Podcasts about Clean Air Act

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Best podcasts about Clean Air Act

Latest podcast episodes about Clean Air Act

C.O.B. Tuesday
"The Most Important Role For Experts Is To Say Things That Politicians Don't Welcome" Featuring Roger Pielke Jr., THB

C.O.B. Tuesday

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 10, 2025 60:58


It was our pleasure to welcome back our good friend Roger Pielke Jr., Author of The Honest Broker on Substack and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, for an insightful discussion on the U.S. Department of Energy's climate risk assessment report on the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions (linked here). Roger is a Professor Emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he previously served as a professor in the Environmental Studies department for over 23 years. His research focuses on science and technology policy, the politicization of science, government science advice, and energy and climate. The Honest Broker reaches more than 36,000 subscribers in over 160 countries. We always value Roger's perspective on the evolving climate policy and energy landscape and were thrilled to visit with him. In our conversation, Roger provides context for the DOE report, including the history of U.S. climate regulation and key milestones such as the Clean Air Act, Massachusetts v. EPA classifying CO₂ as a pollutant, and the endangerment finding under the Obama Administration. He outlines both the constructive discussions and contentious debates the report sparked as well as challenges in climate science discourse where debate is polarized along partisan lines and questions or alternative views are often penalized. We discuss energy demand beyond Western-centric perspectives and the importance of objective, fact-based discussion in balancing emissions reduction goals with realistic energy needs and technological development. Roger shares his perspective on the political implications of the DOE report, including how it could influence the endangerment finding, the low scientific bar required under the Clean Air Act, the need to democratize climate science for broader public understanding, the importance of constructive debate among experts, the risk of overly aggressive emissions policies on energy costs and reliability, and the necessity of balancing climate action with political and economic realities. We explore how rising energy demand drives innovation, the actual outcomes of climate policies versus their intended goals, how the 2009 endangerment finding is outdated and needs updating to reflect current science, Roger's assessment of the strengths and criticisms of the DOE report, and his recent attendance at the Abundance Conference, where he observed bipartisan engagement and discussions on expanding access to energy and improving living standards. We cover the American Enterprise Institute's nonpartisan mission and focus areas including technology, science, energy, and higher education, the value of fostering “intellectual hospitality,” the role of experts in democracy, the importance of leadership in preserving institutional integrity, the need for healthier, fact-based discussions on climate and policy, and much more. We greatly appreciate Roger for joining and sharing his expertise and insights with us all. As you'll hear, we reference a few items in the discussion. Steven Koonin's opinion piece published Monday in the WSJ is linked here. Roger's post, “What is the Scientific Threshold for GHG Endangerment?” is linked here and his piece on the climate report titled “A Red Team Climate Report: To correct course, we need open, respectful and informed debate” is linked here. For additional reading, Andrew Dessler's critiq

Rich Zeoli
Government Overreach + Eric Adams Remains in the NYC Mayoral Race

Rich Zeoli

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2025 43:32


The Rich Zeoli Show- Hour 4: 6:05pm- Attorney Michael Rinaldi—Partner at Duane Morris LLP—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss government overreach. “A legacy federal indictment initiated by the Biden administration's U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington is still moving forward against two small business owners (and father and son), John and Joshua Owens, for allegedly importing and distributing diesel emissions-related components without EPA authorization.1 These weaponized charges—framed as a Clean Air Act conspiracy and for which the Department of Justice has never before sought such criminal penalties—carry up to 20 years in prison. Their alleged crime? Operating in a regulatory gray zone where vague EPA guidance and unclear enforcement thresholds make compliance nearly impossible for honest entrepreneurs. The case is emblematic of the broader federal bureaucracy's war on working-class Americans and small business operators—especially those who support the industries that power rural and agricultural communities. The targeted small business owners primarily served customers in industries critical to the American economy—agriculture, heavy construction, and freight transport. The prosecution is not rooted in any danger to the public, but in a federal bureaucracy out of touch with the people it regulates. The Clean Air Act was never intended to serve as a criminal cudgel against American tradesmen. Yet the Biden DOJ and EPA weaponized this law to send a political message. The case is proceeding despite efforts by the Trump DOJ and EPA to end the criminalization of alleged technical violations of ambiguous rules. The continued prosecution offends core American values of due process and a fair regulatory regime. Legacy federal bureaucrats in Washington State should not be able jail men for failing to navigate a convoluted EPA rulebook. No federal agency should hold unchecked power to ruin lives over arbitrary enforcement.” 6:30pm- A new clip of New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill (D) shows her stating, “I would push an LGBTQ education into our schools.”

Rich Zeoli
Hot Mic: Putin, Xi, and Un Plan to Live Forever + The Department of War is Back!

Rich Zeoli

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2025 189:47


The Rich Zeoli Show- Full Show (09/05/2025): 3:05pm- A new clip of New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill (D) shows her stating, “I would push an LGBTQ education into our schools.” 3:15pm- While speaking with the press following the latest jobs report, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett explained that the hiring slowdown only tells half the story: “all of the job creation in the U.S. has come from native-born workers, whereas in the Biden administration…half was foreign-born.” 3:20pm- On Thursday night, President Donald Trump hosted several tech CEOs at the White House. Mark Zuckerberg estimated that Meta will invest $600 billion in the U.S. by 2028. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai promised similar levels of investment. 3:30pm- Dr. Victoria Coates—Vice President of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation & former Deputy National Security Advisor—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss the Trump Administration targeting Venezuelan drug cartels, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un traveling with a private bathroom to prevent his DNA from being stolen, and President Donald Trump renaming the “Defense Department” to the “War Department.” Plus, during China's military parade Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim were caught on a hot mic discussing the possibility of immortality via organ harvesting. 4:00pm- Dr. Wilfred Reilly—Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University & Author of “Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me”—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss writer/comedian Graham Linehan being arrested at London's Heathrow Airport over “anti-trans” posts he made to social media. Should Americans be concerned that free speech restrictions might make their way across the pond? Plus, Malcolm Gladwell reaches his “Tipping Point” with biological males competing in women's sports. 4:30pm- From the Oval Office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order officially renaming the “Department of Defense” to the “Department of War.” 5:05pm- The defending Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles kicked off their season on Thursday night against the Dallas Cowboys with a 24 to 20 win—despite having their best defensive player, Jalen Carter, ejected on the first play for spitting! But did he spit first??? 5:30pm- Paula Scanlan (former Swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania & now working alongside Scott Presler and the Early Vote Action PAC) & Raquel Debono (Entertainment Lawyer & Founder of Make America Hot Again) join The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss Eric Adams remaining in the New York City mayoral race, Sydney Sweeny keeps winning, and rat tours are the latest craze in NYC. 6:05pm- Attorney Michael Rinaldi—Partner at Duane Morris LLP—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss government overreach. “A legacy federal indictment initiated by the Biden administration's U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington is still moving forward against two small business owners (and father and son), John and Joshua Owens, for allegedly importing and distributing diesel emissions-related components without EPA authorization.1 These weaponized charges—framed as a Clean Air Act conspiracy and for which the Department of Justice has never before sought such criminal penalties—carry up to 20 years in prison. Their alleged crime? Operating in a regulatory gray zone where vague EPA guidance and unclear enforcement thresholds make compliance nearly impossible for honest entrepreneurs. The case is emblematic of the broader federal bureaucracy's war on working-class Americans and small business operators—especially those who support the industries that power rural and agricultural communities. The targeted small business owners primarily served customers in industries critical to the American economy—agriculture, heavy construction, and freight transport. The prosecution is not rooted in any danger to the public, but in a federal bureaucracy out of ...

The Climate Denier's Playbook
The Loophole You Can Drive A Truck Through

The Climate Denier's Playbook

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 4, 2025 93:17


But I need my truck to drive to my job at JPMorgan. BONUS EPISODES available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/deniersplaybook) SOCIALS & MORE (https://linktr.ee/deniersplaybook) WANT TO ADVERTISE WITH US? Please contact sponsors@multitude.productions DISCLAIMER: Some media clips have been edited for length and clarity. CREDITS Created by: Rollie Williams, Nicole Conlan & Ben BoultHosts: Rollie Williams & Nicole ConlanExecutive Producer: Ben Boult Editor: Paul Ramsdell & Laura ConteProducers: Daniella Philipson, Irene PlagianosArchival Producer: Margaux SaxAdditional Research and Fact Checking: Carly Rizzuto & Canute HaroldsonMusic: Tony Domenick Art: Jordan Doll Special Thanks: The Civil Liberties Defense CenterSOURCES18 SUVs Built on a Truck Frame (Truck Based SUV 2023) - Four Wheel Trends (2021, April 18). Four Wheel Trends.Author: Keith Bradsher. (2002). High and mighty: SUVs—the world's most dangerous vehicles and how they got that way. Public Affairs.Jeep Cherokee Commercial (1975). Bionic Disco. (2020, July 3).Propaganda paved the way for an automotive society. Boenau, A. (2023, August 18). Urbanism Speakeasy.Automotive ad investment remains stuck in reverse gear | WARC. Brownsell, A. (2023, September 3).From workhorses to lifestyle vehicles: How pickup trucks got so big. Chase, W., Muller, J., & Whalen, J. (2023, January 23).How To Steal An Election | Climate Town. Climate Town. (2024, September 25).Clean Air Act: A Summary of the Act and Its Major Requirements. Congressional Research Service. (2022).What Year Did They Start Putting Seat Belts in Trucks?. Corp, G. S. (2023, November 25).F.E.A PROPOSING FREER REIN ON OIL. Cowan, E. (1975, May 16). The New York Times.America Made Us | Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram. Dodge. (2025, May 22).Arab oil embargo | international relations [1973]. Encyclopædia Britannica. (2018).Summary of the Clean Air Act. EPA. (2024, July 31).EPA moves to strike down California vehicle emission rules for good. Fisher, T. (2025, February 17).The Ford Kentucky Truck Plant | Ford Motor Company. Ford Motor Company. (2025, May 2).HISTORY OF FUEL ECONOMY One Decade of Innovation, Two Decades of Inaction 1970s. Frohman Lubetsky, J. (2011).THE ACCESS ALMANAC: The CAFÉ Standards Worked – ACCESS Magazine. Glazer, A. (1994, September).How A Tax On Chicken Changed The Playing Field For U.S. Automakers. Glinton, S. (2015, June 19). NPR.GM squandered our good will, setting off years of licks for corporate America. (2012, July 20).Auto Industry Fears New Rules Would Raise Costs and Lower Mileage. M. Callahan, J. (1975, February 2). The New York Times.Closing the Gap: Reevaluating CAFE Standards and the Light Truck Loophole. Marcotte, B. (2025). LSU Journal of Energy Law and Resources, 13(2).Lessons from Protectionism Past. McGillis, J. (2024, October 10). City Journal.Nader, R. (1965). Unsafe at any speed: the designed-in dangers of the American automobile. Knightsbridge Pub. Co.Drivers remember 1973-74 oil embargo. NBC 26 - Northeast Wisconsin. (2022, June 21).The Chicken Tax Explained. Norman, K. (2020, August 3).1976 Jeep J10 Pickup Commercial - First Date. OsbornTramain. (2016, July 15).1998 New Beetle “What Color do you Dream In” Commercial. pcressma. (2010, July 28).The Consumer's Truth: Myths and Facts about American Consumers and Fuel Economy. Public Citizen. (2003).Ram | Never Stop Being American | Nothing Stops Ram. Ram Trucks. (2025, June 14).50 Years of Progress. South Coast AQMD. (2016).CAFE Standards Could Mean Bigger Cars, Not Smaller Ones – Mechanical Engineering. Stewart, B. (2011, December 9).Subaru “I Survived” Stories. Subaru. (2015, April 17).Oil Crisis | Stock market Crash | OPEC | This Week| 1973. ThamesTv. (2017).The Chicken War of '63 Was a Tale Of Anger, Laughter and Portent. (1964, January 10). The New York Times.Volkswagen Beetle commercial - VW “Dome.”. Tricoastal71. (2009, August 24).A Brief History of US Fuel Efficiency Standards. Union of Concerned Scientists. (2017, December 6).Personal Transportation Factsheet. University of Michigan. (2023).Volkswagen Type 2. (2025). Classic Cars Wiki; Fandom, Inc.The reckless policies that helped fill our streets with ridiculously large cars. Zipper, D. (2024, April 28). Vox.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ozarks at Large
Rollbacks on Clean Air Act, Mildenhall selected as Arkansas favorite

Ozarks at Large

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 3, 2025 54:59


On today's show, rollbacks to the federal Clean Air Act could affect energy development in Arkansas. Plus, further discovery of the musical genius of Florence Price and details on the latest season from the Fort Smith Symphony.

