the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the retirement of the Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee. Through the upcoming EIS process, TVA will identify the timeline to retire the plant’s nine coal units and options for replacement generation.
MARYLAND – Yesterday, a regional transportation board composed of county and city leaders from Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, voted to remove the widening of highways I-495 and I-270 from a federally mandated environmental study, dealing a major setback to the highway expansion.
The General Assembly failed to act on Governor Pritzker’s clean energy and climate proposal, despite broad legislative and public support and months of negotiations and working group discussions. A vote to create jobs and economic opportunity in clean energy and clean transportation, particularly for communities that need them most, was indefinitely postponed after continued objections from Illinois’ largest polluter, the Prairie State Energy Campus.
SAN FRANCISCO – Today, the Sierra Club and its law firm Gutride Safier LLP jointly announced the filing of lawsuits against the Coca-Cola Company (bottler of Dasani), BlueTriton Brands (bottler of Arrowhead, Poland Spring, Deer Park, and Ozarka), and Niagara Bottling (bottler of Niagara and store brands) for misleading consumers by labeling their plastic bottles as “100% Recyclable.” The bottle labels are made of biaxially-oriented polypropylene (BOPP), or “number 5 plastic,” which is not recyclable. In addition, while the bottles themselves are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), or “number 1 plastic,” at least 28% of PET plastic that is deposited for recycling is unrecyclable due to contamination and processing loss. Most plastic bottles end up in landfills, incinerators, the ocean, rivers, or littered across the landscape.
Monroe, LA— Yesterday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Biden administration's pause on new oil and gas leasing on public lands and offshore. The court’s preliminary injunction, which applies to Department of the Interior leasing nationwide, harms efforts to rapidly transition the nation away from fossil fuels and stave off the worst effects of climate change, including catastrophic droughts, floods and wildfires.
Today, the Environmental Protection Agency will host the first of three listening sessions to engage the public as they begin to craft new rules to tackle methane and associated pollution from new and existing oil and gas operations.
JACKSON, MS -- Yesterday, the Sierra Club, with assistance from Synapse Energy Economics, Inc., filed comments with the Mississippi Public Service Commission (MS PSC) in Mississippi Power’s 2021 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) demonstrating the utility’s IRP is not a useful document and did not incorporate stakeholder involvement as the Commission intended.
Washington, DC -- Tonight, the U.S. Senate voted 53-44 to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Judge Jackson is the first Black woman to serve on a federal appeals court in a decade.
In response, Sierra Club Democracy Program Director Courtney Hight released the following statement:
WASHINGTON, DC - In recent days, despite President Biden ending negotiations with Senate Republicans and directing Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill to move forward with an infrastructure package rooted in the vision he’s laid out in the American Jobs and American Families plans, a small group of senators have widely discussed a different, significantly smaller proposal.
Details are continuing to emerge, but on Sunday, Senator Collins shared that this proposal would include punitive fees on electric vehicle owners.
Today, the Sierra Club submitted more than 10,000 comments from members and supporters across the country urging the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to develop strong disclosure rules that require companies and financial institutions to report their contributions to the climate crisis, as well as how they are adapting to the changing climate.