Current conditions: Tornadoes, hail, high winds, and thunderstorms could hit a dozen states between Texas and the Great Lakes over Easter weekend • The highest peaks on Hawaii’s Big Island may get 3 to 5 inches of snow today • Cyclone Errol, the first storm to reach a Category 5-equivalent strength this year, has weakened and will bring wind and rain to Western Australia on Friday afternoon.
THE TOP FIVE
1. NOAA allows funding for regional climate centers to lapse, databases to go dark
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has allowed funding to lapse for regional climate hubs that serve 27 states, causing the websites to go dormant on Thursday. The climate centers “are housed at research universities and operate under contract with NOAA,” Bloomberg writes. Between the hubs’ creation in the early 1980s and 2025, Texas’ now-defunct Southern Regional Climate Center logged 190 weather disasters alone. As I wrote earlier this year, cutting exactly this kind of research can have “immediate — and in some cases, deadly — impacts on regular Americans.”
Also this week, NOAA updated its “Notice of Changes” list to include 14 databases it is decommissioning and that will no longer be available as of early to late May. These databases include a list of geothermal hot springs in the United States, an earthquake intensity database, and a coastal water temperature guide. Eos notes that while NOAA regularly prunes its databases, it did so “just seven times in 2024 and six times in 2023.”
2. Trump administration to take over renovation of Penn Station
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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Thursday that the Trump administration is taking over the renovation of New York’s Pennsylvania Station, one of the busiest transit centers in the world. “President Trump has made it clear: The days of reckless spending and blank checks are over,” Duffy said in a statement announcing the takeover, which he said was necessary due to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s “history of inefficiency, waste, and mismanagement.”
Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul said she’d personally requested the assistance from President Trump and praised the administration’s decision, calling it a “major victory for New Yorkers” because “the use of federal funds will save New York taxpayers $1.3 billion that would have otherwise been necessary for this project.” Tom Wright, the president of the Regional Plan Association, a civic think tank that has advocated for Penn Station’s renewal, also praised the decision, telling The New York Times that Trump “could name it after himself, if that’s what it takes.” Assemblyman Tony Simone, whose district includes Penn Station, took a more doubtful tone: “I am beyond skeptical that this federal government can manage a project of this size by seizing control while simultaneously slashing funding,” he said.
3. Resolving interconnection delays could reduce PJM customers’ bills by over $1,000 per year: report
The energy and economic consulting firm Synapse Energy and Evergreen Action, a left-of-center climate advocacy group, released an analysis this week of the benefits of making interconnection reforms to PJM, the regional transmission organization for 13 states in the mid-Atlantic region and Washington, D.C. According to their findings, if PJM takes “swift action” to resolve its interconnection queue delays, then by 2040:
- Residential customers could see a 20% reduction in their bills, with savings of $62 per year in the short term and $1,062 per year in the long term.
- The total cumulative PJM electricity system costs could decrease by $414 billion, representing a 24% decrease compared to the status quo.
- PJM could add an additional 57 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, and a further 117 gigawatts of battery storage.
- PJM could also gain 313,000 net additional jobs from the proposed reforms.
You can read the full analysis and more about the reforms here.
4. Hyundai pauses production of EVs in South Korea
Hyundai announced Thursday that it will be temporarily suspending production of its Ioniq 5 and Kona electric vehicles in South Korea due to U.S. tariffs and slowing demand, Reuters reports. The pause at the Ulsan facility will last from April 24 to 30, and follows a five-day pause in February at the same plant due to a decrease in backorders. The decision also comes after President Trump imposed a 25% tariff on imported vehicles and parts, as well as his announcement with Hyundai last month of a $21 billion investment in U.S. onshoring, EV writes.
5. More than 40% of Americans think media ‘exaggerates’ climate change
A new Gallup poll released this week found that 48% of Americans believe global warming will threaten them at some point in the future, a level that is consistent with Heatmap’s own finding that 44% of Americans already say they are “very” or “somewhat” affected by climate change. Perhaps more concerningly, though, Gallup’s findings also revealed skepticism among respondents regarding how global warming is being portrayed by the media. Forty-one percent of Americans now say the news “generally exaggerates” the seriousness of climate change, the highest number Gallup has recorded for that question in a decade and up from 37% last March. Another 38% said they believe the news underestimates the issue, while 20% said coverage generally strikes the right tone. Gallup’s poll was conducted by telephone between March 3 and 16 and reached a random sample of 1,002 adults; the margin of error was plus or minus 4%.
THE KICKER
New York City’s mandatory composting program, now in its second week, has been so successful that the city is opening a new giveaway site to accommodate demand for the “black gold” it produces.
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