Inside Climate News

California Drivers Are Paying a More Than $6-a-Gallon Price for the War in Iran

LOS ANGELES—At a Chevron station where the gas pump had a $6.49 cash price, Veronica Cervantes listed the concessions she’s made to afford the skyrocking price of gasoline over the last two months. “I don’t go out as much as I did. When I go places nearby, I go walking. I don’t shop,” Cervantes, 54, of nearby Compton, said in Spanish on Thursday. “I go once a month to Tijuana, to see my family. My mom, my dad, my brother. I used to go up to three times a month,” Cervantes, who cleans homes for a living, added before putting back her nozzle. Frustrations over high gas prices, for drivers nationwide and especially in California, are escalating as the United States’ war in Iran presses on. The average price of regular gas in the U.S. hit $4.30 a gallon on Thursday, up 27 cents from a week prior, according to data from AAA, the motor club. A new high since the war began, the price was up $1.12 a gallon from this point last year. The station Cervantes pumped at charged people paying with a credit card $6.59 a gallon for regular unleaded. One gas station in LA reached $8.71

A Massive, Trump-Backed Power Plant May Be Too Big to Succeed

PIKETON, Ohio—At the edge of Appalachia, on a site where crews have worked for decades on nuclear waste remediation, the Trump administration aims to build the largest power plant and data center in the country. It would be a logistical feat, and energy analysts warn that the whole plan could fall apart. But there was little hint of the challenges when U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick took the stage here in March to announce the project, with AC/DC’s “Back in Black” as his walk-on music. In five words, Lutnick explained how negotiations for such a large endeavor came together in a few months. “We’re operating in Trump time,” he told the crowd ahead of a ceremonial groundbreaking. The numbers were staggering: SoftBank of Japan would work with the U.S. government to build a 9.2-gigawatt, $33 billion power plant to serve a proposed 10-gigawatt AI data center on the same Piketon-area campus. It would be the start of something even larger, with a potential investment over several decades of up to $1.5 trillion, according to SoftBank. The project, called PORTS Technology Campus, is unusual in its size and financing method, and political leaders want to put it on a fast track

How Oil Fuels Conflict and War—and Who Profits

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Michael Klare, an emeritus professor of peace and security studies at Hampshire College. The U.S.-Israel joint war against Iran has shaken global energy markets, closed the Strait of Hormuz and restricted the flow of oil and natural gas worldwide. It’s the latest conflict over Iranian oil, but the growing emergence of fossil-free energy sources is prompting visions of ending our decades of dependence on oil, with its pollution and inevitable wars. Michael Klare is an emeritus professor of peace and security studies at Hampshire College and the defense correspondent for The Nation magazine. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. STEVE CURWOOD: For years, you’ve written about the problems of war and the environment and such. What’s new about this one? MICHAEL KLARE: Ten or 15 years ago, I would have said by now we would be weaned off oil, or we would have been on a slide downwards from oil. We were talking that by 2025 we would have reached peak oil, meaning peak world oil demand, and be in decline, and renewables would be the dominant fuel.

With Fertilizer Pollution on the Rise, Iowa Will Invest $100 Million in Water Treatment

DES MOINES, Iowa—In a press conference at the state capitol on Friday, Gov. Kim Reynolds announced a “comprehensive legislative package” that will boost funding for utilities struggling to meet federal drinking water standards and combat high nitrate pollution from agriculture. The plan would have the state spend more than $100 million on water treatment infrastructure over the next decade, including a one-time $25 million investment to expand the Central Iowa Water Works nitrate removal facility, which serves more than 600,000 residents in the state’s largest metropolitan area. The state-of-the-art removal facility has operated for more than 100 days in 2026 so far, as the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers reach near-record levels of nitrates that exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s legal limit of 10 milligrams per liter. Research has linked long-term exposure to nitrates in drinking water, even at low levels, to various cancers and serious health risks for infants. And while nitrate contamination of surface water is not limited to central Iowa, many of the state’s smaller communities lack the infrastructure to remove the pollution. Since the start of 2024, public water supplies for at least seven communities have exceeded the EPA’s maximum contaminant level, according to documents

Trump Pushes ‘Peace Pipelines’ to Boost Exports of Climate-Busting LNG to Europe

In the midst of a war in Iran and skyrocketing energy prices at home, the Trump administration is pushing to boost sales of U.S. liquefied natural gas across Central and Eastern Europe. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other U.S. officials announced this week that they had reached agreements aimed at boosting the construction of “Trump Peace Pipelines” across the region to facilitate more LNG exports. “President Trump is unleashing a new era of cooperation for Central and Eastern Europe,” Wright said in a news release. “These partnerships are rooted in our mutual support for an energy addition agenda—more jobs, more opportunity, and more investment.” The announcement came this week at the Three Seas Initiative Summit in Dubrovnik, Croatia, a gathering of 13 nations surrounding the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas. According to the Department of Energy, the United States now produces as much natural gas as Russia, China and Iran combined, while leading the world in LNG exports. The department said LNG exports are on track to “more than double” over the next decade. But that gas carries a steep environmental toll on many fronts. The gas comes primarily from fracking wells. It must be supercooled to -161 degrees Celsius

