either themselves or someone who they know, someone who they can relate to doing the thing,” Tawkin said.
“I’m youngish, so I like to show up with like my hairstyle in a certain way and have my nails done in a certain way and show up with a sense of style that resonates with young people, because they’re just not going to pay as much attention to the person with the washed up polo shirt and the khakis on and some busted up shoes.
”Young people really are very instrumental in how our culture moves. And they are not respected enough for that. I get that. And so there’s a way to relate to kids, ‘cause like they just have a sixth sense about knowing when someone’s being real with them or not,” Tawkin said.
That connection is a key part of Tawkin’s broader vision.
“Not only is it necessary to have Black people of color, Black people, Black youth involved, not only is it necessary to have them interested in nature and involved with it, and taking up the reins and being the future keepers of the Earth, but it’s also important to understand how to connect with them,” she said.
“Because if we’re not connecting with them in a real way, then they’re not going to be interested in it.”
SOLAR: The U.S. EPA announces $7 billion in Solar for All grants for 60 projects expanding solar power access in low- and middle-income communities. (Associated Press)
ALSO: California grid operators look to exports, added transmission and battery storage to tame the deepening “duck curve” resulting from a growing solar power glut. (Washington Post)
CLIMATE: The White House launches a website that lists openings and accepts applications for the Climate Corps jobs and training program. (NPR)
MANUFACTURING: The U.S. Energy Department announces the first 35 projects receiving a total of nearly $2 billion in tax credits meant to accelerate clean energy manufacturing and emissions-reducing industrial projects. (E&E News, subscription; news release)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Workers at a Tennessee Volkswagen plant that makes electric vehicles overwhelmingly vote to unionize, handing the United Auto Workers a major breakthrough in its push to organize Southeast auto factories. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
OIL & GAS:
OFFSHORE WIND:
GRID:
OHIO: FirstEnergy donated $2.5 million to a dark money group backing Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s campaign, according to newly released records. (Floodlight/USA Today)
POLICY: Several environmental organizations sue two Maine state agencies for failing to protect residents from climate change, citing a lack of compliance with greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and the recent failure of new clean car rules. (Portland Press Herald, Bangor Daily News)
ALSO: Connecticut’s legislature is considering four major climate bills right now, but observers say not all will make it to a vote. (CT Mirror)
SOLAR:
HYDROPOWER: A developer argues in court that Maine didn’t explain well enough why it rejected a permit needed for federal regulators to relicense a Kennebec River hydroelectric dam. (E&E News, subscription)
OFFSHORE WIND:
GRID: While construction continues on the $6 billion Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line, slated to bring 1.25 GW of hydropower from Canada to New York City, some groups still hold concern for the impact on Native lands. (Business Insider)
FOSSIL FUELS:
TRANSIT:
BUILDINGS: Efficiency Vermont creates a new calculator to show state residents all the incentives, rebates, programs and offers available for them to make green home upgrades. (WCAX)
OVERSIGHT: As Georgia’s regulatory board goes years without elections, a group of Black voters appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to shift from at-large elections to having each commissioner elected by voters in the district where they live. (Grist/WABE)
GRID:
SOLAR:
PIPELINES:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Tesla announces it will lay off 10% of its workforce, including 2,688 employees at its headquarters and flagship factory in Texas. (Houston Chronicle)
NUCLEAR: A nuclear energy company building an advanced fuel facility in Tennessee receives a $148.5 million tax credit from the federal government. (Knoxville News Sentinel)
EMISSIONS: A new report shows the Houston area has the second worst air quality in the country, according to data from the U.S. EPA. (Houston Chronicle)
COMMENTARY:
This coverage is made possible through a partnership with WABE and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
In a case that could impact other lawsuits on voting rights, Black voters who sued over Georgia’s elections for key utility regulators are appealing their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Those elections for the Georgia Public Service Commission, or PSC, have been on hold for years and while last week a federal appeals court lifted an injunction blocking the elections from taking place, there is little chance the elections will happen this year.
Public Service Commissioners have enormous sway over greenhouse gas emissions because they approve how electric utilities get their power. They also set the rates consumers pay for electricity.
In Georgia, the commissioners have to live in specific districts. But unlike members of Congress who are only elected by residents of their district, the Georgia commissioners are elected by a statewide, at-large vote. A group of Black voters in Atlanta argued in a lawsuit that this violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it dilutes their votes, preventing them from sending the candidate of their choice to the commission.
In one example the plaintiffs cited, the former commissioner for District 3, which covers Metro Atlanta, “was elected to three terms on the PSC without ever winning a single county in District 3.”
That commissioner — along with four of the five current commissioners — is a white Republican. Georgia’s population is one-third Black, with a much higher proportion in District 3. Georgia voters elected Democrat Joe Biden and two Democratic U.S. Senators in 2020, and Atlanta voters tend to choose Democrats for seats ranging from mayor and city council to U.S. Congress.
A federal judge agreed with the plaintiffs in 2022 and suspended PSC elections until the state legislature could devise a new system. However, in November 2023, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision.
The appeals court ruling took issue with the proposed fix of single-member district elections, arguing a federal court can’t overrule the state’s choice to hold at-large elections because it would violate the “principles of federalism.”
“It’s kind of an upside-down view,” said Bryan Sells, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs. “What the 11th Circuit’s ruling says is that Georgia is allowed to discriminate against Black voters.”
The plaintiffs are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court decision, though there’s no guarantee the Supreme Court will take up the case.