FreightCasts
The Daily | August 26, 2025

FreightCasts

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 26, 2025 6:49


The benchmark diesel price, which has now declined for a fifth consecutive week, reaching $3.708/gallon for a total drop of 10.4 cents since late July. This downward trend is linked to relative oil price stability, even as Midwest refinery issues impact gasoline prices without significantly affecting diesel. Korean Air has made a significant order for eight Boeing 777-8 freighter aircraft, part of a larger $50 billion deal that helps Boeing compete with Airbus in the next-generation widebody freighter market. This strategic acquisition highlights a push for efficiency in air cargo, as the new freighters promise 30% better fuel efficiency and 25% lower operating costs per ton. The rail merger debate heats up as CPKC advocates against further Class I rail consolidation, asserting that such mergers are unnecessary and could trigger an undesirable industry restructuring. Instead, CPKC champions interline partnerships, citing its collaboration with CSX on the Southeast Mexico Express service as an example of achieving benefits without integration risks. The Department of Transportation's (DOT) warns California, New Mexico, and Washington, threatening to withhold millions in federal highway funds for allegedly failing to enforce federal English proficiency standards for truck drivers. This action follows a fatal accident involving a driver with reported language issues and a history of non-compliance, with states given 30 days to rectify the situation. Explore the Trump administration's challenge to California's Clean Truck Check (CTC) rule, with the EPA proposing to disapprove its application to out-of-state trucks due to concerns about the Commerce Clause and the Clean Air Act. While the rule remains in effect for California-based vehicles, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) views the EPA's move as illegal interference, signaling a potential legal battle over state versus federal authority. Also don't miss the FreightWaves Q3 2025 Carrier Rate Report, sponsored by Trimble, offering a comprehensive review of Q2 performance and forecasts for the coming months. This valuable resource combines carrier survey responses with SONAR data to provide essential intelligence for strategic planning, covering supply, earnings, and demand forecasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Farm City Newsday by AgNet West
California Trucking Rules Under Fire: EPA Pushback

Farm City Newsday by AgNet West

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 26, 2025 48:05


California's agricultural and transportation sectors are once again in the spotlight as state and federal policies clash, pests resurface, and long-delayed water projects inch forward. On today's AgNet News Hour, hosts Nick Papagni and Josh McGill broke down the latest developments impacting farmers, truckers, and communities across the state. EPA Pushes Back on California Trucking Regulations The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is moving to block California's latest heavy-duty vehicle inspection and maintenance rules for out-of-state trucks. The proposal argues that California's requirements conflict with the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause and the federal Clean Air Act. While the EPA's move may protect out-of-state truckers, California-registered fleets remain subject to the state's stringent standards. The hosts noted that this could accelerate a trend of trucking companies relocating to border towns like Reno, Nevada or Yuma, Arizona, where operating costs and regulations are far lighter. “Business is leaving California every day, and we're seeing the impact across industries,” Papagni warned. Imperial Valley vs. Yuma Lettuce Claims Listeners also weighed in on the ongoing debate between Imperial Valley and Yuma over winter lettuce production. While Yuma promotes itself as producing 90% of the nation's winter leafy greens, growers in Imperial Valley point out that much of the produce is still grown in California. Packers relocating across the Arizona border, they argue, are skewing the numbers. Medfly Quarantine in Santa Clara County In pest control news, officials detected two Mediterranean fruit flies in San Jose, triggering a quarantine in Santa Clara County. Medflies pose a devastating threat to fruit and vegetable crops, and the state is deploying a sterile male release program to contain the spread. The discovery highlights the ongoing vigilance needed to protect California agriculture from invasive species. Sites Reservoir Funding Boost Finally, there was a rare bit of good news for water storage. The Sites Reservoir Project received an additional $218.9 million in funding, raising its total eligibility to $1.094 billion. While construction is not expected to begin until 2026, with operations projected for 2032, the move signals renewed confidence in expanding storage capacity under Proposition 1, first approved by voters in 2014. Papagni summed up the sentiment shared by many farmers: “It's good to see progress, but California needs common-sense leadership to turn voter-approved projects into real water on the ground.”

FreightWaves NOW
The Daily | August 26, 2025

FreightWaves NOW

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 26, 2025 6:19


The benchmark diesel price, which has now declined for a fifth consecutive week, reaching $3.708/gallon for a total drop of 10.4 cents since late July. This downward trend is linked to relative oil price stability, even as Midwest refinery issues impact gasoline prices without significantly affecting diesel. Korean Air has made a significant order for eight Boeing 777-8 freighter aircraft, part of a larger $50 billion deal that helps Boeing compete with Airbus in the next-generation widebody freighter market. This strategic acquisition highlights a push for efficiency in air cargo, as the new freighters promise 30% better fuel efficiency and 25% lower operating costs per ton. The rail merger debate heats up as CPKC advocates against further Class I rail consolidation, asserting that such mergers are unnecessary and could trigger an undesirable industry restructuring. Instead, CPKC champions interline partnerships, citing its collaboration with CSX on the Southeast Mexico Express service as an example of achieving benefits without integration risks. The Department of Transportation's (DOT) warns California, New Mexico, and Washington, threatening to withhold millions in federal highway funds for allegedly failing to enforce federal English proficiency standards for truck drivers. This action follows a fatal accident involving a driver with reported language issues and a history of non-compliance, with states given 30 days to rectify the situation. Explore the Trump administration's challenge to California's Clean Truck Check (CTC) rule, with the EPA proposing to disapprove its application to out-of-state trucks due to concerns about the Commerce Clause and the Clean Air Act. While the rule remains in effect for California-based vehicles, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) views the EPA's move as illegal interference, signaling a potential legal battle over state versus federal authority. Also don't miss the FreightWaves Q3 2025 Carrier Rate Report, sponsored by Trimble, offering a comprehensive review of Q2 performance and forecasts for the coming months. This valuable resource combines carrier survey responses with SONAR data to provide essential intelligence for strategic planning, covering supply, earnings, and demand forecasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stuff You Missed in History Class
The Slow Invention of Spray Paint

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2025 35:59 Transcription Available


The possible contenders for the title of inventor of spray paint were actually working across decades. And really, all those people contributed pieces of the story. Research: Abplanalp, R.H. “Valve mechanism for dispensing gases and liquids under pressure.” U.S. Patent Office. March 17, 1953. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e2/65/be/710e864cf870d8/US2631814.pdf “About Binks.” https://binks.com/about-us/ Andreassen, Dag. “The world's first spray can?” Teknismuseum. Nov. 6, 2024. https://www.tekniskmuseum.no/en/stories/spray-can “Atomizer.” Smithsonian National Museum of American History. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_721925 Baisya, Pramila. “A Brief History of Spray Paint.” UP Magazine. https://upmag.com/a-brief-history-of-spray-paint/ Bancroft, Hubert Howe. “The book of the fair; an historical and descriptive presentation of the world's science, art, and industry, as viewed through the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893.” The Bancroft Co. 1893. https://archive.org/details/bookfair1banca/page/68/mode/2up Bellis, Mary. "The History of Aerosol Spray Cans." ThoughtCo, May. 11, 2025, thoughtco.com/history-of-aerosol-spray-cans-1991231 “Boss of the Year Secretary Speaker in Sycamore.” The Sycamore Tribune. April 29, 1960. https://www.newspapers.com/image/898198730/?match=1&terms=Edward%20H.%20Seymour “Definitions of “Aerosol Product” and Related Terms in Various Federal and State Regulations, Standards and Codes.” National Institute od Standards and Technology. February 2012. https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/pml/wmd/Definitions-of-Aerosol-Product.pdf “DeVilbiss Atomizers.” Wood Library Museum of Anesthesiology. https://www.woodlibrarymuseum.org/museum/devilbiss-atomizers/ “Francis Davis Millet and Millet family papers, 1858-1984, bulk 1858-1955.” Smithsonian. https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/francis-davis-millet-and-millet-family-papers-9048/biographical-note Greenbaum, Hillary and Dana Rubinstein. “The Origin of Spray Paint.” New York Times magazine. Nov. 4, 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/who-made-spray-paint.html Haberkorn, Stephen. “Seymour of Sycamore: Aerosol Paint Inventor Still Mass Producing.” The Daily Chronicle. May 31, 2014. https://www.newspapers.com/image/183344909/?match=1&terms=%22Nancy%20Seymour%20Heatley%22 Linden, Chris. “The 1893 Columbian Exposition: Remembering Chicago’s White City.” Northwest Quarterly. Dec. 10, 2012. https://northwestchicagoland.northwestquarterly.com/2012/12/10/the-1893-columbian-exposition-remembering-chicagos-white-city/ “Oslo, Home of the Spray Can.” Oslo Science Park. Sept. 24, 2024. https://www.forskningsparken.no/en/news/2024-oslo-home-of-the-spray-can “A Patent on a Rattle in a Can.” The Lemont Herald. May 22, 1952. https://www.newspapers.com/image/700713398/?match=1&terms=%22Edward%20H.%20Seymour%22 Rotheim, Erik. “METHOD AND MEANS FOR THE ATOMIZING OR IDISTRIBUTION OF LIQUID OR SEMI-LIQUID MATERIALS.” United States Patent Office. April 7, 1931. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/f5/fb/c3/05208e6542c01c/US1800156.pdf Seymour, E.H. “HERMETICALLY SEALED PACKAGE FOR MIXING AND DISCHARGING ” Dec. 25, 1951. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c0/4b/45/2677a2b12e2430/US2580132.pdf “Seymour Man Develops New Spray Device.” The Daily Chronicle. May 27, 1952. https://www.newspapers.com/image/126585367/?match=1&terms=%22Edward%20H.%20Seymour%22 “Summary of the Clean Air Act.” EPA. https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-air-act See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Faster, Please! — The Podcast

