The Lookout: A Roundup of News From the Sierra Club
Alerts, victories, and updates from around the country
By the Numbers
7.8 million: The 2026 World Cup’s estimated carbon footprint, in metric tons, according to the global carbon accounting firm Greenly.
$3.7 million: The revenue from a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in June. The number was vastly short of the billions that lease proponents had projected the sale would bring in.
12.8: The percentage of US electricity generated by solar in May, marking the first month solar surpassed coal in energy production.
31: The number of environmental regulations the Department of Homeland Security disregarded in its effort to build a border wall through the Big Bend region in South Texas.
Alerts
You Wind Some, You Lose Some
After a series of legal setbacks, the Trump administration has tried a new tactic to cancel wind energy projects: If you can’t beat them, pay them. The Department of the Interior has offered to pay offshore-wind developers TotalEnergies and Invenergy a total of $1.7 billion to give up their leases. Urge your congressional representative to investigate these and other clandestine deals that will make energy dirtier and more expensive.
» Take action: sc.org/save-wind
Hungry Hungry Data Centers
Many data center developers are planning to tap into regional grids to satiate their enormous energy needs. If Big Tech gets access to these grids, utility bills are expected to soar. Tell your representative to support regulations that prevent data centers from leeching off local networks.
» Take action: sc.org/protect-grids
Victories
Moving Mountains
Mountaintop removal is an invasive, destructive, polluting technique that coal companies frequently use to access coal deposits. The process entails blowing up the top of a mountain and then emptying what’s left—dirt, rocks, soil, and vegetation—into nearby valleys and waterways. In 2023, the US Army Corps of Engineers granted a Clean Water Act permit to a coal company seeking to obliterate Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. The site includes over 1,000 acres, and debris from the mountain’s removal would flow into over three miles of surrounding streams. The Sierra Club and a coalition of other nonprofits challenged the decision. In April, a judge ruled that the Army Corps did not adequately consider the negative impacts and blocked the permit.
BESS Foot Forward
Battery storage is essential to overcoming one of the biggest critiques of solar and wind power—that energy is intermittent when the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing. Still, some community leaders cite the threat of rare fires as a reason to oppose battery facilities. Such was the case in Carson, California. The city council initially rejected a battery project and tried to put a battery energy storage system (BESS) moratorium in place. The ban would have torpedoed a proposed 100-megawatt BESS facility that would help power renewable energy and cut emissions. After an outcry from the community and environmental groups, the council passed a motion to move the facility forward. Construction could start as soon as the end of the year.
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Check It Out
The Sierra Club Board of Directors has selected its new executive committee: Cheyenne Skye Branscum, president; Karl Palmquist, vice president for conservation; Erica Hall, vice president for chapters, groups, and volunteers; Nathan Chan, treasurer; and David Holtz, secretary. Learn more: sierraclub.org/board-directors/meet-board.
Chapter Corner
Pipeline Pedal
In May, the Sierra Club’s Tennessee Chapter partnered with the Military Outdoors and Beyond Dirty Fuels campaigns to organize a two-day bicycle trip along the route of a pipeline expansion project that would extend more than 100 miles. The Tennessee Valley Authority originally claimed that the project would help replace a coal-fired power plant, but now it plans to keep the plant alive in addition to building the pipeline. Residents fear that the expansion will impact local streams, ecosystems, and fenceline communities. Passing through eight counties, crossing dozens of streams and several forests and mountains, the teams witnessed the landscapes and neighborhoods affected by the pipeline—which is worryingly close to homes, some riders noted.
BYOE (Bring Your Own Energy)
Last spring, organizers with the Sierra Club’s Wisconsin Chapter helped persuade the Wisconsin Public Service Commission to adopt first-of-their-kind rules requiring data centers to pay for their own power and operations. WE Energies, the regional utility, had proposed a special tariff-based payment scheme that would have shifted some of the costs of powering new high-demand customers onto existing ratepayers. However, in April, the commission approved a significantly modified version that requires data centers to cover the cost of the power needed to meet their projected demand.
Campaign Updates
As screens monopolize their attention, children are missing out on a crucial part of growing up: being outdoors. In June, the Sierra Club’s Outdoors for All campaign launched a new initiative in partnership with the Outdoors Alliance for Kids to help turn the tide and get kids back outside.
One Million Kids Outdoors invites youths from across the country to share their activities and inspire others to do the same through June 2027. An interactive map on 1mkidsoutdoors.org shows available programs as well as events that have taken place.
Trump Watch
The Trump administration continues its seemingly endless quest to sell off public lands and remove endangered species protections. In June, the Department of the Interior announced that it is considering a revision of its policy for lands that may qualify as future wilderness areas. Conservation groups say that rather than treat them as protected areas, Trump wants to allow logging, mining, oil and gas extraction, and motorized-vehicle use. A month later, the DOI finalized a suite of changes to the Endangered Species Act that would undermine the effectiveness of the law. It announced that destroying a species’ home would no longer be considered a form of prohibited harm. The following week, the DOI said that it would consider economic factors when designating “critical habitat” and would be rolling back protections for threatened species. Also in July, Trump signed two proclamations to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monuments by a total of 3 million acres.