In their petition for Supreme Court consideration, the plaintiffs argue that if it’s upheld, the appeals court decision “would upend decades of settled law and have a cascading effect far beyond the reach of this case.”
“[The appeals court panel] simply decided that whatever rationales Georgia might tender for the at-large scheme…automatically trump any amount of racial vote dilution, no matter how severe,” the petition argues. “If a State’s interest can prevail in this case, there is no case in which it won’t.”
The Georgia secretary of state’s office declined to comment on the appeal.
In the meantime, PSC elections have been on hold since 2022, when the federal judge who found for the plaintiffs imposed an injunction blocking the secretary of state from holding or certifying those elections. The 11th Circuit issued an order last week lifting the injunction, though its effect was not immediately clear.
Sells and a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office both said they were reviewing the order. In a text message, Sells also expressed surprise at what he called “the court’s unilateral action that no one asked for.”
Under the injunction, elections for two PSC seats that were scheduled for November 2022 were canceled. Despite not facing voters, those commissioners continue to serve and vote on PSC decisions, including rate increases and the three new fossil fuel-powered turbines the commission just approved.
PSC elections are also not on the 2024 ballot. A third commissioner’s term will expire at the end of the year.
A bill that passed the Georgia General Assembly before the Supreme Court appeal was filed or the injunction was lifted lays out a schedule for elections to resume, still following the current model of statewide voting. Governor Brian Kemp signed it into law last week.
The law schedules those elections to begin in 2025.
PIPELINES: The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe prepares a legal argument to shut down the Dakota Access pipeline that claims the operator’s environmental record should prevent it from obtaining a crucial easement. (E&E News)
ALSO: A carbon pipeline developer strikes a deal with a Nebraska environmental group that includes training first responders and donating to local nonprofits. (Nebraska Examiner)
COAL: Ohio clean energy and consumer advocates call on state regulators to force owners of two unprofitable coal plants to return more than $100 million to ratepayers. (WOSU)
GRID:
OIL & GAS: Ohio environmental advocates say the state’s draft study on the effects of opening about 40,000 acres of a national forest to oil and gas development doesn’t fully account for habitat and outdoor recreation losses. (Mahoning Matters)
POWER PLANTS:
SOLAR: Illinois is an early participant in a federal program that uses new software to extend community solar to more low-income subscribers. (PV Magazine)
UTILITIES: Ohio’s consumer advocate says AEP’s recently approved electric security plan lacks transparency and is short on details about how it would benefit ratepayers. (Ohio Capital Journal)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Former President Trump uses increasingly violent rhetoric to oppose President Biden’s policies in support of electric vehicles, particularly in battle ground states like Michigan. (NBC News)
EFFICIENCY: A Nebraska agency seeks proposals to launch a weatherization program that helps low-income families invest in energy efficiency. (NTV)
SOLAR: A think tank’s new report finds that New York has given very few state subsidies to low-income families for solar panel installations. (Gothamist)
ALSO:
FOSSIL FUELS:
BUILDINGS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
RENEWABLE ENERGY:
CLIMATE: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, sues top fossil fuel producers, alleging they’ve known for decades that their products were driving climate change. (NBC Philadelphia)
UTILITIES:
OFFSHORE WIND:
LITHIUM: Advocates want to see more environmental considerations in Maine’s proposed rules that would allow mining in a recently discovered lithium deposit. (Portland Press Herald)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
CLEAN ENERGY:
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Maryland environmental justice communities say a proposed state bill doesn’t cover some of the biggest sources of air pollution affecting their neighborhoods. (Baltimore Sun)
FOSSIL FUELS: Small oil and gas drillers say Pennsylvania’s proposed hike in bond costs, meant to ensure companies don’t abandon wells, could drive them out of business. (Tribune-Democrat)
SOLAR:
EMISSIONS: An Israeli company looks to build a trash-to-plastic plant in Massachusetts, which it says would help reduce landfill methane emissions. (Boston Globe)
CLIMATE: The Biden administration awards Washington state tribal nations more than $32 million to combat climate change’s disproportionate effects on Indigenous peoples. (Seattle Times)
ALSO:
COAL: Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signs controversial legislation opening the door for the state to purchase a coal power plant in order to keep it running past its scheduled retirement date. (Axios)
CLEAN ENERGY: The Biden administration allocates $475 million for clean energy projects on mine lands, including geothermal and battery storage systems at Arizona copper mines. (AZPM)
SOLAR:
WIND: Developers are planning or building more than 3,000 MW of wind capacity in Wyoming, but are running up against local opposition and concerns about environmental impacts. (Cowboy State Daily)
GRID: Two Northwest utilities plan to join the California grid operator’s extended day-ahead power market, giving it a leg up on the Southwest Power Pool’s competing initiative. (RTO Insider, subscription)
OIL & GAS:
TRANSPORTATION: U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, pushes back on the Biden administration’s new tailpipe emissions standards, saying they could “eventually get rid of the combustion engine.” (Alaska Public Media)
METHANE: A national laboratory and a California utility develop a method of using wind and solar power to generate hydrogen, which is then used to convert carbon to pipeline-ready methane. (Renewable Energy Magazine)
GRID: An appellate court revives rural activists’ lawsuit aimed at blocking a substation proposed by the Campo tribe in southern California, saying tribal sovereign immunity doesn’t apply on private lands. (East County Magazine)
COMMENTARY: California energy analysts say the state’s proposed income-based, fixed-charge utility rate structure is the most equitable solution to the “utility death spiral” if designed correctly. (Conversation)
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