Environment

July 3, 2019 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been researching how the climate crisis will affect farming, but it's withheld the findings from the public. That's just one example of how the Trump administration is making it harder for farmers across the South — a region especially vulnerable to climate change — to prepare for a warming world.

June 21, 2019 - This month Michael Bloomberg announced the Beyond Carbon campaign, which aims to permanently shift the U.S. away from coal and natural gas and toward renewable energy. The initiative dovetails with efforts in Southern states to move toward more sustainable energy options and comes as the Trump administration rolls back rules on coal plant pollution. 

May 9, 2019 - Across the region and the country, the Poor People's Campaign's Truth & Poverty Bus Tours have been gathering information on how public policy exacerbates poverty. It will be shared with the public next month at the Poor People's Moral Action Congress in Washington, D.C.

May 9, 2019 - The nation's largest investor-owned utility was recently named the worst for the environment. But changes recently proposed for the utility regulatory commission by the governor in the company's home state of North Carolina could push Duke in a more environmentally sustainable direction.

April 22, 2019 - State regulators recently issued a new general permit for industrial hog farms, and it dashed the hopes of environmental advocates who say it represents a failure to address the unequal pollution burden borne by nonwhite communities. They're calling on the agency to take environmental justice into account in future permitting decisions.

April 12, 2019 - North Carolina is now the third state in the South to order utilities to excavate all of their coal ash pits and move the toxic material to lined landfills. Duke Energy wants to charge its customers for the work, but some state lawmakers are trying to prevent that from happening. Meanwhile, the company is challenging the order.

March 28, 2019 - In 2001, the U.S. nuclear industry began hyping plans for new commercial reactor construction, which had skidded to a halt after the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear disaster. But utilities' ambitious and expensive plans have fallen apart, leaving ratepayers in some Southern states forking over millions of dollars for nothing.