Inside Climate News

Second time’s the charm? On Aug. 25, Maine’s Public Utilities Commission selected winning proposals in a years-long effort to turn more of northern Maine’s howling winds into energy that can power population centers in the southern part of the state and region. The PUC selected one developer to build 800 megawatts of new onshore wind […]

On the heels of the hottest summer on record and a United Nations report warning that global temperatures are likely to push climate risks to “increasingly dangerous heights,” the Trump administration overturned most of a Biden-era rule limiting climate pollution from power plants, the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.  The Environmental Protection Agency announced […]

The Iowa Utilities Commission is moving toward hearings on the second phase of a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline, which would add hundreds of miles of lines to a project already stuck in a legal quagmire. Summit Carbon Solutions initially intended to carry CO2 from ethanol plants across the Corn Belt to North Dakota for underground […]

Welcome to Inside Climate, a podcast from the staff of Inside Climate News. In this episode, we delve into how President Donald Trump’s environmental policy rollbacks are impacting ordinary people. In Pennsylvania, a jet fuel pipeline spill has tainted the drinking water source for more than 200 homes in Pennsylvania and homeowners continue to struggle […]

On the night of July 6, a storm moved over northern Minnesota near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The boreal forest there, composed of species like balsam fir, spruce and pine, was extremely dry after a flash drought and unusually warm temperatures sapped the trees of their moisture. As the storm blew across the […]

Before Iowa was the nation’s most wind-powered state, it generated nearly all of its electricity with coal. Since 2000, the fossil fuel’s role in the state’s power mix has diminished as utilities built a massive fleet of wind turbines that now provides nearly two-thirds of the state’s power.  But as the artificial intelligence boom drives […]

Wired for Profit: Seventh in a series about Alabama Power’s influence over electric rates, renewable energy, pollution and politics in the Yellowhammer State. When Alabama lawmakers left for spring break during the 2026 legislative session, many of them knew something had to be done. Landmark legislation curbing the profits of the state’s influential electric utility, […]

Wired for Profit: Sixth in a series about Alabama Power’s influence over electric rates, renewable energy, pollution and politics in the Yellowhammer State. Mack Butler insists he’s not angry about how it all turned out. “That’s just how it goes in the Legislature sometimes,” he says, leaning back behind the desk at his office in […]

On the night of Feb. 22, 1998, tornadoes tore through Central Florida while most of the region slept. By dawn, 42 people were dead; to date, it is the deadliest tornado outbreak in the state’s history. Nearly all those who died lived in the same kind of housing: mobile homes and RV parks around Kissimmee, […]

DOUBLE SPRINGS, Ala.—As 59-year-old Pam Benton sat handcuffed to a cold bench inside the Winston County Courthouse, shame flooded over her. All she could think about, she later explained, was what her grandchildren may soon believe about their “nana.” “Only bad people go to jail,” Benton told Inside Climate News. “That’s what a lot of […]

Michigan’s Norwich Plains is a stretch of unbroken wilderness in the state’s Upper Peninsula dominated by northern hardwood forest, with sugar maples and old-growth aspens that provide habitat for endangered species like the eastern gray wolf and the American martin.  There are beaver ponds, meadows and miles of trout streams that can all be seen […]

More than 60 advocacy groups from across Maryland are urging leaders in Annapolis to put a temporary pause on new data center proposals until their impacts on the environment and communities can be fully understood and policies are in place to address any harms. The move comes after 14 of 24 local jurisdictions in Maryland […]

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Jenni Doering with Emily Renkey from the Marmot Project.  You may have heard of Fat Bear Week, the annual contest where the public gets to vote on who they think is the fattest bear gorging on salmon in Katmai National […]

A federal appeals court has struck down the Trump administration’s use of emergency powers to require a coal-fired power plant in Michigan to remain open, ruling that the U.S. Department of Energy exceeded its authority. The 3-0 decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a rebuke of the administration’s […]

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a trove of documents this week that shed new light on the air quality around the World Trade Center after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Some of these documents suggest, contrary to statements by former mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani, that harmful levels of asbestos remained in […]

The Trump administration is moving to accelerate oil and gas drilling across the Western Arctic with a new proposal that would slash environmental review and public input.  The proposal could bring industrial activity to wide areas of wilderness and subsistence hunting grounds for Alaska Natives before President Donald Trump leaves office. The move is the […]

A gas export terminal on the Gulf Coast of Texas has routinely violated air pollution permits for years with little consequences from state regulators, according to a report released this week by Oilfield Witness, an environmental watchdog.  The Texas-based activist group cited thousands of pages of documents and a month of optical gas monitoring in […]

The artificial intelligence boom poses serious health risks while the Trump administration is dismantling crucial safeguards designed to protect the public, according to former officials at the federal agency responsible for environmental protection. A report released Thursday by the Environmental Protection Network—an organization led by former Environmental Protection Agency staffers—outlines hazards from the rapid rise […]

Jon Rosenthal, a Democratic state representative from Houston, is facing off against Bo French, a far-right Republican culture warrior from Fort Worth, for a seat on the commission that regulates the oil and gas industry in Texas.  In an interview with Inside Climate News during a campaign visit to El Paso this month, Rosenthal shared […]

In 1998, unusually hot ocean temperatures stressed corals worldwide, causing them to expel the microalgae living within their tissues that normally nourish the tiny animals and give them color. Over the next year, more than 20 percent of the world’s reefs turned white during the first global coral bleaching event on record.  Fortunately, some of […]