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,Global population growth is slowing, and it's not showing any signs of recovery. To the environmentalists of the 1970s, this may have seemed like a movement in the right direction. The drawbacks to population decline, however, are severe and numerous, and they're not all obvious.Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I talk with economist and demographer Dean Spears about the depopulation trend that is transcending cultural barriers and ushering in a new global reality. We discuss the costs to the economy and human progress, and the inherent value of more people.Spears is an associate professor of economics at Princeton University where he studies demography and development. He is also the founding executive director of r.i.c.e., a nonprofit research organization seeking to uplift children in rural northern India. He is a co-author with Michael Geruso of After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People.In This Episode* Where we're headed (1:32)* Pumping the breaks (5:41)* A pro-parenting culture (12:40)* A place for AI (19:13)* Preaching to the pro-natalist choir (23:40)* Quantity and quality of life (28:48)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Where we're headed (1:32). . . two thirds of people now live in a country where the birth rate is below the two children per two adults level that would stabilize the population.Pethokoukis: Who are you and your co-author trying to persuade and what are you trying to persuade them of? Are you trying to persuade them that global depopulation is a real thing, that it's a problem? Are you trying to persuade them to have more kids? Are you trying to persuade them to support a certain set of pro-child or pro-natalist policies?Spears: We are trying to persuade quite a lot of people of two important things: One is that global depopulation is the most likely future — and what global depopulation means is that every decade, every generation, the world's population will shrink. That's the path that we're on. We're on that path because birth rates are low and falling almost everywhere. It's one thing we're trying to persuade people of, that fact, and we're trying to persuade people to engage with a question of whether global depopulation is a future to welcome or whether we should want something else to happen. Should we let depopulation happen by default or could it be better to stabilize the global population at some appropriate level instead?We fundamentally think that this is a question that a much broader section of society, of policy discourse, of academia should be talking about. We shouldn't just be leaving this discussion to the population scientists, demographic experts, not only to the people who already are worried about, or talking about low birth rates, but this is important enough and unprecedented enough that everybody should be engaging in this question. Whatever your ongoing values or commitments, there's a place for you in this conversation.Is it your impression that the general public is aware of this phenomenon? Or are they still stuck in the '70s thinking that population is running amok and we'll have 30 billion people on this planet like was the scenario in the famous film, Soylent Green? I feel like the people I know are sort of aware that this is happening. I don't know what your experience is.I think it's changing fast. I think more and more people are aware that birth rates are falling. I don't think that people are broadly aware — because when you hear it in the news, you might hear that birth rates in the United States have fallen low or birth rates in South Korea have fallen low. I think what not everybody knows is that two thirds of people now live in a country where the birth rate is below the two children per two adults level that would stabilize the population.I think people don't know that the world's birth rate has fallen from an average around five in 1950 to about 2.3 today, and that it's still falling and that people just haven't engaged with the thought that there's no special reason to expect it to stop and hold it to. But the same processes that have been bringing birth rates down will continue to bring them down, and people don't know that there's no real automatic stabilizer to expect it to come back up. Of the 26 countries that have had the lifetime birth rate fall below 1.9, none of them have had it go back up to two.That's a lot of facts that are not as widely known as they should be, but then the implication of it, that if the world's birth rate goes below two and stays there, we're going to have depopulation generation after generation. I think for a lot of people, they're still in the mindset that depopulation is almost conceptually impossible, that either we're going to have population growth or something else like zero population growth like people might've talked about in the '70s. But the idea that a growth rate of zero is just a number and then that it's not going to stop there, it's going to go negative, I think that's something that a lot of people just haven't thought about.Pumping the breaks (5:41)We wrote this book because we hope that there will be an alternative to depopulation society will choose, but there's no reason to expect or believe that it's going happen automatically.You said there's no automatic stabilizers — at first take, that sounds like we're going to zero. Is there a point where the global population does hit a stability point?No, that's just the thing.So we're going to zero?Well, “there's no automatic stabilizer” isn't the same thing as “we're definitely going to zero.” It could be that society comes together and decides to support parenting, invest more in the next generation, invest more in parents and families, and do more to help people choose to be parents. We wrote this book because we hope that there will be an alternative to depopulation society will choose, but there's no reason to expect or believe that it's going happen automatically. In no country where the birth rate has gone to two has it just magically stopped and held there forever.I think a biologist might say that the desire to reproduce, that's an evolved drive, and even if right now we're choosing to have smaller families, that biological urge doesn't vanish. We've had population, fertility rates, rise and fall throughout history — don't you think that there is some sort of natural stabilizer?We've had fluctuations throughout history, but those fluctuations have been around a pretty long and pretty widely-shared downward trend. Americans might be mostly only now hearing about falling birth rates because the US was sort of anomalous amongst richer countries and having a relatively flat period from the 1970s to around 2010 or so, whereas birth rates were falling in other countries, they weren't falling in the US in the same way, but they were falling in the US before then, they're falling in the US since then, and when you plot it over the long history with other countries, it's clear that, for the world as a whole, as long as we've had records, not just for decades, but for centuries, we've seen birth rates be falling. It's not just a new thing, it's a very long-term trend.It's a very widely-shared trend because humans are unlike other animals in the important way that we make decisions. We have culture, we have rationality, we have irrationality, we have all of these. The reason the population grew is because we've learned how to keep ourselves and our children alive. We learned how to implement sanitation, implement antibiotics, implement vaccines, and so more of the children who were born survived even as the birth rate was falling all along. Other animals don't do that. Other animals don't invent sanitation systems and antibiotics and so I think that we can't just reason immediately from other animal populations to what's going to happen to humans.I think one can make a plausible case that, even if you think that this is a problem — and again, it's a global problem, or a global phenomenon, advanced countries, less-advanced countries — that it is a phenomenon of such sweep that if you're going to say we need to stabilize or slow down, that it would take a set of policies of equal sweep to counter it. Do those actually exist?No. Nobody has a turnkey solution. There's nothing shovel-ready here. In fact, it's too early to be talking about policy solutions or “here's my piece of legislation, here's what the government should do” because we're just not there yet, both in terms of the democratic process of people understanding the situation and there even being a consensus that stabilization, at some level, would be better than depopulation, nor are we there yet on having any sort of answer that we can honestly recommend as being tested and known to be something that will reliably stabilize the population.I think the place to start is by having conversations like this one where we get people to engage with the evidence, and engage with the question, and just sort of move beyond a reflexive welcoming of depopulation by default and start thinking about, well, what are the costs of people and what are the benefits of people? Would we be better off in a future that isn't depopulating over the long run?The only concrete step I can think of us taking right now is adapting the social safety net to a new demographic reality. Beyond that, it seems like there might have to be a cultural shift of some kind, like a large-scale religious revival. Or maybe we all become so rich that we have more time on our hands and decide to have more kids. But do you think at some point someone will have a concrete solution to bring global fertility back up to 2.1 or 2.2?Look at it like this: The UN projects that the peak will be about six decades from now in 2084. Of course, I don't have a crystal ball, I don't know that it's going to be 2084, but let's take that six-decades timeline seriously because we're not talking about something that's going to happen next year or even next decade.But six decades ago, people were aware that — or at least leading scientists and even some policymakers were aware that climate change was a challenge. The original computations by Arrhenius of the radiative forcing were long before that. You have the Johnson speech to Congress, you have Nixon and the EPA. People were talking about climate change as a challenge six decades ago, but if somebody had gotten on their equivalent of a podcast and said, “What we need to do is immediately get rid of the internal combustion engine,” they would've been rightly laughed out of the room because that would've been the wrong policy solution at that time. That would've been jumping to the wrong solution. Instead, what we needed to do was what we've done, which is the science, the research, the social change that we're now at a place where emissions per person in the US have been falling for 20 years and we have technologies — wind, and solar, and batteries — that didn't exist before because there have been decades of working on it.So similarly, over the next six decades, let's build the research, build the science, build the social movement, discover things we don't know, more social science, more awareness, and future people will know more than you and I do about what might be constructive responses to this challenge, but only if we start talking about it now. It's not a crisis to panic about and do the first thing that comes to mind. This is a call to be more thoughtful about the future.A pro-parenting culture (12:40)The world's becoming more similar in this important way that the difference across countries and difference across societies is getting smaller as birth rates converge downward.But to be clear, you would like people to have more kids.I would like for us to get on a path where more people who want to be parents have the sort of support, and environment, and communities they need to be able to choose that. I would like people to be thinking about all of this when they make their family decisions. I'd like the rest of us to be thinking about this when we pitch in and do more to help us. I don't think that anybody's necessarily making the wrong decision for themselves if they look around and think that parenting is not for them or having more children is not for them, but I think we might all be making a mistake if we're not doing more to support parents or to recognize the stake we have in the next generation.But all those sorts of individual decisions that seem right for an individual or for a couple, combined, might turn into a societal decision.Absolutely. I'm an economics professor. We call this “externalities,” where there are social benefits of something that are different from the private costs and benefits. If I decide that I want to drive and I contribute to traffic congestion, then that's an externality. At least in principle, we understand what to do about that: You share the cost, you share the benefits, you help the people internalize the social decision.It's tied up in the fact that we have a society where some people we think of as doing care work and some people we think of as doing important work. So we've loaded all of these costs of making the next generation on people during the years of their parenting and especially on women and mothers. It's understandable that, from a strictly economic point of view, somebody looks at that and thinks, “The private costs are greater than the private benefits. I'm not going to do that.” It's not my position to tell somebody that they're wrong about that. What you do in a situation like that is share and lighten that burden. If there's a social reason to solve traffic congestion, then you solve it with public policy over the long run. If the social benefits of there being a flourishing next generation are greater than people are finding in their own decision making, then we need to find the ways to invest in families, invest in parenting, lift and share those burdens so that people feel like they can choose to be parents.I would think there's a cultural component here. I am reminded of a book by Jonathan Last about this very issue in which he talks about Old Town Alexandria here in Virginia, how, if you go to Old Town, you can find lots of stores selling stuff for dogs, but if you want to buy a baby carriage, you can't find anything.Of course, that's an equilibrium outcome, but go on.If we see a young couple pushing a stroller down the street and inside they have a Chihuahua — as society, or you personally, would you see that and “Think that's wrong. That seems like a young couple living in a nice area, probably have plenty of dough, they can afford daycare, and yet they're still not going to have a kid and they're pushing a dog around a stroller?” Should we view that as something's gone wrong with our society?My own research is about India. My book's co-authored with Mike Geruso. He studies the United States more. I'm more of an expert on India.Paul Ehrlich, of course, begins his book, The Population Bomb, in India.Yes, I know. He starts with this feeling of being too crowded with too many people. I say in the book that I almost wonder if I know the exact spot where he has that experience. I think it's where one of my favorite shops are for buying scales and measuring tape for measuring the health of children in Uttar Pradesh. But I digress about Paul Ehrlich.India now, where Paul Ehrlich was worried about overpopulation, is now a society with an average birth rate below two kids per two adults. Even Uttar Pradesh, the big, disadvantaged, poor state where I do my work in research, the average young woman there says that they want an average of 1.9 children. This is a place where society and culture is pretty different from the United States. In the US, we're very accustomed to this story of work and family conflict, and career conflicts, especially for women, and that's probably very important in a lot of people's lives. But that's not what's going on in India where female labor force participation is pretty low. Or you hear questions about whether this is about the decline of religiosity, but India is a place where religion is still very important to a lot of people's lives. Marriage is almost universal. Marriage happens early. People start their childbearing careers in their early twenties, and you still see people having an average below two kids. They start childbearing young and they end childbearing young.Similarly, in Latin America, where religiosity, at least as reported in surveys, remains pretty high, but Latin America is at an average of 1.8, and it's not because people are delaying fertility until they're too old to get pregnant. You see a lot of people having permanent contraception surgery, tubal obligations.And so this cultural story where people aren't getting married, they're starting too late, they're putting careers first, it doesn't match the worldwide diversity. These diverse societies we're seeing are all converging towards low birth rates. The world's becoming more similar in this important way that the difference across countries and difference across societies is getting smaller as birth rates converge downward. So I don't think we can easily point towards any one cultural for this long-term and widely shared trend.A place for AI (19:13)If AI in the future is a compliment to what humans produce . . . if AI is making us more productive, then it's all the bigger loss to have fewer people.At least from an economic perspective, I think you can make the case: fewer people, less strain on resources, you're worried about workers, AI-powered robots are going to be doing a lot of work, and if you're worried about fewer scientists, the scientists we do have are going to have AI-powered research assistants.Which makes the scientists more important. Many technologies over history have been compliments to what humans do, not substitutes. If AI in the future is a compliment to what humans produce — scientific research or just the learning by doing that people do whenever they're engaging in an enterprise or trying to create something — if AI is making us more productive, then it's all the bigger loss to have fewer people.To me, the best of both worlds would be to have even more scientists plus AI. But isn't the fear of too few people causing a labor shortage sort of offset by AI and robotics? Maybe we'll have plenty of technology and capital to supply the workers we do have. If that's not the worry, maybe the worry is that the human experience is simply worse when there are fewer children around.You used the term “plenty of,” and I think that sort of assumes that there's a “good enough,” and I want to push back on that because I think what matters is to continue to make progress towards higher living standards, towards poverty alleviation, towards longer, better, healthier, safer, richer lives. What matters is whether we're making as much progress as we could towards an abundant, rich, safe, healthy future. I think we shouldn't let ourselves sloppily accept a concept of “good enough.” If we're not making the sort of progress that we could towards better lives, then that's a loss, and that matters for people all around the world.We're better off for living in a world with other people. Other people are win-win: Their lives are good for them and their lives are good for you. Part of that, as you say, is people on the supply side of the economy, people having the ideas and the realizations that then can get shared over and over again. The fact that ideas are this non-depletable resource that don't get used up but might never be discovered if there aren't people to discover them. That's one reason people are important on the supply side of the economy, but other people are also good for you on the demand side of the economy.This is very surprising because people think that other people are eating your slice of the pie, and if there are more other people, there's less for me. But you have to ask yourself, why does the pie exist in the first place? Why is it worth some baker's while to bake a pie that I could get a slice of? And that's because there were enough people wanting slices of pie to make it worth paying the fixed costs of having a bakery and baking a whole pie.In other words, you're made better off when other people want and need the same things that you want and need because that makes it more likely for it to exist. If you have some sort of specialized medical need and need specialized care, you're going to be more likely to find it in a city where there are more other people than in a less-populated rural place, and you're going to be more likely to find it in a course of history where there have been more other people who have had the same medical need that you do so that it's been worthwhile for some sort of cure to exist. The goodness of other people for you isn't just when they're creating things, it's also when they're just needing the same things that you do.And, of course, if you think that getting to live a good life is a good thing, that there's something valuable about being around to have good experiences, that a world of more people having good experiences has more goodness in it than a world of fewer people having good experiences in it. That's one thing that counts, and it's one important consideration for why a stabilized future might be better than a depopulating future. Now, I don't expect everyone to immediately agree with that, but I do think that the likelihood of depopulation should prompt us to ask that question.Preaching to the pro-natalist choir (23:40)If you are already persuaded listening to this, then go strike up a conversation with somebody.Now, listening to what you just said, which I thought was fantastic, you're a great explainer, that is wonderful stuff — but I couldn't help but think, as you explained that, that you end up spending a lot of time with people who, because they read the New York Times, they may understand that the '70s population fears aren't going to happen, that we're not going to have a population of 30 billion that we're going to hit, I don't know, 10 billion in the 2060s and then go down. And they think, “Well, that's great.”You have to spend a lot of time explaining to them about the potential downsides and why people are good, when like half the population in this country already gets it: “You say ‘depopulation,' you had us at the word, ‘depopulation.'” You have all these people who are on the right who already think that — a lot of people I know, they're there.Is your book an effective tool to build on that foundation who already think it's an issue, are open to policy ideas, does your book build on that or offer anything to those people?I think that, even if this is something that people have thought about before, a lot of how people have thought about it is in terms of pension plans, the government's budget, the age structure, the nearer-term balance of workers to retirees.There's plenty of people on the right who maybe they're aware of those things, but also think that it really is kind of a The Children of Men argument. They just think a world with more children is better. A world where the playgrounds are alive is better — and yes, that also may help us with social security, but there's a lot of people for whom you don't have to even make that economic argument. That seems to me that that would be a powerful team of evangelists — and I mean it in a nonreligious way — evangelists for your idea that population is declining and there are going to be some serious side effects.If you are already persuaded listening to this, then go strike up a conversation with somebody. That's what we want to have happen. I think minds are going to be changed in small batches on this one. So if you're somebody who already thinks this way, then I encourage you to go out there and start a conversation. I think not everybody, even people who think about population for a living — for example, one of the things that we engage with in the book is the philosophy of population ethics, or population in social welfare as economists might talk about it.There have been big debates there over should we care about average wellbeing? Should we care about total wellbeing? Part of what we're trying to say in the book is, one, we think that some of those debates have been misplaced or are asking what we don't think are the right questions, but also to draw people to what we can learn from thinking of where questions like this agree. Because this whole question of should we make the future better in total or make the better on average is sort of presuming this Ehrlich-style mindset that if the future is more populous, then it must be worse for each. But once you see that a future that's more populous is also more prosperous, it'd be better in total and better on average, then a lot of these debates might still have academic interest, but both ways of thinking about what would be a better future agree.So there are these pockets of people out there who have thought about this before, and part of what we're trying to do is bring them together in a unified conversation where we're talking about the climate modeling, we're talking about the economics, we're talking about the philosophy, we're talking about the importance of gender equity and reproductive freedom, and showing that you can think and care about all of these things and still think that a stabilized future might be better than depopulation.In the think tank world, the dream is to have an idea and then some presidential candidate adopts the idea and pushes it forward. There's a decent chance that the 2028 Republican nominee is already really worried about this issue, maybe someone like JD Vance. Wouldn't that be helpful for you?I've never spoken with JD Vance, but from my point of view, I would also be excited for India's population to stabilize and not depopulate. I don't see this as an “America First” issue because it isn't an America First issue. It's a worldwide, broadly-shared phenomenon. I think that no one country is going to be able to solve this all on its own because, if nothing else, people move, people immigrate, societies influence one another. I think it's really a broadly-shared issue.Quantity and quality of life (28:48)What I do feel confident about is that some stabilized size would be better than depopulation generation after generation, after generation, after generation, without any sort of leveling out, and I think that's the plan that we're on by default.Can you imagine an earth of 10 to 12 billion people at a sustained level being a great place to live, where everybody is doing far better than they are today, the poorest countries are doing better — can you imagine that scenario? Can you also imagine a scenario where we have a world of three to four billion, which is a way nicer place to live for everybody than it is today? Can both those scenarios happen?I don't see any reason to think that either of those couldn't be an equilibrium, depending on all the various policy choices and all the various . . .This is a very broad question.Exactly. I think it's way beyond the social science, economics, climate science we have right now to say “three billion is the optimal size, 10 billion is the optimal size, eight billion is the optimal size.” What I do feel confident about is that some stabilized size would be better than depopulation generation after generation, after generation, after generation, without any sort of leveling out, and I think that's the plan that we're on by default. That doesn't mean it's what's going to happen, I hope it's not what happens, and that's sort of the point of the conversation here to get more people to consider that.But let's say we were able to stabilize the population at 11 billion. That would be fine.It could be depending on what the people do.But I'm talking about a world of 11 billion, and I'm talking about a world where the average person in India is as wealthy as, let's say this is in the year 2080, 2090, and at minimum, the average person in India is as wealthy as the average American is today. So that's a big huge jump in wealth and, of course, environmentalism.And we make responsible environmental choices, whether that's wind, or solar, or nuclear, or whatever, I'm not going to be prescriptive on that, but I don't see any reason why not. My hope is that future people will know more about that question than I do. Ehrlich would've said that our present world of eight billion would be impossible, that we would've starved long before this, that England would've ceased to exist, I think is a prediction in his book somewhere.And there's more food per person on every continent. Even in the couple decades that I've been going to India, children are taller than they used to be, on average. You can measure it, and maybe I'm fooling myself, but I feel like I can see it. Even as the world's been growing more populous, people have been getting better off, poverty has been going down, the absolute number of people in extreme poverty has been going down, even as the world's been getting more populous. As I say, emissions per person have been going down in a lot of places.I don't see any in principle, reason, if people make the right decisions, that we couldn't have a sustainable, healthy, and good, large sustained population. I've got two kids and they didn't add to the hole in the ozone layer, which I would've heard about in school as a big problem in the '80s. They didn't add to acid rain. Why not? Because the hole in the ozone layer was confronted with the Montreal Protocol. The acid rain was confronted with the Clean Air Act. They don't drive around in cars with leaded gasoline because in the '70s, the gasoline was unleaded. Adding more people doesn't have to make things worse. It depends on what happens. Again, I hope future people will know more about this than I do, but I don't see any, in principle reason why we couldn't stabilize at a size larger than today and have it be a healthy, and sustainable, and flourishing society.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were PromisedMicro Reads▶ Economics* Generative AI's Impact on Student Achievement and Implications for Worker Productivity - SSRN* The Real China Model: Beijing's Enduring Formula for Wealth and Power - FA* What Matters More to the Stock Market? The Fed or Nvidia? - NYT* AI Isn't Really Stealing Jobs Yet. 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PBS NewsHour - Segments
How a White House plan to overturn a key EPA regulation threatens children’s health

