Message From the Editor

In a big week for major pipeline decisions, Energy Transfer said, “We are not shutting in the line,” after a judge ordered the Dakota Access owner to stop the flow of oil by August 5. The decision came in a lawsuit from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, over whether the oil pipeline required a full environmental review. Sharon Kelly has the latest details on the company’s approach to this lawsuit.

The new NAFTA trade deal recently took effect and Martha Pskowski has the breakdown of how this agreement will lock in further dependence on fracked oil and gas amid a worsening climate crisis. Read the story.

“People, generations have died in South Philadelphia because of that oil refinery,” Carol Hemingway said of the now-shuttered PES refinery. “The buck stops now. We will not allow another company to come in here and do what they did.” Read the moving story of one Black community’s ongoing battle with a gas refinery’s legacy of pollution.
Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: editor@desmogblog.com.

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director
P.S. In case you missed it, Mark Olalde investigated the “house of cards” that’s supposed to be states’ financial backstop for cleaning up the dying coal mining industry.

Energy Transfer Launches Appeals Following Court Order to Shut Down Dakota Access Pipeline

— By Sharon Kelly (8 min. read) —

On Monday, July 6, a federal judge ordered the shutdown of the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) by August 5. The move follows a March judgment that ordered the pipeline to undergo a more thorough environmental review.

However, Energy Transfer, the pipeline's parent company, later revealed that the company was continuing to offer deals to oil companies to ship their product on DAPL during times when the pipeline is slated to be shut down. Today, the legal battle moved towards the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, after the judge denied a request to freeze the shutdown order.

New NAFTA Trade Deal Deepens Oil and Gas Dependency During Climate Crisis

— By Martha Pskowski (7 min. read) —

The coronavirus pandemic and record-low oil prices dealt a blow to the fossil fuel industry this year. But the new trade deal between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, known as the USMCA, will provide a boost as it replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The deal goes into effect July 1.

Reading between the lines of the 2,000-plus page deal, environmentalists say it is bad news for North America’s climate future. Far from addressing the crisis, the deal provides loopholes for oil, gas, and mining companies to operate across borders, and paves the way for U.S. companies to export even more fracked natural gas across the border into Mexico.

In the Shadow of Shuttered Philadelphia Refinery, Neighbors Recall Those Lost to Decades of Pollution

— By Sharon Kelly (11 min. read) —

The Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery was —until last year — the largest and oldest gasoline refinery on the East Coast. The week it was sold began with a community rally that also served as a makeshift memorial service.

On Monday, June 22, as Black Lives Matter protests continued nationwide, members of Philly Thrive, a local grassroots group, arrived outside the perimeter of the refinery complex in South Philadelphia. They posted “in memorium” placards bearing the names of deceased Philadelphians along the facility’s chainlink borders, handwritten fenceline memorials for departed members of the refinery's fenceline community. Speakers that day recalled less the fiery explosion that tore through the plant one year earlier and more the long-term harms caused by decades of fossil fuel production in the majority Black neighborhood.

'The Cost of Plastics Is Lives': House Oversight Hearing Highlights Environmental Justice Burdens of Plastic Production

— By Dana Drugmand (6 min. read) —

During a congressional hearing Tuesday, a plastics industry executive echoed a common refrain from the industry: “Plastic saves lives.”

However, for many communities of color living in close proximity to the petrochemical plants producing those plastics, the exact opposite is often true.

“It’s the people who live on the fenceline of [plastics] manufacturing facilities” who shoulder the health costs of plastics production, Monique Harden, Assistant Director of Law and Public Policy at the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, explained during that same hearing.

Report: Global Climate Lawsuits Against Governments and Polluters on the Rise

— By Dana Drugmand (6 min. read) —

Climate litigation is not going away any time soon.

Lawsuits demanding accountability and action on the existential threat of climate change continue to take hold across the world with some significant new developments and new cases emerging over the past year, according to a new report on trends in global climate change litigation.

That report, published July 3 by the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, provides an overview of climate change lawsuits around the world including key developments between May 2019 and May 2020. Grantham Research Institute maintains a database of global climate change lawsuits and in recent years has issued annual reports on trends in climate litigation.

Oil Industry and Allies Look to Pump Brakes on Democrats’ Plans to Move Transportation Off Petroleum

— By Dana Drugmand (8 min. read) —

This week Congressional Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives put forward policies, including passing a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill on July 1, aimed at cleaning up the number one source of carbon pollution in America — the transportation sector. The oil and gas industry and its supporters quickly weighed in, framing “the critical role” of the industry in addressing climate pollution and in some cases outright attacking these plans' efforts to move away from petroleum-powered transport.

The infrastructure bill comes on the heels of a new climate action plan released June 30 by the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. That plan offers a roadmap for mostly eliminating globe-warming greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. by 2050. Achieving zero emissions from the nation’s transportation sector is a key priority in this plan.

Error by Mining Giant Anglo American Undermines its Promise of No Glacier Impacts for $3bn Chilean Copper Project

— By Matt Maynard (12 min. read) —

Anglo American has undermined its plans for a controversial US$3 billion copper mine expansion beneath a Chilean nature sanctuary, 52 kilometres (32 miles) above Santiago in the Andean foothills. The multinational mining giant revealed an embarrassing technical blunder in its response to shareholders this May. According to Anglo American’s Environmental Impact Study (Spanish) released in July 2019, the first of six central design criteria for its Los Bronces underground mine expansion is avoiding impact to nearby glaciers, a critical freshwater supply already threatened by the climate crisis.

However, the mine’s design, DeSmog can now reveal, uses an entirely unrelated contamination measure for estimating impact to glaciers.

Democrats' New Climate Plan Says Polluters Shouldn’t Receive Immunity From Lawsuits for Climate Impacts

— By Dana Drugmand (5 min. read) —

On Tuesday, June 30, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, released a comprehensive action plan for tackling climate change.

Some environmental groups criticized the plan for lacking ambition and not directly targeting fossil fuel production. However, the Democrats' agenda does support a powerful provision for holding fossil fuel companies accountable for their contributions to the disastrously warming planet: Not granting them legal immunity from Congress.

‘Slam Dunk’ Study Finds Trump EPA’s Move Not to Tighten Air Pollution Standards Would Prematurely Kill 140,000 Americans

— By Dana Drugmand (7 min. read) —

A new study from public health researchers provides the strongest evidence yet that increased exposure to a type of air pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks that's known as fine particulate matter (PM2.5), or soot, can cause premature death. This peer-reviewed study of air pollution impacts on older Americans suggests that current air quality standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) do not protect public health, and that strengthening the standards could save over 140,000 American lives over a decade.

In praising this study as a “slam dunk,” one former EPA air pollution scientist warned that the Trump EPA, which is trying to maintain the current standards, “ignores it at their peril.”

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger is the founder and president of Environmental Progress, and the co-founder, along with Ted Nordhaus, of the Breakthrough Institute, where he served as president from 2003 to 2015. Nordhaus and Shellenberger have been described as “eco-pragmatists” and “ecological modernists” and have promoted technological advances such as nuclear energy as solutions to environmental issues like climate change. More recently, Shellenberger wrote an article where he suggested that while “climate change is happening,” it's “just not the end of the world,” and “not even our most serious environmental problem.” Shellenberger added, “I know that the above facts will sound like 'climate denialism' to many people. But that just shows the power of climate alarmism.”

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database or our new Koch Network Database.