EPA Rescinds PFAS Protections in the Name of ‘Flexibility’

Current conditions: Today marks the start of the Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season, and meteorologists are monitoring two potential areas of tropical development • Millions in the Great Plains and Eastern U.S. face risks of thunderstorms, large hail, and tornadoes • Steady rain continues Thursday in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where at least 100 people have died in flash floods.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump administration backtracks on promise to protect drinking water from forever chemicals

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it plans to rescind four Biden-era limitations on pollutants in drinking water. Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, also called PFAS or “forever chemicals,” are linked to many serious health issues, including certain cancers; as I’ve covered, they are common in products advertised as stain-proof, nonstick, and water repellent. The EPA’s decision follows Administrator Lee Zeldin’s claim less than two weeks ago that “I have long been concerned about PFAS” and “we are tackling PFAS from all of EPA’s program offices,” E&E News reports.

In the Wednesday announcement, Zeldin backpedaled from his initial call for action, claiming the agency is looking into “common-sense flexibility in the form of additional time for compliance.” He also pushed back on claims that the agency is weakening PFAS standards, per The Washington Post, saying the EPA is looking into revising the limits and that “the number might end up going lower, not higher.” Water utilities, which have balked against the high cost and difficulty of filtering PFAS out of an estimated 158 million Americans’ drinking water, praised the EPA’s delay as “the right thing.”

2. Security experts discovered ‘unexplained’ pieces of communication equipment in Chinese-made solar power inverters

U.S. energy officials have discovered “unexplained communication equipment” in some Chinese-made solar inverters, Reuters reports. Inverters help connect solar panel systems to the electric grid and allow utilities to conduct remote updates and maintenance; because China makes most inverters, power companies typically use firewalls to prevent foreign communication with the devices.

Security experts reportedly found the rogue devices during inspections. Though the sources who spoke with Reuters did not share the manufacturers of the inverters, similar communication devices were reportedly also found in some batteries from “multiple Chinese suppliers” over the past nine months. A spokesperson at the Chinese embassy in Washington pushed back on Reuters’ report, saying, “We oppose the generalization of the concept of national security, distorting and smearing China's infrastructure achievements.”

3. Northwest data centers could ‘cannibalize’ clean power in states with lower environmental protections: report

Sightline Institute

The Northwest has one of the country’s highest concentrations of data centers due to the region’s tax breaks — including low or no property taxes for many in Oregon and sales and use exemptions on equipment purchases and installations in Washington — as well as its below-average renewable power prices. But utilities “working across state lines could shift renewable resources to serve Northwest data centers, making up the difference by burning more coal and gas in places that lack strong environmental protections,” Emily Moore, the director of climate and energy at the sustainability think tank Sightline, writes in a new report.

One such example is what’s being done by Avista, an electricity service in eastern Washington and western Idaho. To meet the needs of a new 200 megawatt data center in Washington, as well as to comply with the state’s Clean Energy Transformation Act, “the company indicated it would add 95 megawatts of gas capacity in Idaho and then shift wind resources that would have served Idaho customers to Washington,” Moore writes. In essence, Washington is “cannibalizing” clean power currently serving Idahoans, and Avista is polluting “more in Idaho to make up the difference.” The report goes on to propose policy paths for Northwest leaders, including accelerating the buildout of the region’s congested electric transmission system, since “a right-sized modern grid could let data centers tap wind from Montana or sun from California instead of encouraging them to locate in states with no commitment to clean power.” You can read Sightline’s full report here.

4. BP chief economist warns China is winning the ‘new energy’ race

Michael Cohen, BP’s chief U.S. economist and head of oil and refining, warned this week that China is winning the “new energy” race with its clean technology supply chains and electric vehicles, Fortune reports. At the Enverus Evolve oil and gas conference in Houston, Cohen said the U.S. is at risk of failing “Econ 101” if it slow-walks on renewables due to resistance from the Trump administration, supply chain issues, and interest rates. He projected that global oil demand will peak in the next decade, with renewables rising from 15% to 30% of the global energy market between now and 2050.

A new report by Carbon Brief appears to back up Cohen’s analysis. The report says that renewable energy sources in China produced enough electricity in the first quarter of the year to “cut coal-power output even as demand surged,” with CO2 emissions down 1.6% year-on-year despite power demand growth. Carbon Brief adds that, if sustained, the findings would “herald a peak and sustained decline in China’s power-sector emissions.”

5. Trump family Bitcoin business adds personal stakes to energy policy

The Trump family is poised to have a fresh personal stake in U.S. electricity and energy policy as Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. plan to take their Bitcoin mining firm public, E&E News reports. According to the announcement earlier this week, American Bitcoin — co-founded by Eric Trump — will merge with Gryphon Digital Mining Inc., which is already publicly traded.

Initially a subsidiary of Hut 8, an energy infrastructure partner with more than 1,000 megawatts of energy capacity, American Bitcoin boasted that with the merger, it will achieve “mining leadership” by leveraging Hut 8’s “energy advantage, rapid execution, and proven team.” Cryptocurrency mining is highly energy-intensive, accounting for an estimated 2.3% of the nation’s electricity use last year, and President Trump’s aspirations to have it “mined, minted, and made in the USA” are part of what his administration has used to justify its energy emergency. With American Bitcoin, the Trump family is also “delving deeper into the energy space where federal policies under Trump intersect directly with access to electricity and fuels,” E&E News writes, noting that Eric Trump stated at the launch of the company last April that “We’ve got the best energy policy in this country. That policy is only getting better.”

THE KICKER

Penguin Random House

Nigerian author Abi Daré has won the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize for her novel And So I Roar. The book “follows fourteen-year-old Adunni from her life in Lagos, where she is excited to finally enroll in school, to her home village where she is summoned to face charges for events that are in fact caused by climate change.”