PBS NewsHour - Segments

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2025 5:01


In July, the Trump administration proposed revoking a landmark 2009 finding that’s been the basis for EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. If the proposal is finalized, experts warn that it could jeopardize the health of millions of Americans, especially children. John Yang speaks with pediatrician and clinical professor Dr. Debra Hendrickson for more. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

PBS NewsHour - Health
How a White House plan to overturn a key EPA regulation threatens children’s health

PBS NewsHour - Health

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2025 5:01


In July, the Trump administration proposed revoking a landmark 2009 finding that’s been the basis for EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. If the proposal is finalized, experts warn that it could jeopardize the health of millions of Americans, especially children. John Yang speaks with pediatrician and clinical professor Dr. Debra Hendrickson for more. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

PBS NewsHour - Science
How a White House plan to overturn a key EPA regulation threatens children’s health

PBS NewsHour - Science

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2025 5:01


In July, the Trump administration proposed revoking a landmark 2009 finding that’s been the basis for EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. If the proposal is finalized, experts warn that it could jeopardize the health of millions of Americans, especially children. John Yang speaks with pediatrician and clinical professor Dr. Debra Hendrickson for more. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

PBS NewsHour - Politics
How a White House plan to overturn a key EPA regulation threatens children’s health

PBS NewsHour - Politics

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2025 5:01


In July, the Trump administration proposed revoking a landmark 2009 finding that’s been the basis for EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. If the proposal is finalized, experts warn that it could jeopardize the health of millions of Americans, especially children. John Yang speaks with pediatrician and clinical professor Dr. Debra Hendrickson for more. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Bright Side
The Greatest London Fog That Took Thousands of Lives

Bright Side

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2025 11:22


Back in December 1952, London experienced a fog like no other—it was thick, yellowish, and downright deadly. This wasn't just regular fog; it was smog, a toxic mix of fog and smoke from coal burning. For five days, the city was practically blinded, and people could barely see a few feet ahead. Breathing it in was even worse—it caused severe respiratory issues, and sadly, it's estimated that over 4,000 people died during the event, with thousands more falling sick. It was a wake-up call for environmental action, leading to laws like the Clean Air Act to prevent such disasters. The “Great Smog” showed how dangerous pollution could be and why we need to keep our air clean. Credit: CC BY 4.0 ⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...⁠ The main drainage: By Wellcome Images - ⁠https://wellcomecollection.org/search...⁠, ⁠https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...⁠ Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: ⁠https://thesoul-sound.com/⁠ Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD...⁠ Subscribe to Bright Side: ⁠https://goo.gl/rQTJZz⁠ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠ / brightside  ⁠ Instagram: ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠ / brightside.official  ⁠ TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.of...⁠ Telegram: ⁠https://t.me/bright_side_official⁠ Stock materials (photos, footages and other): ⁠https://www.depositphotos.com⁠ ⁠https://www.shutterstock.com⁠ ⁠https://www.eastnews.ru⁠ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: ⁠http://www.brightside.me⁠ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins
Trump's Move to Kill the Clean Air Act's Climate Authority, Forever

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 6, 2025 69:25


The Trump administration has formally declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are not dangerous pollutants. If the president gets his way, then the Environmental Protection Agency may soon surrender any ability to regulate heat-trapping pollution from cars and trucks, power plants, and factories — in ways that a future Democratic president potentially could not reverse.On this week's episode of Shift Key, we discuss whether Trump's EPA gambit will work, the arguments that the administration is using, and what it could mean for the future of U.S. climate and energy policy. We're joined by Jody Freeman, the Archibald Cox Professor of Law at Harvard and the director of Harvard's environmental and energy law program. She was an architect of the Obama administration's landmark deal with automakers to accept carbon dioxide regulations.Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap's executive editor.Mentioned:The EPA Says Carbon Pollution Isn't Dangerous. What Comes Next?The EPA on its reconsideration of the endangerment findingJody's story on the change: Trump's EPA proposes to end the U.S. fight against climate changeJesse's upshift (and accompanying video); Rob's sort of upshift.--This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …Accelerate your clean energy career with Yale's online certificate programs. Gain real-world skills, build strong networks, and keep working while you learn. Explore the year-long Financing and Deploying Clean Energy program or the 5-month Clean and Equitable Energy Development program. Learn more here.Join clean energy leaders at RE+ 25, September 8–11 in Las Vegas. Explore opportunities to meet rising energy demand with the latest in solar, storage, EVs, and more at North America's largest energy event. Save 20% with code HEATMAP20 at re-plus.com.Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CleanLaw
Ep107—Trump's Move to Kill the Clean Air Act's Climate Authority, Forever

CleanLaw

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 6, 2025 65:47


In this special crossover episode of CleanLaw and Shift Key, Heatmap's weekly podcast on decarbonization and the shift away from fossil fuels, EELP's Founding Director Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Shift Key hosts Robinson Meyer, the Founding Executive Editor of Heatmap News, and Jesse Jenkins, Professor of Energy Systems Engineering at Princeton University.  They discuss the Trump administration's proposed finding that that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are not dangerous pollutants and the potential for EPA to soon surrender its ability to regulate heat-trapping pollution from cars and trucks, power plants, and factories. They also talk about whether Trump gambit will work, the arguments that the administration is using, and what it could mean for the future of U.S. climate and energy policy. Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/CleanLaw_EP107-Transcript.pdf

Columbia Energy Exchange
A Reckoning for Core US Climate Finding

Columbia Energy Exchange

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 5, 2025 40:10 Transcription Available


The US Environmental Protection Agency plans to rescind the foundation of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.  Eliminating the so-called “endangerment finding” is a key part of President Trump's efforts to reverse Obama- and Biden-era climate policy. The finding was also targeted in the conservative Project 2025 strategy to reshape the federal government. But the rollback won't happen without a fight, and the endangerment finding has held up to past legal challenges. Meanwhile, international courts are moving in the opposite direction. The International Court of Justice recently ruled that countries have legal obligations to address climate change and that fossil fuel subsidies could constitute "internationally wrongful acts." So what would overturning the endangerment finding mean for US climate policy? What legal and scientific arguments is the administration using? And how do these conflicting domestic and international trends shape the future of energy and climate policy? This week, Bill speaks to Michael Gerrard about how the EPA is rescinding its own ability to regulate greenhouse gases. Michael is the founder and faculty director of Columbia's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Before joining Columbia in 2009, Michael practiced environmental law in New York for three decades. Credits: Hosted by Jason Bordoff and Bill Loveless. Produced by Mary Catherine O'Connor, Caroline Pitman, and Kyu Lee. Engineering by Gregory Vilfranc.  

Houston Matters
William Shatner (July 31, 2025)

Houston Matters

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 31, 2025 50:07


On Thursday's show: Actor William Shatner talks with us ahead of an appearance in Houston tonight at House of Blues where he'll share stories from his career following a screening of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.Also this hour: The Trump administration this week announced plans to walk back a 2009 EPA finding that has since been the scientific and legal foundation behind regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. We discuss the legal and practical implications of such a rule change on climate policy and industry here in the Houston area.Then, we learn how zoning shapes cities from Sara Bronin, who grew up in Houston -- a city famous for having no zoning. That's the subject of her book, Key to the City.And we visit the Genuine Cup, a soccer tournament happening this week in Houston for athletes with intellectual and developmental disabilities on teams from all over the world.

X22 Report
Cyber Attacks, Tsunami Of Information,Did Trump Just Trap Obama With Presidential Immunity? – Ep. 3698

X22 Report

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2025 92:56


Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:17532056201798502,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-9437-3289"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");pt> Click On Picture To See Larger Picture Countries limited their CO2 production to save the planet, all they did was. shift everything to China, Trump is now shutting down Obama's climate programs. Trump's economy explodes and the D's/fake news/Fed don't know how to counter the narrative, they tried but it failing. Trump is dividing the Fed and setting everything up for the new economy. Hawaii was going to get hit with a Tsunami because of a major earthquake. Did Trump post Tsunami to let us know that a massive amount of info is going to be dropped? Different countries and the US have have been hit by a cyber attack. The fake news/D's are trying their best to spin the Russia evidence and they are losing to the facts. Did Trump trap Obama with Presidential immunity?   Economy https://twitter.com/Geiger_Capital/status/1950545248825798729 Trump Axes Obama's Endangerment Finding During his two terms, Obama enacted several policies that subsidized uncompetitive, unneeded, and unwanted green energy while placing onerous regulations on fossil fuels. During his first term, Trump tried to reverse much of the Obama administration's anti-fossil fuel actions. However, there was only so much that could be done given the constant distractions Trump faced throughout his first term. One of the most consequential environmental regulations that Trump was unable to eliminate was Obama's “Endangerment Finding.” Most Americans have probably never heard of the Endangerment Finding. But this obscure rule has effectively allowed the federal government to label carbon dioxide a harmful “pollutant” that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Unfortunately, a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed the Obama administration to enact the rule in the first place. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that “greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act and that EPA must determine whether or not emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” Although this is the standard reading of the ruling, it is not totally accurate. According to the majority opinion, written by former Justice John Paul Stevens, “We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding, or whether policy concerns can inform EPA's actions in the event that it makes such a finding. We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute.” So, the 2007 decision did not determine that carbon dioxide is a harmful air pollutant. Rather, it granted that the EPA has the authority to determine if carbon dioxide is a harmful greenhouse gas based solely upon unequivocal data. Trump's EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, has made rescinding the Endangerment Finding a priority. “A lot of people are out there listening, they might not know what the endangerment finding is. If you ask congressional Democrats to describe what it is, the left would say that it means that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, carbon dioxide is an endangerment to human health. They might say methane is a pollutant, methane is an endangerment to human health,” Zeldin said on the Ruthless podcast. “That's an oversimplified, I would say inaccurate way to describe it,” Zeldin added. “The Obama administration said that carbon dioxide, when mixed with a bunch of other well-mixed gases, greenhouse gases, that it contributes to climate change. How much?

