Fossil Fuels

Once a month for nearly two years, Evan Clark, the Waterkeeper at Three Rivers Waterkeeper, a water quality advocacy organization based in Pittsburgh, has traveled by boat along the Ohio River to Shell’s enormous new plastics plant in Beaver County.  This facility is a cracker plant, using ethane from fracked gas to make ethylene and […]

In late April, the Biden administration finalized a series of rules that would reduce emissions and pollution from the power sector. A week later, at Wyoming’s annual energy conference, those moves were met with frustration, dismay and, at times, downright defiance from politicians and fossil fuel company executives who spoke glowingly about the state’s “all […]

Livestock agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, but lawsuits against the industry for its role in the climate crisis are only now starting to land in courtrooms and could become critical tools for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A new analysis from researchers at Yale Law School, published Monday in the Columbia Journal […]

This article was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans—and engages with them—about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. STARR COUNTY—In 2009, on a plot of shrub-covered cattle land about 45 miles northwest of McAllen, Shell buried and abandoned a well it drilled to look for gas. […]

This article was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans—and engages with them—about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. JEFFERSON COUNTY—A concrete platform with fading blue paint marks the birthplace of the modern oil and gas industry in southeast Texas. Weather-beaten signs describe how drillers tapped the […]

On a November afternoon in 2022, a 57-year old well tapped into an underground natural gas storage reservoir in western Pennsylvania started leaking, fast enough that people a few miles away heard a loud, jet engine-like noise.  By the time the leak was stopped nearly two weeks later, roughly 16,000 metric tons of methane had […]

California delegates to the United Nations’ 28th climate talks called the summit’s progress “lackluster” and, at a briefing last week, resolved to show the world how bold policies can pave the way toward a climate-safe future. When the U.N. talks ended in December, world leaders called on countries to transition away from fossil fuels for […]

When the town of Clairton, Pennsylvania, was founded a few miles south of Pittsburgh at the start of the 20th century, the only thing there was a steel mill. “At the beginning of 1901, the town of Clairton was a field,” a newspaper article from 1904 explained. “The Clairton steel mill first began operations in […]

The White House has announced that it is temporarily pausing the federal approval process for all pending export terminals of liquified natural gas, or LNG, marking a significant win for environmentalists who had been fighting the projects for years. President Joe Biden, in a statement released early Friday morning, cited the climate crisis for the […]

Frigid weather this month caused industrial facilities across Texas to release unplanned air pollution as machinery froze, power went out and icy conditions blocked service crews.  Over four chilly days between Jan. 14 and 17, companies submitted reports to Texas’ environmental regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, that attributed at least 36 instances of “unintentional” […]