Current conditions: Floods in Saudi Arabia forced some schools to close • Nearly 50 fires were reported in Greece over 24 hours • Tornado alley could see more severe storms this afternoon.
THE TOP FIVE
1. Biden finalizes permitting reform rule
The Biden administration today finalized changes to an old environmental law, a move that could speed up the arduous permitting process for new clean energy projects. The 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires that all major federal infrastructure projects undergo an environmental review, but these reviews can run thousands of pages long and take years to finish, explained Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer, adding that “it takes 4.5 years on average to finish an environmental-impact statement.” Through the new Bipartisan Permitting Reform Implementation Rule, Biden seeks to make the process more efficient by:
- setting one- and two-year deadlines by which agencies must complete environmental reviews
- introducing page limits for the reviews
- creating a unified federal review process
- establishing one lead agency for handling reviews
The new rule says federal agencies must consider a project’s impacts on climate change, as well as environmental justice. It also reverses a 2020 overhaul carried out by former President Trump that the Biden administration called “legally questionable.” Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the changes “will help speed infrastructure and permitting, but without losing sight of the environmental and health benefits we need to protect.”
2. Report: Tesla eliminates entire Supercharger team
Two weeks after announcing it would slash 10% of its global workforce, Tesla appears to be making more cuts. According to The Information, CEO Elon Musk sent an email to senior staffers last night with the news that several high-level employees would be departing. Among them is Rebecca Tinucci, senior director of EV charging, along with her 500-person Supercharger team. Tinucci led the rollout effort of Tesla’s Supercharger network, positioning it as the predominant charging infrastructure in North America. Daniel Ho, director of vehicle programs and new product initiatives, is also out, and the public policy team is no more.
“Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction,” Musk reportedly wrote in the email. “While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so.”
“It makes absolutely no sense to lay off the Supercharger team,” said Jameson Dow at Electrek. “Supercharging is an incredible opportunity for Tesla, especially now that everyone else has adopted NACS. … This move, alone, would erode any confidence I had left in Tesla’s CEO – if I still had any.”
3. Major UK mortgage lender will deny home loans over flooding
A prominent mortgage lender in the United Kingdom will no longer offer loans on homes that are at risk of flooding, Bloomberg reported. Nationwide Building Society is UK’s the second-biggest mortgage provider, and is worried that flood-prone homes will become uninsurable and therefore unsellable. Weather-related insurance claims have been on the rise in the UK as climate change brings more frequent storms and severe flooding. The last 18 months have been the UK’s wettest on record. A new report finds that harvests of crops like wheat, barley, and oats in the country could drop by a fifth this year due to excessive rainfall.
4. Plastic treaty talks end with no production cap in sight
The latest meeting on a global plastics treaty has come to an end in Canada. While there was some meaningful progress on the draft text of an agreement (which must be finalized by the end of the year), deep divisions remain over whether the final text should include a cap on how much plastic can be manufactured. Environmental groups point out that plastic production has doubled in just 20 years and is set to triple in coming decades. Fossil fuel companies and oil-producing nations, naturally, prefer to promote plastic recycling instead of plastic reduction. As AFP explained, “plastic production is a significant driver of global warming because most plastic is made from fossil fuels.”
5. G7 nations tentatively agree to phase out coal plants by 2035
Energy and climate ministers from the Group of Seven wealthy nations have agreed to shut down their coal-fired power plants by 2035. The deal is expected to be finalized in Turin, Italy, today. It could afford some wiggle room to countries that remain heavily reliant on coal, allowing them to propose a timeline that is “consistent with keeping a limit of 1.5 Celsius temperature rise within reach.” Still, the move is seen as historic. “To have the G7 nations come around the table and send that signal to the world, that we, the advanced economies of the world, are committing to phasing out coal by the early 2030s is quite incredible,” said the UK’s Minister for Nuclear and Renewables Andrew Bowie. As CNN noted, G7 decisions often “trickle down or influence the wider G20, which includes other big emitters, like China and India, as well as major fossil fuel producers, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.”
THE KICKER
The land that makes up the Permian Basin, America’s biggest oil field, has subsided by as much as 11 inches since 2015 due to extraction operations.