Public News Service
PNS Daily Newscast: July 30, 2025

Public News Service

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2025 6:00


100-degree temps scorch large swaths of U.S.; more than 150 million people under heat alerts; EPA moves to strip Clean Air Act of key emissions-fighting tool; NC General Assembly overrides veto of ICE collaboration bill; Ohio bill would create 911 disability database to aid first responders.

Public News Service
PNS Daily Newscast: July 30, 2025

Public News Service

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2025 6:01


100-degree temps scorch large swaths of U.S.; more than 150 million people under heat alerts; EPA moves to strip Clean Air Act of key emissions-fighting tool; NC General Assembly overrides veto of ICE collaboration bill; Ohio bill would create 911 disability database to aid first responders.

PBS NewsHour - Segments
EPA plans to overturn scientific finding used to regulate carbon emissions

PBS NewsHour - Segments

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2025 7:50


The EPA announced plans to overturn a key scientific finding that has been used to regulate carbon emissions since 2009. The endangerment finding determined that pollutants caused by burning fossil fuels endanger humans and can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. It’s the latest in the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back federal regulations. Stephanie Sy discussed more with Ben Geman. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Here & Now
Trump wants to scrap scientific finding key to fighting climate change

Here & Now

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2025 22:29


The Trump administration is trying to overturn the EPA's endangerment finding, which determined that greenhouse gas emissions can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Lisa Heinzerling, former senior climate policy counsel to the EPA administrator, joins us to discuss what this could mean for the U.S. government's efforts to fight climate change. Then, some of the homes still standing after fires tore through Southern California earlier this year are too toxic to live in. We speak with two Altadena homeowners about their experiences. And, the semicolon has been described as a "graceful pause" in writing. But this graceful punctuation mark is being forgotten. The Washington Post's Mark Lasswell talks about what the semicolon is for and what it means that it's fading away.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Soundside
"Attack scientific ignorance" - Inslee responds to EPA roll back

Soundside

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2025 20:58


A policy change from the Trump Administration could fundamentally change the federal government’s relationship with climate change. The proposal, announced on Tuesday, would overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s "endangerment finding” – which, in 2009, determined that greenhouse gases are harmful to people and the environment. It's the basis for emissions regulations on vehicles, power plants, and the oil and gas industries under the Clean Air Act. Washington has been at the vanguard of climate regulations – last year, voters chose to keep our carbon auction system in place, and our attorney general is fighting to preserve plans to ban sales of most non-electric vehicles in Washington by 2030. So, what could this EPA proposal mean for Washington’s climate policies? And where does Washington stand amid the flurry of deregulatory moves and cuts to green energy subsidies by the Trump Administration?Guest: Jay Inslee, former Governor of Washington state Related stories: In Game-Changing Climate Rollback, E.P.A. Aims to Kill a Bedrock Scientific Finding - NYT Democrats can win over young Trump voters. Here’s how. - Washington Post Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes. Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Grimerica Show
#720 - Tony Heller - Junk Climate Science, Green Slush, and Data Made Simple with Visitech.ai

The Grimerica Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 26, 2025 86:21


Tony Heller is back after many years and we jump right into politics, climate and energy. We also get into the Big Beautiful Bill, red states, AI and the models of climate change, population reduction, centralized databases, covid and WW3.   Then we talk about MAID, warp speed, Governments going bankrupt, magnetic pole shifts, automated meta analysis, software development, and editor of Lancet re research fraud. I am a lifelong environmentalist. I worked to get the Clean Air Act passed. I worked as a volunteer wilderness ranger I have degrees in Geology and Electrical Engineering, and worked on the design team of many of the world's most complex designs, including some which likely power your PC or Mac. I have worked as a contract software developer on climate and weather models for the US government. https://www.youtube.com/@TonyHeller https://x.com/TonyClimate https://realclimatescience.com/#gsc.tab=0   Become a Lord or Lady with 1k donations over time. And a Noble with any donation. Leave Serfdom behind and help Grimerica stick to 0 ads and sponsors and fully listener supported. Thanks for listening!! Help support the show, because we can't do it without ya.   Support the show directly: https://grimericacbd.com/ CBD / THC Gummies and Tinctures http://www.grimerica.ca/support https://www.patreon.com/grimerica http://www.grimericaoutlawed.ca/support www.Rokfin.com/Grimerica   https://www.eventbrite.com/e/experience-the-ultimate-hunting-adventure-in-alberta-canada-tickets-1077654175649?aff=ebdsshcopyurl&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=organizer-profile&utm-share-source=organizer-profile   The Eh- List site. Canadian Propaganda Deconstruction https://eh-list.ca/ The Eh-List YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@theeh-list?si=d_ThkEYAK6UG_hGX Adultbrain Audiobook YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@adultbrainaudiobookpublishing https://grimericaoutlawed.ca/The newer controversial Grimerica Outlawed Grimerica Show Check out our next trip/conference/meetup - Contact at the Cabin www.contactatthecabin.com Our audio book website: www.adultbrain.ca www.grimerica.ca/shrooms and Micro Dosing Darren's book www.acanadianshame.ca Grimerica on Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-2312992 Join the chat / hangout with a bunch of fellow Grimericans Https://t.me.grimerica https://www.guilded.gg/i/EvxJ44rk   Leave a review on iTunes and/or Stitcher: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/grimerica-outlawed http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/grimerica-outlawed Sign up for our newsletter https://grimerica.substack.com/ SPAM Graham = and send him your synchronicities, feedback, strange experiences and psychedelic trip reports!! graham@grimerica.com InstaGRAM https://www.instagram.com/the_grimerica_show_podcast/ Tweet Darren https://twitter.com/Grimerica Can't. Darren is still deleted. Purchase swag, with partial proceeds donated to the show: www.grimerica.ca/swag Send us a postcard or letter http://www.grimerica.ca/contact/ Episode ART - Napolean Duheme's site http://www.lostbreadcomic.com/ MUSIC https://brokeforfree.bandcamp.com/ - Something Old Felix's Site sirfelix.bandcamp.com - Should I

Power Line
The Three Whisky Happy Hour: High Crimes & Misdemeanors

Power Line

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 25, 2025 64:08


We lead this week's show with a few short news announcements, including new menu items from McDonalds to excite John, and the debut of a new podcast competitor: Hadley Arkes and his merry band at the James Wilson Institute have launched "The 'Natural Law Moment' Podcast," surely goaded by our constant mangling of his central arguments. WE hope to have a crossover episode with Hadley at some early opportunity, if we can ever get our difficult schedules sorted out.This round-robin format episode features a vigorous discussion of whether Obama and the Deep Staters (sounds like a bad bar-band, no?) are vulnerable to criminal charges for their obviously bad faith behavior in creating the Russia Hoax back in 2016, whether Obama is immune from prosecution because of the ruling last year of Trump v. US, and whether these actions properly rise to the level of "treason" as is alleged by DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Our second segment reflects on a pair of articles Steve and John wrote for a Civitas Outlook symposium last week on "Statemanship and the American Presidency." John Yoo's entry slobbers over the legacy of Andrew Jackson, whileSteve's entry, "Taming the 21st Century Prince," is a more philosophical exploration of the issue, and, contrary to the careless calumnies and reckless imprecations of John, does not contain a single reference to the Clean Air Act!And our final segment delves into a recent bold law review article by a young lawyer friend of ours, Deion Kathawa, entitled "'We the People' Are the Last Word on the Meaning of Our Constitution." His argument is bracing: Congress, because it is the political organ closest to the people, should have the power to override Supreme Court decisions. While agreeing with Kathawa's premise about the ultimate constitutional sovereignty of the people on account of the first principles of the Declaration of Independence, we're skeptical about his proposed remedy. What do listeners think? (We hope to have Deion on as a guest at some point soon to defend himself.)Finally, some new AI generated 3WHH custom poetry, and more revenge bumper music.

Everyday AI Podcast – An AI and ChatGPT Podcast
EP 574: The White House AI Action Plan: What was announced and what it means

Everyday AI Podcast – An AI and ChatGPT Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 24, 2025 34:47


The White House JUST released a 20-plus page AI Action Plan. The goal? Beat China. How does the AI Action Plan work? Is it actually just words without bite? And could this AI action plan set off a political firestorm? We dive in and find out!Try Gemini 2.5 Flash! Sign up at  AIStudio.google.com to get started. Newsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageJoin the discussion: Thoughts on this? Join the convo and connect with other AI leaders on LinkedIn.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:White House AI Action Plan OverviewKey Policy Shifts From Biden to TrumpFederal AI Regulation Deregulation DetailsFederal Contracts: Woke AI and Bias PoliciesData Center Expansion and Climate ImpactsU.S. vs. China AI Race StrategyLegal Challenges: State Rights and Federal ControlOpen Source AI vs. Bias RestrictionsBig Tech Climate Pledges vs. Coal ExpansionPrivate Investment Role in U.S. AI LeadershipTimestamps:03:37 AI Arms Race: U.S. vs. China09:06 AI Policy Shift: Speed vs. Safety11:47 U.S.-China AI Race Dynamics15:52 AI Regulations Face Legal and Political Challenges20:26 Challenges in Implementing AI Regulations24:19 "AI Policy Contradictions and Challenges"28:00 AI Bias Debate and GOP Legislation29:15 AI Bias Debate: Open Source Challenges34:07 AI Leadership and the U.S. ChallengeKeywords:White House AI Action Plan, AI action plan, Trump administration AI policy, Biden administration AI regulation, US AI dominance, global AI race, AI regulatory reform, deregulation of AI, open source AI, AI infrastructure, data centers, AI energy consumption, coal power AI, natural gas AI, nuclear power AI, federal AI contracts, unbiased AI models, woke AI, ideological bias in AI, US-China AI competition, AGI, ASI, big tech AI investment, Stargate project, Pennsylvania AI Hub, private AI investment, AI jobs risk, small businesses AI, climate friendly tech, environmental exemptions for AI, Clean Air Act, Water Act, Commerce Department AI evaluation, AI misinformation, AI safety risks, Senate AI legislation, federal-state AI funding, state AI regulation, legal challenges, First Amendment AI issues, civil rights groups AI opposition, People's AI Action Plan, Department of Defense AI contracts, EPA greenhouse gas rules, tech companies climate pledges, Microsoft carbon negative, Google net zero, open source versus bias restriction, free speech versus ideological control, Republican states AI regulation, AI procurement, federal agency staffing, US electrical grid and AI, global technological dominance, AI tournament, international AI export restrictions, Chinese AI technology, DSend Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info)

The Dirt: an eKonomics podKast
Smarter Sulfur Management

The Dirt: an eKonomics podKast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2025 25:54


In agriculture, we tend to look at each nutrient in isolation. It's time to break down our silos and take a closer look at how nutrients work together in our fields.   Join Mike Howell and special guest, Eve-Lyn Hinckley, as they explore Hinckley's recent research on sulfur. From increasing nitrogen use efficiency to changing soil pH, we explore sulfur's critical role in our soil and how it works together with various nutrients to support crop production. From the rising need for sulfur to tips for better and smarter sulfur management, we explore it all.   We also dig into the first global analysis of sulfur deficiency and Hinckley's role in spearheading the new research.   Looking for the latest in crop nutrition research? Visit nutrien-ekonomics.com    Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@NutrieneKonomics 

Power Line
The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Gala July 4 Special Edition

Power Line

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 4, 2025 66:47


The 3WHH bartenders take time away from the news headlines and court cases to take up some aspects of patriotism (but also with a tutorial for John about the mellotron!).  We start with an origin story of sorts for John himself, as he is an immigrant to the U.S., and as such provides a good reminder of how immigration ought to be understood and practiced. From there, Lucretia meditates on the curious recent survey results showing that love of country among Democrats has precipitously declined over the last decade or so. We agree that our dessicated education system has a lot to do with this—did we really think the Howard-Zinnification of our history would be without consequences?—but we need to wonder why Republicans seem to be immune to these calumnies against our great country. Lucretia fingers the Progressives, and that leads to the final gonzo segment for the holiday, where Steve settles scores from slanders against him when he missed an episode three weeks ago, and makes the evidently futile attempt to school John about the mellotron and the inherent greatness of the brief shining moment of progressive rock—"rock and roll that went to college," as Jody Bottum calls it—in the early 1970s, which, come to think of it, is when the Clean Air Act was first enacted.So come for the patriotism (and a sharp and unexpected argument about Daniel Bell), and stay for the awesome music!

