Clean Energy Champions Win Control of Arizona’s Top Utility

Current conditions: Hawaii is bracing for flooding from its third kona storm this year after the other two dumped a combined six feet of rain on some parts of Maui’s mountains • A major landslide on Italy’s Adriatic coast has severed the A14 highway • Heavy rain in Azerbaijan deluged the capital city of Baku.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Liberal champions of clean energy win control of Arizona’s biggest utility

Arizona’s biggest public utility, the Salt River Project, just held an election for the seats on its board — and liberal champions of clean energy swept. A slate of candidates campaigning under the name Clean Energy Team will now hold an eight-to-six majority at the utility that serves power and water to millions of customers. The race drew national attention, and proved, according to The New York Times, “surprisingly contentious.” On one side were the Sierra Club and Hollywood climate activist Jane Fonda. On the other were local business leaders and Turning Point USA, the conservative group Charlie Kirk founded. While two candidates from the latter slate won seats, proponents of renewable energy will dominate policymaking at the utility for the first time. “We can show that the utility can be successful and profitable and still support renewable energy,” Randy Miller, a former board member who backed the clean energy slate and now serves on an advisory council for the board, told Politico. “It’s no longer a question about whether it’s possible.”

2. Iran War has already cost Americans $17 billion at the pump

We have all seen the viral photos of eye-popping numbers on price signs at Southern California gas stations. But the exact cost to American drivers nationwide hadn’t yet been quantified. Until now. Researchers at Brown University gave Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer a sneak peak at their new Iran War Energy Cost Tracker, a hub for the team’s analysis and data. The war has cost the U.S. economy about $17 billion solely by increasing prices for gasoline and diesel fuel, the estimates show. The higher prices amount to a hike of $129 per household so far. “If you think about an individual paying $1 or $1.50 more for gasoline, that’s often just a nuisance,” Jeff Colgan, an author of the analysis and a political science professor at Brown University, told Rob. “But as a country, we consume 370 million gallons of gasoline per day. So when you add that all up, this is more than just a nuisance for the country. This is a major cost.”

Get Heatmap AM directly in your inbox every morning:

3. Trump’s rare earths deal with MP Materials ‘is both too much and not enough’

When the Trump administration became the biggest shareholder in MP Materials last summer, Biden-era officials admitted to Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin that they were jealous of their Republican successors who marshalled the political will to experiment with quasi-nationalization. But at least one former official from President Joe Biden’s White House has a different take. “Bottom line: the MP deal is both too much & not enough,” Brian Deese, the former director of the National Economic Council, wrote in a post on X, announcing the findings of a new paper he co-authored at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The deal delivers unprecedented support to one firm, creating new risks without long-term resilience.”

Uranium Energy Corp., meanwhile, has started up production at its Burke Hollow mine in Texas. It’s the first new mining operation using in-situ recovery, a process that includes chemical leaching out of ore. It’s the first new facility of its kind in the U.S. in more than a decade, World Nuclear News reported.

Sign up to receive Heatmap AM in your inbox every morning:

4. Volkswagen swaps electric SUV production for gas guzzler alternative

Volkswagen is shifting production at its Chattanooga plant from the ID.4 electric SUV to the large Atlas SUV. The ID.4 will remain available throughout the U.S., and “future models are planned,” but the German automaker said it’s “exploring pathways for a new vehicle model to be assembled.” Instead, the facility will focus on churning out the Atlas, Volkswagen’s second-most popular vehicle. EVs “continue to challenge” the industry, requiring what the company called measured decisions. “The Chattanooga plant has been, and will continue to be, a cornerstone of Volkswagen’s strategy in the United States,” Volkswagen Group of America President and CEO Kjell Gruner said in a press release. “This strategic shift underscores the company’s commitment to Chattanooga and its workforce as we position the plant for long-term success and future product opportunities.”

5. Scientists map out U.S. groundwater

A national map showing the paper’s findings. Nature

A team of scientists at Princeton University and the University of Arizona produced what the Los Angeles Times called “the most extensive estimate of the country’s groundwater to date.” The researchers took data from about 800,000 wells and applied a machine-learning model to project the depth of the water table in each location. The findings, published in Nature, could help local policymakers decide how to handle overpumping from stressed aquifers. “Groundwater is out of sight and out of mind for most people,” Reed Maxwell, a hydrologist at Princeton and co-author of the study, told the newspaper. “Knowing how much we have will be helpful in knowing how to use it wisely.”

THE KICKER

The population of Antarctic fur seals, the smallest of the polar seals which live almost exclusively on the island of South Georgia, halved over the last 25 years, from 2.2 million adults in 1999 to 944,000 in 2025, Mongabay reported. Global experts now say half of the population loss is due to reduced food availability as warmer temperatures and shrinking sea ice spur large schools of krill, the seal’s main prey, into deeper and colder waters. To boot, the seals are facing more competition for their food. High-quality krill now appears in tins at supermarkets in New York City. But really demand is surging for use in fish farming.