Current conditions: Phoenix just marked its earliest day of temperatures eclipsing 100 degrees Fahrenheit in history, shattering the previous 1988 record by a week • Following weeks of Arctic temperatures, the Midwest’s big cities, including Chicago, Minneapolis, and Detroit, are seeing temperature rise to between 60 and 70 degrees this weekend • Tropical Cyclone Narelle is slamming into northern Queensland with winds as strong as 155 miles per hour.
THE TOP FIVE
1. 24 states sue the EPA over endangerment finding repeal
When the Environmental Protection Agency last month formally repealed the legal doctrine that underpins virtually all federal limits on carbon emissions, the Natural Resources Defense Council and a coalition of nonprofits swiftly banded together to sue the Trump administration over the decision. Now nearly half the nation’s states are mounting their own challenge. On Thursday, an alliance of 24 states and dozens of cities and counties filed a lawsuit against what Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo called “the most aggressive attack on environmental regulation that the president and his officials have yet attempted.” The lawsuit is expected to be consolidated into a single piece of litigation with the nonprofits’ case and will likely end up before the nation’s highest court, according to The New York Times.
“If the Supreme Court agrees with the EPA that the Clean Air Act does not apply to greenhouse gases, then there’s an argument that states are not precluded from” taking their own actions to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, as had been the case under previous interpretations of the law, Emily wrote last month. “But there’s a counter-argument that any state action to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions will necessarily impact tailpipe emissions of other pollutants, bleeding into areas where Congress has explicitly preempted states from operating.”
2. An Interior official is defying conflict of interest issues, report finds
When Karen Budd-Falen took a job in the first Trump administration in 2018, the rancher and lawyer recused herself from working on or even discussing grazing issues, given the conflict of interest with her private life. Now serving in a broader role as a senior adviser to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Budd-Falen “has been actively working on grazing-related issues since returning to Interior, including a longstanding dispute over beef and dairy cows at Point Reyes National Seashore and the agency’s recent overhaul of the National Environmental Policy Act that stands to benefit public land ranchers across the country,” according to a report in Public Domain, an investigative site focused on federal lands.
Budd-Falen previously drummed up controversy over a $3.5 million deal her family brokered with financial tranches that are tied to permits that the Interior Department would grant. Senate Democrats recently called for an investigation.
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3. Uber invests $1.2 billion in Rivian, with plans for a robotaxi fleet
The Rivian R2.Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Rivian
Uber’s taste for black cars brought droves of black Toyota Camrys onto city streets over the past two decades. Now the ridehailing giant could do the same for electric robotaxis — and now the company is betting on one electric automaker in particular. On Thursday, Rivian announced an over $1.2 billion investment from the ride-sharing company through 2031, as well as a deal for Uber to purchase between 10,000 and 50,000 autonomous R2 robotaxis. The fleet would first come online in San Francisco and Miami in 2028, and scale to 25 cities by 2031. “We’re big believers in Rivian’s approach — designing the vehicle, compute platform, and software stack together, while maintaining end-to-end control of scaled manufacturing and supply in the U.S.,” Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of Uber, said in a statement. “That vertical integration, combined with data from their growing consumer vehicle base and experience managing the complexities of commercial fleets, gives us conviction to set these ambitious but achievable targets.”
Electric trucking is getting another look, despite the Trump administration’s attacks on the sector. Zenobe Energy, a clean energy company backed by the investment giant KKR, announced Thursday that it purchased San Francisco-based Revolv for an undisclosed amount, Bloomberg reported. The startup operates 13 fleet charging facilities in California, and Zenobe said it wants to expand to create a national network.
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4. Seattle considers light rail cuts amid ballooning costs
Sound Transit — the Seattle metro-area train, ferry, and bus agency — is facing what KUOW called “a brutal financial future.” The transit authority said it can’t deliver on its promise to build Sound Transit 3, an historical expansion of its transit system, by 2046 as planned. With construction costs rising and money dwindling, the agency’s board met Wednesday to discuss options. Among them is cutting back on the light rail service that Sound Transit just expanded. In its announcement, the transit agency specifically cited the permitting process as a reason it couldn’t simply scale back its plans.
5. Constellation sells five power plants to LS Power for $5 billion
Constellation struck a deal to sell five power plants totaling 4.4 gigawatts of power to the developer LS Power for $5 billion. The stations are all located in the PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest grid and the one most heavily taxed by data centers coming online, Utility Dive reported. The utility giant, which operates the country’s largest nuclear fleet, was required by the Department of Justice to sell off some properties to avoid an antitrust probe into its purchase of the gas and geothermal power giant Calpine.
The Calpine acquisition made Constellation, which was already the nation’s largest nuclear reactor operator, the country’s top geothermal energy producer as well. As I reported last year for Heatmap, the big investor behind XGS Energy — one of the next-generation geothermal companies — is Constellation’s venture arm.
THE KICKER
Recycling wastewater to irrigate crops is a popular way to make the most of limited fresh water supplies. But new research shows that crops such as tomatoes, carrots, and lettuce irrigated with wastewater have trace amounts of medications including antidepressants and seizure drugs. Here’s the upside: the tomatoes and carrots themselves contained much lower levels than the leaves.
The Rivian R2.Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Rivian