Supreme Court Opinions
Environmental Protection Agency v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, L.L.C.

Supreme Court Opinions

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2025 54:53


In this case, the court considered this issue: Should challenges by small oil refineries seeking exemptions from the requirements of the Clean Air Act's Renewable Fuel Standard program be heard exclusively in the U-S Court of Appeals for the D-C Circuit because the agency's denial actions are “nationally applicable” or “based on a determination of nationwide scope or effect”?The case was decided on June 18, 2025.The Supreme Court held that EPA's denials of small refinery exemption petitions from renewable fuel requirements must be challenged in the D-C Circuit because they are locally applicable actions based on determinations of nationwide scope or effect. Justice Clarence Thomas authored the 7-2 majority opinion of the Court.The Clean Air Act establishes a tripartite venue system for reviewing EPA actions. “Nationally applicable” EPA actions must be challenged exclusively in the D-C Circuit, while “locally or regionally applicable” actions ordinarily belong in regional courts of appeals. However, locally or regionally applicable actions that are “based on a determination of nationwide scope or effect” must be reviewed in the D-C Circuit if EPA finds and publishes that such basis exists. To identify the relevant “action” for venue purposes, courts must look to the specific statutory authority EPA is exercising rather than how EPA packages its decisions. Each EPA denial of an individual refinery's exemption petition constitutes its own “action” because the Clean Air Act allows each small refinery to petition EPA separately and requires EPA to act on each petition. An action is “nationally applicable” if it applies on its face throughout the entire country; alternatively, it is “locally or regionally applicable” if it applies only to particular places. EPA's denial of a single refinery's exemption petition applies only to that specific refinery in a particular location, making such denials paradigmatically locally or regionally applicable actions.The “nationwide scope or effect” exception applies because EPA's statutory interpretation and economic theory formed the core basis for its denials. A “determination” refers to EPA's justifications for taking action, and determinations have nationwide “scope” if they apply throughout the country as a legal matter or nationwide “effect” if they apply as a practical matter. An EPA action is “based on” such a determination only if that determination lies at the core of the agency action and forms the primary explanation for EPA's decision—requiring more than but-for causation. EPA's interpretation of “disproportionate economic hardship” and its RIN passthrough theory constitute clear determinations of nationwide scope because they apply generically to all refineries regardless of location. These determinations formed the core basis for EPA's denials because EPA used them to reach a presumptive resolution to deny all petitions, then considered refinery-specific factors only to confirm it had no reason to depart from this presumptive disposition. Where EPA relies on determinations of nationwide scope or effect to reach a presumptive resolution, those determinations qualify as the primary driver of its decision, making EPA's confirmatory review of refinery-specific facts merely peripheral by comparison.Justice Neil Gorsuch authored a dissenting opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, arguing that the Clean Air Act's substantive provisions do not call for EPA to make determinations of nationwide scope or effect when acting on individual small refinery hardship petitions, and that the majority's new test will make simple venue questions unnecessarily difficult and expensive to resolve.The opinion is presented here in its entirety, but with citations omitted. If you appreciate this episode, please subscribe. Thank you. 

Supreme Court Opinions
Oklahoma v. Environmental Protection Agency

Supreme Court Opinions

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 30, 2025 22:27


In this case, the court considered this issue: Does the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia have exclusive jurisdiction to review an Environmental Protection Agency action that affects only one state or region, simply because the EPA published that action alongside actions affecting other states in a single Federal Register notice?The case was decided on June 18, 2025.The Supreme Court held that the Clean Air Act requires that EPA state implementation plan (SIP) disapprovals be reviewed in regional circuit courts rather than the D-C Circuit when they are "locally or regionally applicable" actions not based on determinations of nationwide scope or effect. Justice Clarence Thomas authored the 6-2 majority opinion of the Court.The Court applied a two-step framework established in EPA v Calumet Shreveport Refining to determine proper venue under the Clean Air Act's venue provision. First, courts must identify the relevant EPA “action” and determine whether it is “nationally applicable” or “locally or regionally applicable.” An “action” under the statute means a particular exercise of EPA authority undertaken pursuant to a particular Clean Air Act provision, determined by reference to the underlying statutory provision rather than how EPA presents its decision. Here, EPA's disapprovals of Oklahoma's and Utah's state implementation plans constitute separate “actions” because the Clean Air Act treats individual SIP approvals and disapprovals as discrete actions under Section 7410. Each SIP disapproval applies only to the specific state that proposed the plan, making them “locally or regionally applicable” actions—the prototypical example of such actions under the statute.Because the SIP disapprovals are locally or regionally applicable, the Court proceeded to the second step: determining whether the “nationwide scope or effect” exception applies to require D-C Circuit review. This exception requires that EPA's action be “based on a determination of nationwide scope or effect” and that EPA find and publish this basis. Although EPA made the required finding, the Court held that EPA's disapprovals were not actually based on determinations of nationwide scope or effect. The exception applies only when “a justification of nationwide breadth is the primary explanation for and driver of EPA's action.” Here, EPA's disapprovals resulted from predominantly fact-intensive, state-specific analysis of each SIP's contents, producing unique lists of deficiencies for each state. The four nationwide determinations EPA cited—including use of updated modeling and a 1% contribution threshold—were merely analytical tools that aided EPA's review rather than primary drivers of the disapprovals.Justice Neil Gorsuch authored a concurring opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, agreeing with the judgment but following a different analytical path as explained in their dissenting opinion in a companion case, Environmental Protection Agency v Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC.The opinion is presented here in its entirety, but with citations omitted. If you appreciate this episode, please subscribe. Thank you. 

Columbia Energy Exchange
California's Clean Air Conundrum

Columbia Energy Exchange

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 24, 2025 49:03


California has long led the nation in pioneering clean air regulations, from grappling with smog to setting ambitious zero-emission vehicle mandates. The Golden State's unique authority under the Clean Air Act has allowed it to set emissions standards that exceed federal requirements. Around a dozen other states have followed California's lead. But that leadership now faces an unprecedented challenge. Last month, Congress voted to revoke three Clean Air Act waivers that the Biden administration had granted California. It was the first time in over sixty years that federal lawmakers blocked any of California's dozens of car and truck rules, and the state quickly responded with a lawsuit. So what happens next? Can California slash emissions from the transportation sector without this federal support? If not, how can it reach its overall climate goals? And what does this political battle mean for the future of clean transportation—and states' abilities to regulate emissions—nationwide? This week, Bill Loveless speaks with Mary Nichols about California's role in clean air policy, the impact of losing its vehicle emission waivers, how the auto industry is reacting, and what all of this means for the future of climate action in America. Mary is a distinguished environmental lawyer and policy expert with over five decades of experience in clean air regulation. She held a number of senior posts in federal and state government, including a long tenure as chair of the California Air Resources Board. She is also a former distinguished visiting fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia SIPA. Credits: Hosted by Jason Bordoff and Bill Loveless. Produced by Mary Catherine O'Connor, Caroline Pitman, and Kyu Lee. Engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive producer.

Business Pants
Zaslav's payday, Tesla's robotaxi test, AI cash burn “for humanity”, tech boys love defense spending

Business Pants

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 20, 2025 62:35


Story of the Week (DR):Warner Bros. Discovery Reworks CEO Pay, Reducing David Zaslav's Massive Compensation DRDavid Zaslav will take a pay cut after Warner Bros. Discovery splits up—with a big hit to his bonusDavid Zaslav Is Getting a Pay CutWarner Bros to significantly slash CEO David Zaslav's pay packageWarner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav Pay to Drop After Company SplitDavid Zaslav's Pay To Be “Substantially” Lowered Ahead Of Split, WBD Says, But CEO Will Still Reap RewardsIf Zaslav hits 100% of his operational and financial goals in the first year after the split, his target pay will be $16.5mn, compared with $37mn in the current contract. If he hits 200% of the targets, it will be as high as $30mn, the company said on Monday.However, the bulk of Zaslav's future pay will be based on stock options after shareholders rebuked a model based on free cash flow generation.The securities filing made late on Monday said the beleaguered media boss would receive about 24mn in WBD shares that could be purchased for the current $10.16 price.If the share price were to double, the package could eventually be worth nearly $250mn.Two weeks after 60% of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders rejected CEO David Zaslav's $52M pay plan, the Compensation Committee restructured his plan using Hollywood's latest CGI, special effects, and most seasoned stunt doubles: his new plan reduces his annual pay targets significantly–from $37M to $17M if he hits 100% of his targets–but the devil is in the details as he is eligible for $37M if he reaches 200% of his targets and is getting a massive option grant of 21 million shares at an extremely low strike price of around $10 per share, giving him the theoretical opportunity to make $1.4B if Warner Brothers' share price regains its 2021 high of $77.Boeing's longest-tenured director Lynn Good joins the Board of Morgan Stanley just two days after the crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner in India killed more than 200 people.Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says his company is a 'convenient scapegoat' as European cities protest overtourism“In Barcelona, housing prices rose 60% over the past decade, but Airbnb listings actually decreased. So we can't be the culprits.”Corporate Italy lacks female CEOs, stock exchange head warnsClaudia Parzani, the head of Milan's stock exchange: Italy lacks women in position of leadership and that's a cultural issue that the business community needs to fix: “Last year we probably reached the lowest level of female CEOs leading listed companies at Milan's Stock Exchange.” Of course the article provided no data.Australia's highest-paid CEOs revealed — and the one woman on the listShemara Wikramanayake, the only woman in the top 20, made $30 million as CEO of Macquarie Group.Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):DR: What Is a ‘Fridge Cigarette'? A New Term for Diet Coke Gains Traction. MM DR MM: Lawyers Just Discovered Something About Meta's AI That Could Cost Zuckerberg Untold Billions of DollarsIt spits out large portions of books verbatimMM: Disturbing Test Shows What Happens When Tesla Robotaxi Sees a Child Mannequin Pop Out From Behind a School BusAssholiest of the Week (MM): Musk's xAI Burns Through $1 Billion a Month as Costs Pile Up DRxAI: $12bn/yr burnWe build AI specifically to advance human comprehension and capabilities.Musk says SpaceX vision for Mars will save humanity as he continues to push human extinction fearsOpenAI: $5bn/yr burnOpenAI is an AI research and deployment company. Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.Anthropic: $3bn/yr burnWe strive to make decisions that maximize positive outcomes for humanity in the long run.Act for the global good.Low end estimate to end world hunger per year: $7bnWorld Bank estimate for clean water for all humanity: $150bn/yearNumber of US households without water access: 19mCompliance costs for Clean Air Act: $65bn/yrAnd the great AI investment is getting us…Lowe's CEO says young workers should stay away from the corporate office and close to the cash register"AI isn't going to fix a hole in your roof," Lowe's CEO Marvin Ellison said. "It's not going to respond to an electrical issue in your home. It's not going to stop your water heater from leaking."Amazon CEO tells employees to expect cuts to white-collar jobs because of AIAs ChatGPT Linked to Mental Health Breakdowns, Mattel Announces Plans to Incorporate It Into Children's ToysSeems like, like all tech bro toys, they start with “good of humanity” and end with “rich”Dario Amodei net worth: 1.2bnMusk net worth: 406bnAltman net worth: 1.8bnSpotify's Daniel Ek leads $694 million investment in defense startup Helsing DRPalantir, Meta, OpenAI execs to commission into Army reserve, form ‘Detachment 201'OpenAI wins $200 million U.S. defense contractSpeaking of tech bro middle school manbabies… ever notice how when they're done building their “innocent” empire (paying for things online! 3d goggles! Internet friends!), at some point while swimming in their dual class billions they invest in “defense”?Is it just that middle school boys love things that blow up? Is it really so simple that they all stopped maturing at age 13?Headliniest of the WeekDR: Dimon: CEOs can't expect "everything to be constantly easy"DR: On Juneteenth, Trump says the US has 'too many' holidays "Too many non-working holidays in America … The workers don't want it either!"MM: Jamie Dimon says creating a functional workplace means firing 'a—holes'Who Won the Week?DR: Airbus. Because it's not Boeing.MM: RFK Jr - attacking pharma ads? Good. Healthy Starbucks? Good. Not being involved in starting world war III with Iran? Good. OMG, RFK Jr won the week… PredictionsDR: Tech CEOs start wearing military hats with the main decal being a digital number representing their wealth calculated to the second based on current share price; gold stars representing how many votes per share their class B holdings represent; and stripes represent how many years of college they did NOT attend: 3 stipes meaning they dropped out 2nd semester of first yearMM: Boeing's Ortberg, after reading this paper (Chief executive officer (CEO) Machiavellianism and executive pay.) on how CEOs who act like Machiavelli suggested are successful, decides to fire HALF of Boeing, and give the other half donuts on Fridays in the breakroom because, “...any cruelty has to be executed at once, so that the less it is tasted, the less it offends; while benefits must be dispensed little by little, so that they will be savored all the more.”