Wyoming’s Largest Utility Joins a New Western Day Ahead Market for Electricity

Wyoming’s largest utility today began participating in a new “Extended Day Ahead Market” for electricity on the Western grid, a potentially landmark shift in the way energy is sold in the state that could lower rates as energy costs soar. The new market, which went live Friday, gives Rocky Mountain Power, a subsidiary of PacifiCorp, and other utilities and power producers across the West access to more buyers and sellers. It also allows them to meet forecasted demand with electricity produced elsewhere in the region. The new system runs on the network of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which manages the flow of electricity in the Golden State. But it will be overseen by an independent board of electricity experts from across the western U.S. PacifiCorp began trading in the market Thursday night after a period of simulations to fix bugs and assess how the expanded market’s prices, demand and supply all interacted. Thursday’s purchases were delivered Friday, CAISO and the company announced on a press call. PacifiCorp will be “the first participant alongside CAISO” in the market, according to Omar Granados, a spokesperson for the utility company. “We expect even greater reliability and affordability benefits for customers as

Florida Opens Criminal Probe Into Sloth World After Dozens of Animal Deaths

The Florida Attorney General’s office announced a criminal investigation into the deaths of dozens of sloths at a now-shuttered Orlando business, a development that signals a new level of animal-welfare accountability in the commercial wildlife trade. In a letter released Friday, Attorney General James Uthmeier confirmed his office is assisting the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida in a probe into Sloth World. The news comes two weeks after an Inside Climate News investigation revealed that more than 31 sloths under the company’s care had died. The highly sensitive, tree-dwelling animals from the rainforests of Peru and Guyana were kept in a warehouse while Sloth World’s tourist attraction facility was under construction. The company’s now defunct website had promised customers an up-close viewing encounter with sloths for $49, and had been preselling tickets and merchandise for months. The facility’s owner, Benjamin Agresta, initially called government records documenting the deaths “completely fiction,” and later blamed the deaths on a virus. Wildlife disease experts and necropsy reports obtained by Inside Climate News indicate that the sloths were under immense physiological distress induced by their capture from the wild, international shipment, environmental changes and problems with their care. Unlike most mammals, sloths lack a

As Energy, War and Climate Collide, a Conference in Colombia Charts a Path Beyond Fossil Fuels

While some major fossil fuel producers keep pushing for expanded oil and gas use, which is linked to warfare, economic shocks and ecological damage, more than 50 countries at the first Conference on Transitioning Away From Fossil Fuels began developing plans to shift toward renewable energy systems designed for stability and abundance rather than scarcity and conflict. At the end of the conference, France, where fossil fuels still power about 60 percent of the world’s seventh-largest economy, unveiled a pilot roadmap to phase out coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and gas by 2050, and to electrify sectors such as heating and transport. Colombia’s draft roadmap to largely ditch fossil fuels by 2050 emphasizes that transitioning to renewables could deliver $280 billion for the country in economic benefits. The countries represented in Santa Marta, Colombia, generate about one-third of global economic activity. They broadly agreed to align their trade and finance policies with their transition plans, potentially creating significant economic momentum toward the faster decarbonization needed to avoid overcooking the planet with greenhouse gases. The conference can be seen as a climate diplomacy track running parallel with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but on a faster train

Western Lawmakers Move To Weaken Clean Air Act and Shield Fossil Fuel Companies From Climate Lawsuits

Members of Congress from Texas and Wyoming introduced bills recently that would grant fossil fuel companies sweeping legal immunity and shield energy producers from stricter compliance with the Clean Air Act. Republican Harriet Hageman, Wyoming’s only member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, spearheaded legislation that would protect fossil fuel companies from liability for damages caused by storms, wildfires and other climate-fueled disasters. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, collaborated on another bill called the FENCES Act, which would make it easier for states to claim that foreign emissions are driving local pollution. “Energy security is national security, and we will not self-sabotage our critical industries with a cascade of costly lawsuits and extreme penalties that jeopardize American drilling,” Hageman said in a statement accompanying her bill’s announcement. “America’s energy producers should be protected from the dangerous legal precedent that would be set by the retroactive punishment of lawful activity.” Hageman’s statement included quotes from fossil fuel lobbyists and executives thanking her and Cruz, whose bill in the Senate is co-sponsored by Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, for introducing the legislation. The bill is