All posts tagged "Fossil Fuels"

Trump is using his wartime power to boost a dirty corner of the fossil fuel industry, and online commentators are scoffing at the deal.

More than a dozen coal plants are expected to benefit from a $700 million plan with the help of the Defense Production Act, according to a post by CBS senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs.

“It is disgusting and reprehensible that the president of the United States is giving away our taxpayer dollars to deadly and expensive coal plants that will make Americans sicker and drive up electricity prices even more,” Patrick Drupp, climate policy director of the Sierra Club," told The Guardian. ...

A top deputy for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton unknowingly spilled the Republican administration's plan to undermine clean energy efforts in favor of the oil and gas Texas is known for, according to reporting in Rolling Stone.

Reporter Lauren Windsor obtained a secret recording of Paxton's top deputy, First Assistant AG Brent Webster, speaking in January to a group of conservatives and fossil fuel advocates.

“We’re not recording this, right?" Webster is heard saying. "Please don’t quote me, because I’m telling the inside story on this.”...

WASHINGTON — A lobbying group for the oil and gas industry has launched a new television advertising campaign targeting the Biden administration’s promotion of electric vehicles in several battleground states. One ad from American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers accuses Democratic President Joe Biden of “rushing to ban new gas-powered cars, no matter where you live or what you need.” “They want to force you into an electric vehicle,” the ad continues. Since he took office in 2021, Biden has been ambitious in setting targets for reducing emissions from vehicles with internal combustion eng......

An environmentalist Democratic congressman acknowledged that his wife purchased — then quickly dumped — nearly 100 stocks in various oil, energy, tobacco, defense and other companies, blaming a new investment firm for going on an erroneous stock shopping spree.

Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ) reported that Nicole Stanton’s 94 stock purchases included shares in fossil fuel giants Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips; power utility NextEra Energy; tobacco company Philip Morris International; transportation companies Union Pacific and Tesla and communications technology company and defense contractor Qualcomm, to name a few.

Stanton explained the apparent snafu in a Nov. 9 disclosure to Congress: “In Sept. 2023, my wife started with a new investment firm for her assets, and this investment firm was unaware of our policy against owning individual stocks. On Sept. 26, the new investment firm purchased stock mimicking the S&P 500. I learned of the purchase of stock on Oct. 21, and immediately on the next business day (Oct. 23) requested the stocks be divested. The new investment firm sold the stock and instead invested in Exchange Traded Funds.”...

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here.

Climate change looms larger in Louisiana than it does almost anywhere else in the United States. The state is facing down monster hurricanes as well as sea-level rise, and it still relies on a fossil fuel industry that pollutes the state’s air and erodes its wetlands.

But the state’s incoming governor, Republican Jeff Landry, doesn’t see it that way. Landry, who has served as Louisiana’s attorney general for almost eight years, is one of the most stalwart opponents of President Joe Biden’s climate policies, and he won election this fall after calling climate change a “hoax” and defending polluters....

This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here.

Last November, in a vast conference hall at a Marriott hotel in New Orleans, utility executive Kim Greene took the stage. Greene, the CEO of Southern Company Gas, a Georgia-based conglomerate that owns gas utilities across four states, was the first to speak on a panel titled “The Role for Natural Gas in America’s Clean Energy Future.”*

“Natural gas is foundational to America’s clean energy future,” she started, before proceeding to tell the audience about the nation’s 2.6 million miles of pipelines that deliver gas to 187 million Americans and 5.5 million businesses. “These customers are depending on our energy every day,” she said. “So as we look to the clean energy future, the most practical, realistic way to achieve a sustainable future where energy is clean, safe, reliable, resilient, and affordable, is to ensure that includes natural gas.” ...