Rich Zeoli
Far-Left Senator Kicked Out of News Conference After Humiliating Himself

Rich Zeoli

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2025 33:53


The Rich Zeoli Show- Hour 1: 3:05pm- On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed joint Congressional resolutions which will block California from enacting its ban on gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035—revoking a federal waiver allowing states to set their own tailpipe emissions standards under the Clean Air Act. Unsurprisingly, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) immediately released a statement announcing California will legally challenge the resolutions: “We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a President who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters.” 3:15pm- Want to see the most deranged protester in all of Los Angeles? I think we have found her! The woman—who is carrying a leaf blower—vociferously proclaims that Los Angeles belongs to Mexico and tells Donald Trump to suck a body part that women don't have! Plus, she says that Trump is only interested in deporting illegal migrants so that he can get revenge on Selma Hayek—who she claims rejected Trump's romantic advances. 3:20pm- During a news conference on Thursday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was berated by Sen. Alex Padilla as she attempted to highlight the Trump Administration's removal of dangerous criminals residing in the U.S. unlawfully. Padilla was so disruptive that he needed to be escorted out of the room by security. 3:45pm- Sen. Dave McCormick—United States Senator from Pennsylvania—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss Amazon investing $20 billion in rural Pennsylvania for AI infrastructure, anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Rich Zeoli
Trump/Congress Block California from Banning Gas-Powered Vehicles

Rich Zeoli

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2025 171:26


The Rich Zeoli Show- Full Episode (06/12/2025): 3:05pm- On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed joint Congressional resolutions which will block California from enacting its ban on gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035—revoking a federal waiver allowing states to set their own tailpipe emissions standards under the Clean Air Act. Unsurprisingly, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) immediately released a statement announcing California will legally challenge the resolutions: “We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a President who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters.” 3:15pm- Want to see the most deranged protester in all of Los Angeles? I think we have found her! The woman—who is carrying a leaf blower—vociferously proclaims that Los Angeles belongs to Mexico and tells Donald Trump to suck a body part that women don't have! Plus, she says that Trump is only interested in deporting illegal migrants so that he can get revenge on Selma Hayek—who she claims rejected Trump's romantic advances. 3:20pm- During a news conference on Thursday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was berated by Sen. Alex Padilla as she attempted to highlight the Trump Administration's removal of dangerous criminals residing in the U.S. unlawfully. Padilla was so disruptive that he needed to be escorted out of the room by security. 3:45pm- Sen. Dave McCormick—United States Senator from Pennsylvania—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss Amazon investing $20 billion in rural Pennsylvania for AI infrastructure, anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 4:05pm- Breaking News: The House of Representatives has passed a recissions package that will claw back billions of dollars in federal funding to NPR and PBS. The package will now head to the Senate. 4:15pm- Who is funding the left's “No Kings” protests? Walmart heiress Christy Walton—the widow of John T. Walton, son of Walmart founder Sam Walton—funded a full-page advertisement in The New York Times promoting a nationwide protest against President Donald Trump's Flag Day celebration in Washington D.C. The New York Post notes that Christy Walton has no role in Walmart's operations but has a net worth of over $19 billion. Rich notes that it's important to remember Walmart and its employees have played absolutely no part in this—and shouldn't be financially punished via a boycott for an heiress's far-left ideology. 4:40pm- The No Kings protest is expected to occur in numerous cities across the country this Saturday—including Philadelphia. Will District Attorney Larry Krasner prosecute protesters that turn violent? Nope! 5:05pm- Frannie Block—Reporter for The Free Press—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss her latest article, “Reading, Writing, and Racism: The Three R's of Philly Public Schools.” You can read the full article here: https://www.thefp.com/p/philadelphia-radical-curriculum-racism-israel. 5:20pm- The No Kings protest is expected to occur in numerous cities across the country this Saturday—including Philadelphia. Will District Attorney Larry Krasner prosecute protesters that turn violent? Nope! During a press conference on Thursday, Krasner shamelessly compared President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. 5:40pm- During a news conference on Thursday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was berated by Sen. Alex Padilla as she attempted to highlight the Trump Administration's removal of dangerous criminals residing in the U.S. unlawfully. Padilla was so disruptive that he needed to be escorted out of the room by security. 5:45pm- What are Matt's top 3 favorite Martin Scorsese films of all time? Rich and Justin are disgusted by the list…but, sadly, not surprised. 6:05pm- Daniel Turner— Founder and Executive Director of Power the Future—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss President Donald Trump signing joint Congressional resolutions which will block California from enacting its ban on gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. ...

City Cast Pittsburgh
Downtown Protests, Brand New Bridge & More Sick Leave

City Cast Pittsburgh

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2025 46:31


Pittsburghers are bookending the week with Downtown protests, from an anti-ICE rally to "No Kings" gatherings. In honor of the U.S. Open, we're digging into the history of Oakmont's golf course. It's a notoriously hard course – and the owner designed it to punish a bad shot. Plus, we're excited about a new bridge, and we're sharing your thoughts on increasing paid sick leave for employees in the city and why our county health department's stacked with air quality workers.  Notes and references from today's show: Joining Los Angeles protesters and others, Pittsburgh union members and officials rail against ICE actions [PublicSource] Pittsburgh-area agencies officially helping ICE [Axios Pittsburgh] What Actually Happens During an ICE Raid? [City Cast Pittsburgh] Lo que realmente ocurre durante una redada de ICE [City Cast Pittsburgh] Pittsburgh Police Policies and Procedures: "Unbiased Policing" [City of Pittsburgh] Mayor Gainey speaking at the rally Downtown [Twitter] Casa San José Resources; phone number: 412-736-7167 [Casa San José] Pittsburgh to join nationwide anti-Trump protests [Axios Pittsburgh] Pittsburgh's Paid Sick Leave Bill, Explained [City Cast Pittsburgh] The road to the Clean Air Act passes through Pittsburgh [WESA] A Brief History of Oakmont Country Club [Pittsburgh Magazine] Änna Bencivenga's posts about the U.S. Open [LinkedIn here and here] Golf with Us program [Youth on Course] Not on Our Dime responds to a Jewish Federation lawsuit seeking over $80k in legal fees [City Paper] Carnegie Mellon Alumnae Earn 2 2025 Tony Awards [Carnegie Mellon] New Pittsburgh Pedestrian Bridge Opens Between Brighton Heights and Riverview Park [Pittsburgh Magazine] Park & Playground Improvements [City of Pittsburgh] Pittsburgh Celebrates Juneteenth 2025 with Monthlong Events [City of Pittsburgh] Pittsburgh preparing for month of Juneteenth events; independent celebration still awaiting permit [TribLive] The Frick Pittsburgh's Clayton mansion—now a Nationally Registered Historic Place—undergoes $10 million preservation effort [The Frick] Learn more about the sponsors of this June 13th episode: Bike PGH Tree Pittsburgh Heinz History Center Become a member of City Cast Pittsburgh at membership.citycast.fm. Want more Pittsburgh news? Sign up for our daily morning Hey Pittsburgh newsletter. We're also on Instagram @CityCastPgh! Interested in advertising with City Cast? Find more info here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The LA Report
Judge blocks troop deployment in LA, Padilla removed from press conference, Trump blocks CA Clean Air Act rules— The P.M. Edition

The LA Report

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2025 5:19


*UPDATE: This episode of The L.A. Report was updated to reflect a federal judge's temporary restraining order against the use of military personnel in Los Angeles, which was issued after the initial P.M. Edition was published. A judge has temporarily blocked the deployment of the National Guard and Marines in the L.A. protests. Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a press conference today. And the Trump administration has moved to block California's rule ending the sale of new gas powered cars by 2035. Plus, more.Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.comVisit www.preppi.com/LAist to receive a FREE Preppi Emergency Kit (with any purchase over $100) and be prepared for the next wildfire, earthquake or emergency!Support the show: https://laist.com

District of Conservation
EP 503: President Trump Terminates CA EV Mandate

District of Conservation

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 12, 2025 19:28


In Episode 503 of District of Conservation, Gabriella discusses to important updates relating to the EPA: the official repeal of the Biden-era CA EV mandate and rule change to Clean Power Plan 2.0. Context on these developments: First, the Biden administration granted a Clean Air Act exemption to California to adopt CARB's Advanced Clean Cars II package mandating all new car sales by 2035 be electric. Second, the Biden administration would have forced the premature shut down of existing coal and new natural gas plants unless they were retrofitted with carbon capture technology that isn't viable yet. Tune in to learn more about both updates!SHOW NOTESCARB Zero-Emissions StandardsH.J.Res.87EPA Administrator Zeldin Celebrates President Trump Officially Ending California's Vehicle Waivers, Delivering Another Major Blow to the EV MandateHow Many Electric Cars Are There in the U.S.?EPA Proposes Repeal of Biden-Harris EPA Regulations for Power Plants, Which, If Finalized, Would Save Americans More than a Billion Dollars a YearEPA's Clean Power Plan Rule Prioritizes Net-Zero Over Grid Reliability⁠

Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern
191: A Climate Report Card on Trump 2.0 with Kiley Bense

Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2025 18:51


Can environmental rollbacks be reversed, or are we already too late? Inside Climate News reporter Kiley Bense examines President Trump's first 100 days in office. focusing on the effects of his environmental policy—including massive EPA funding cuts, the dismantling of federal agencies, and the weakening of environmental safeguards. Bense unpacks how these actions threaten progress on the climate crisis, undermine disaster response through FEMA restructuring, and put vulnerable communities at greater risk by defunding the LIHEAP program. You can find Kiley's work at insideclimatenews.org/profile/kiley-bense. If you want to help us reach our goal of planting 30k trees AND get a free tree planted in your name, visit aclimatechange.com/trees to learn how.

Washington in Focus
Trucking Industry Accused of ‘Undermining' Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate

Washington in Focus

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2025 12:43


(The Center Square) – As Congress contemplates repealing California's ability to impose stricter emission standards than the federal Clean Air Act, which is currently also implemented in Washington state, the trucking industry continues to receive criticism for not cooperating with its implementation. Meanwhile the trucking industry continues to reiterate its stance that the regulations are not based in the realities of existing technology. Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxx Read more: https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/article_4db973de-1bed-4e6a-9f22-5a6ce1a33fc7.html

The Dynamist
Permission to Build: How States Are Shaping our Energy Future w/ Thomas Hochman and Emmet Penney

The Dynamist

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2025 46:57


America's infrastructure future isn't being decided in Washington—it's being fought permit by permit in state capitals across the country. While politicians talk about building more, the real bottlenecks are happening where rubber meets bureaucratic road.From Donald Trump to Pete Buttigieg, everyone agrees: America has forgotten how to build things. But even if Washington cleared every federal rule tomorrow, states would still hold the keys to actually breaking ground. Whether it's Clean Air Act permits, water discharge approvals, or the maze of mini-NEPAs and local reviews, states issue most of the paperwork that determines if your project lives or dies.This isn't just red tape—it can be competitive advantage. States that master the art of streamlined permitting without sacrificing environmental standards can capture billions in reshoring investment. Digital dashboards, consolidated reviews, shot-clocks with automatic approvals—these bureaucratic innovations are becoming economic development superpowers.Federal dollars from infrastructure, CHIPS, and climate bills are queued up, but shovels aren't hitting the ground. From geothermal in California to advanced nuclear in Montana, nearly every clean technology faces its first real test at the state level. Joining us are Emmet Penney, Senior Fellow at FAI focusing on Infrastructure and Energy, and Thomas Hochman, Director of Infrastructure Policy at FAI. For more on what's working and what's not, check out their State Permitting Playbook and the new State Permitting Scorecard.

