It's well known that using PFAS-laden firefighting foam caused big problems for the military, but it's sometimes overlooked that civilian firefighting agencies are facing many of these same problems. Bloomberg Law reporters Pat Rizzuto and Andrew Wallender are finding more instances of litigation against fire departments over their use of this foam. And they say the main US firefighters' union is now partnering with law firms after cutting ties with companies that make PFAS-coated protective gear—a sign that lawsuits from individual firefighters may soon follow. Pat and Andrew join this episod ..read more

As a multidecade megadrought continues in the West, the Colorado River Basin is drying up. Today we’ll talk about what that means for the millions of people who depend on that water. And we’ll look at what states and regulators are doing to ensure that communities get the water they need to survive. Seven western states are frantically working to reach an agreement on how to divvy up the available water ahead of a Feb. 1 deadline—at which point the federal government has suggested it would impose its own rules to fix the problem. That's the topic of discussion on today's Parts Per Billion, our ..read more

About a year ago, Richard Glick was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and was poised to get renominated to a new term. Today, he's out of the job. Glick's plans to more closely scrutinize gas pipeline projects ran afoul of the powerful chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.). Without Manchin's support, the Biden administration couldn't get Glick's nomination through the Senate. Bloomberg Law reporter Daniel Moore spoke to Glick shortly before his term at FERC expired and he joins our environmental podcast, Parts Per Billion, to talk about what we ..read more

News of the world's first nuclear fusion reaction with a net energy gain created a lot of excitement, and justifiably so—fusion could one day be an infinitely renewable, carbon-free energy source. Policy makers, including President Joe Biden, said they want to see a fusion reactor providing electricity to the American grid within 10 years. But scientists say that timeline is probably too ambitious, if not impossible. On today's episode of our environmental policy podcast, Parts Per Billion, Bloomberg News reporter Will Wade explains the promise of nuclear fusion power, what a realistic timelin ..read more

Companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are now some of the country's largest consumers of electric power. And as Bloomberg Law's Daniel Moore reports, they're starting to wield their strong purchasing power. Big Tech companies are pushing the energy industry to bring more renewable power projects online, Moore says, and they're also hiring energy lobbyists to achieve these goals in Washington. Moore joins our environmental policy podcast, Parts Per Billion, to talk about where the tech industry wants the country's electric grid to go and what that means for both utilities and ratep ..read more

The 117th Congress is coming to a close at the end of this year and, now that most of the midterm races have been called and partisan control of both chambers decided, we have a pretty good idea of what the dynamics will be in the new 118th. Bloomberg Government energy reporter Kellie Lunney joins this episode of Parts Per Billion, our environmental policy podcast, to talk about what to expect on Capitol Hill for the next two years. For one, she says, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) will maintain considerable influence over the chamber as his party's surprising performance in the midterms means he ..read more

The Biden administration has made it crystal clear that, to solve climate change, we need to source more of the critical minerals that go into electric batteries--and we need to source them domestically. One potentially huge source of these minerals is in northern Alaska. But what will that mean for the Alaska Natives who have been living off of the land there for centuries? On this episode of Parts Per Billion, Bloomberg Law reporter Bobby Magill tells us about his trip to northern Alaska and why the Native population there feels so ambivalent about this modern day gold rush. Do you have feed ..read more

Because it's so effective, PFAS-laden firefighting foam isn't easy to replace. However, there are indications that PFAS alternatives might finally be ready for prime time. The Department of Defense is expected to change its policies early next year to allow for the use of non-PFAS foams, while some states are also pushing civilian firefighters to phase in the use of these new foams. On this episode of our environmental policy podcast, Parts Per Billion, Bloomberg Law reporters Pat Rizzuto and Andrew Wallender talk about why this may not be as big of a breakthrough in the fight against PFAS con ..read more

It's been nearly 20 years since a handful of northeastern states got together to start a cap-and-trade program for their power sector's greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the membership of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, has been anything but static. New Jersey left under former Republican Gov. Chris Christie, then rejoined under his successor. Virginia and Pennsylvania joined RGGI recently, but the current and likely future governors of those respective states are far from enthusiastic about it, signaling potentially more departures to come. However, RGGI has stood firm am ..read more

Electric vehicles are seen as one of humanity's best hopes at fighting climate change, and that means humanity will need to build a whole lot of lithium ion batteries. Unsurprisingly, the price of lithium is skyrocketing and the Biden administration is eager to develop domestic sources of the ultra-light metal. One of its best hopes here is a proposal to build a $1 billion open-pit lithium mine in a remote area of northern Nevada called Thacker Pass. But while producing more lithium may have broad environmental benefits, a new mining operation could cause acute environmental harms to the farme ..read more