Rules of the Game: The Bolder Advocacy Podcast
Advocacy for Environmental Justice

Rules of the Game: The Bolder Advocacy Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 14, 2025 24:50


In today's episode continuing our eight-part series, we examine how nonprofits are effectively advocating for environmental justice. We'll analyze practical strategies for building awareness and securing advocacy funding while navigating the regulatory frameworks that govern nonprofit activism. Join us for a clear-eyed look at how organizations are making meaningful progress in environmental protection and climate action.    Attorneys for this episode   Tim Mooney  Quyen Tu  Susan Finkle Sourlis    Shownotes   Current Events / Executive Orders:  • Trump Administration Environmental Rollbacks  • Rescinded EPA's Environmental Justice Screening Tool (EJSCREEN)  • Repealed Biden-era executive orders on Justice40, climate equity, and cumulative impacts assessments  • Reinstated NEPA rules from 2019, reducing environmental review for pipelines, highways, and factories  • Revoked protections for sacred Indigenous lands (e.g., Bears Ears downsizing, drilling leases on Chaco Canyon perimeter)  • Impacts on Vulnerable Communities:  • Halted all EPA funding for community air monitoring programs in EJ-designated census tracts  • Suspended grants to community-based climate resilience projects  • Cut FEMA's BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) equity prioritization language  • Reopened refineries and power plants previously closed for Clean Air Act violations, especially in Black and Latino neighborhoods  • EPA DEI cuts:  • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced plans to cancel nearly 800 environmental justice grants, totaling over $1.5 billion, which were intended to support projects mitigating climate change impacts in vulnerable communities .  •  Additionally, the EPA is undergoing a reduction in force, affecting employees in its Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, as part of a broader effort to realign the agency's mission    ·      Non-Lobbying Advocacy o   Nonpartisan Advocacy 101: 501(c)(3)s cannot support or oppose candidates for public office, but they can… o   Educate the public about issues of importance to your organization. §  Waterkeeper Alliance is holding EPA Admin Lee Zeldin accountable for cuts to PFAS research. o   Hold a rally §  Memphis Community Against Pollution rallied to celebrate a victory for clean water, while turning its attention to a clean air fight against an Elon Musk-owned company's proposed data center. o   Initiate or participate in litigation §  AFJ member Earthjustice has sued the Trump administration's improper withholding of IRA grant funds for projects that included Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grants to install solar panels on small farms. o   Fund Advocacy §  Meyer Memorial Trust funded  41 organizations with EJ awards totaling $6.9 million in 2024 with a focus on frontline and indigenous communities   ·      Lobbying o   501(c)(3) public charities are also allowed to use unrestricted funds to engage in some lobbying activities. o   Tax Code Lobbying 101: Public charities can lobby, but they are limited in how much lobbying they may engage in. §  Insubstantial part test vs. 501(h) expenditure test. §  Under either test, lobbying includes attempts to influence legislation at any level of government. §  Track your local, state, and federal lobbying, and stay within your lobbying limits. o   State/local level lobbyist registration and reporting requirements may also apply when engaging in legislative and executive branch advocacy. o   Ballot measure advocacy (direct lobbying) could also implicate state / local campaign finance and election laws. o   Lobbying wins §  Hawaii just passed a first-of-its-kind climate tax on short-term accommodations to fund defenses against climate change fueled disasters. Sierra Club of Hawaii has been actively lobbying on climate change legislation for years. §  Ballot measure wins (h/t The Nature Conservancy) ·      California: $10 billion climate bond that funds climate resilience, protecting clean drinking water and preventing catastrophic wildfires.  ·      Washington: An effort to roll back the state's Climate Commitment Act was defeated. The CCA provides millions for conservation, climate and wildfire funding, including funding for Tribal nations and at-risk communities. ·      Minnesota: Renewal of the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund for another 25 years. The fund will provide $2 billion ($80 million per year from state lottery proceeds) to protect water, land and wildlife across the state. Resources – ·      Earth & Equity: The Advocacy Playbook for Environmental Justice ·      Public Charities Can Lobby (Factsheet) ·      Practical Guidance: what your nonprofit needs to know about lobbying in your state ·      Investing in Change: A Funder's Guide to Supporting Advocacy ·      What is Advocacy? 2.0  

RTP's Free Lunch Podcast
Deep Dive 307 - Confronting the Questions: A Discussion on the EPA's Proposed Revisions to Endangerment Finding

RTP's Free Lunch Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 12, 2025 61:40


Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required to regulate emissions that “cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” The Supreme Court held in Massachusetts v. EPA that greenhouse gases are considered pollutants under the Act, so whether they can be regulated depends on whether they endanger public health. The EPA issued the Endangerment Finding that greenhouse gas emissions cross this threshold in 2009. Any actual regulation of greenhouse gas emissions is issued by EPA separately, such as greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles. On March 12th, 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the EPA would be initiating “formal reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding in collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and other relevant agencies.” Join us Friday, May 9th, from 11am – 12pm EST, as our panel of legal experts discusses the various questions surrounding the proposed revisions, such as preemption, cost revision, and how these changes would be implemented. Featuring: Michael Buschbacher, Partner, Boyden Gray PLLC Richard Belzer, Independent Consultant Jonathan Adler, Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and Director, Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law (Moderator) Laura Stanley, Gibson Dunn, LLP

Brave New World -- hosted by Vasant Dhar
Ep 95: Peter Ward On The Evolution Of Life

Brave New World -- hosted by Vasant Dhar

Play Episode Listen Later May 8, 2025 69:53


In Episode 95 of Brave New World, Palaeontologist Peter Ward returns to explore life's evolutionary journey and examine compelling possibilities for its future direction. Useful Resources: 1. Peter Ward on Wikipedia and The University Of Washington. 2. Stephen Jay Gould. 3. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and Nature Of History – Stephen Jay Gould. 4. Cambrian Explosion. 5. Burgess Shale. 6. Nick Lane. 7. Oxygen: The Molecule That Made The World – Nick Lane. 8. Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution – Nick Lane. 9. David Catling on Wikipedia and the University Of Washington. 10. Eukaryote. 11. Lynn Margulis. 12. Carl Sagan. 13. Chemoreceptors. 14. My Octopus Teacher. 15. Pippa Ehrlich On The Mysteries of The Sea – Episode 77 Of Brave New World. 16. Methuselah Foundation and Methuselah Mice. 17. CRISPR. 18. Future Evolution – Peter Ward. 19. After Man: A Zoology Of The Future - Dougal Dixon. 20. Future Evolution with Alexis Rockman 21. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe – Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee. 22. Seth Shostak on Extraterrestrial Life – Episode 85 of Brave New World. 23. Drake Equation. 24. Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act. 25. Daniel J. Evans. 26. David Battisti 27. Edward O. Wilson 28. Biophilia – Edward O. Wilson Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. The subscription is free!

Green Connections Radio -  Women Who Innovate With Purpose, & Career Issues, Including in Energy, Sustainability, Responsibil
How Michigan Turns IRA Tax Credits Into Growth – Hilary Doe, Chief Growth Officer, Michigan

Green Connections Radio - Women Who Innovate With Purpose, & Career Issues, Including in Energy, Sustainability, Responsibil

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2025 45:40


“We did lots of infrastructure investments over the last handful of years to make sure our communities are in the best possible place they can be. And we complemented federal investment with workforce investment to ensure Michiganders are getting access to those kinds of roles, some of which didn't even exist previously. [This ensures] that Michigan communities could benefit from learning to be solar installers and get access to new economic income streams.” Hilary Doe on Electric Ladies Podcast The Justice Department is suing Michigan over its climate initiatives under the Clean Air Act. Michigan has the fastest-growing clean energy job sector in the U.S., with over 120,000 clean energy jobs. In addition, a recent study ranked Michigan at limited risk from climate change-related events, so it may attract millions of Americans who may relocate to escape extreme climate events. Listen to Hilary Doe, Michigan's first Chief Growth Officer (and the first in the country) on Electric Ladies Podcast with Joan Michelson. She describes how Michigan rapidly leveraged the Inflation Reduction Act to increase their climate resilience, economic growth and innovation. Now, Michigan is rated as one of the best places to live, work, raise a family and start a business. You'll hear about: Michigan's efforts to position itself as a climate-resilient and clean energy hub. The state's fast growing startup ecosystem and innovation centers, particularly in clean tech and mobility. The impact of climate change on businesses and the trend of "climate migration" to Michigan and the Midwest. Strategies for retaining and attracting talent, including new programs like "Make My Home". Plus, insightful career advice.  “Many folks start to experience frustration because they have built such a wealth of expertise and have so much to offer, but they might feel just stuck. In my experience, when I've been able to jump off that ladder and pursue something, a different context, a different platform, that lets me get unstuck. It's risky, but sometimes it just unlocks so much passion in an individual that to do exactly what you're meant to do and share all your gifts and be more successful than maybe you could have been in the other context.” Hilary Doe on Electric Ladies Podcast You'll also like: Tensie Whelan, Founding Director of NYU Stern on why sustainable business is good business.  Doreen Harris, President and CEO of NYSERDA, on how New York is leading the way to the clean energy future. Jennifer Granholm, 16th U.S. Secretary of Energy, gives three reasons why clean energy is here to stay. Sherri Goodman, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, on why climate change is an issue of national security. Joan Michelson's Forbes article on Communicating Creatively On Climate To Save Lives. Read more of Joan's Forbes articles here. More from Electric Ladies Podcast! JUST LAUNCHED: Join our global community at electric-ladies.mykajabi.com! For a limited time, be a member of the Electric Ladies Founders' Circle at an exclusive special rate.  Elevate your career with expert coaching and ESG advisory with Electric Ladies Podcast. Unlock new opportunities, gain confidence, and achieve your career goals with the right guidance.  Subscribe to our newsletter to receive our podcasts, articles, events and career advice – and special coaching offers. Thanks for subscribing on Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio and Spotify and leaving us a review! Don't forget to follow us on our socials Twitter: @joanmichelson LinkedIn: Electric Ladies Podcast with Joan Michelson Twitter: @joanmichelson Facebook: Green Connections Radio

RTP's Free Lunch Podcast
Explainer Episode 88 - How Congress Can Reform Environmental Regulation and the EPA

RTP's Free Lunch Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 17, 2025 56:48


In March of 2025, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released a major new publication, “Modernizing the EPA: A Blueprint for Congress.” This book explores numerous issues across the EPA and the statutes that it administers. The podcast discussion focuses primarily on how the EPA’s role has evolved, particularly as it relates to air regulation, including greenhouse gas regulation. In addition, the discussion highlights flaws and outdated aspects of the Clean Air Act and the need for Congress to reassert its lawmaking power. The lead author and co-editor of the book offers ideas on how Congress can refine the federal approach to environmental and climate policy. Listen in as Michael Buschbacher, Partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, interviews Daren Bakst, Director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment highlighting the key findings and recommendations in the publication.

director energy partner congress environment environmental reform regulation epa modernizing explainer cei clean air act competitive enterprise institute cei administrative law & regulatio environmental & energy law regulatory transparency projec
U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments
Environmental Protection Agency v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC

U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2025 103:22


A case in which the Court will decide whether challenges by small oil refineries seeking exemptions from the requirements of the Clean Air Act's Renewable Fuel Standard program should be heard exclusively in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit because the agency's denial actions are “nationally applicable” or “based on a determination of nationwide scope or effect.”

U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments
Environmental Protection Agency v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC

U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2025 103:22


A case in which the Court will decide whether challenges by small oil refineries seeking exemptions from the requirements of the Clean Air Act's Renewable Fuel Standard program should be heard exclusively in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit because the agency's denial actions are “nationally applicable” or “based on a determination of nationwide scope or effect.”

X22 Report
Trump Is Forcing The Shadow Government Into The Light, Liberation Day Starts April 2 – Ep. 3598

X22 Report

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2025 97:24


Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found Click On Picture To See Larger Picture The new PM of Canada is going to try to attack Trumps Tariffs with a carbon tax, this is going to fail big time. Trump shutsdown more of the climate hoax. Trump is now countering the recession narrative. Tariffs when implemented will counter the [CB] inflation. Trump with all of his EO is now forcing the shadow government out into the open. The light is now shining on them and the people can see who they are. This will get worse for the [DS]. The D's are trying to defend the criminal activity and the message is backwards. The [DS] is losing the information war. Trump has moved the Declaration of Independence into the Oval office. Liberation day starts on April 2.   (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); Economy D'oh Canada – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney Promises Industrial Carbon Taxes Will Stimulate Canadian Economic Sovereignty   Mark Carney getting elected to run Canada would be the greatest benefit to MAGAnomics in the United States.  The insufferable doofus is completely enthralled with the views, perspectives and ideologies of globalism. Prime Minister Carney outlined yesterday how he will increase the industrial carbon tax in order to align with U.K and EU trade partners on the issue of climate change. Taxing carbon, he says, is the key to unlocking excellent trade agreements with other ‘global trade partners' who can then fill the void created by disconnecting Canada from the USA economy. No, really, he said that. Carney believes it with all his heart. These economic comments come on the heels of Mark Carney telling French President Emmanuel Macron –in public– that Canada was the most European of countries outside the EU.  WATCH THIS (prompted):   Mark Carney's plan.  As stated in his tariff policy, the prime minister will take income from the Canadian side of the tariff equation (countervailing duties) to subsidize the impacted export sector.  Just like China and the EU did in '17, '18 and '19, the Canadian government plans to offset the difference to the U.S. consumer by subsidizing the exporter with import tariff income.  All of this is done to retain access to USA consumers. The final outcome, the U.S. purchaser is back to the original price of $70, only now that same outcome is evident with an invisible $50 tariff. This is what China tried to do. This is what the EU tried to do.  This is what Canada is now planning to do to retain access to the U.S. market while they look for alternatives. Source: theconservativetreehouse.com Trump EPA Pulls Massive Offshore Wind Boondoggle Permit Environmental Appeals Court Judge Mary Kay Lynch remanded a Clean Air Act permit back to the U.S. EPA, which was issued last September to Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind. The move closely follows President Donald Trump's Jan. 20 memo calling for a review of the federal government's “leasing and permitting practices for wind projects” and a temporary withdrawal of all areas on the outer continental shelf from offshore wind leasing. Source: dailycaller.com   https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1901786628995367222   -6% in 6 months -10% within 12 months. The maximum average drawdown in a downturn scenario has been 15% within 8 months. By comparison, the S&P 500 has rallied +10% within 6 months and +15% within a year on average if a recession was avoided. The Fed has a tough job ahead. https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1902021769516503211   https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1901994037982220342