Domestic oil production is forecast to reach an all-time high by the end of the year, even as President Biden announces plans to blunt fossil fuel output and consumption as part of his climate change agenda.

Presidents largely lack control over short-term oil supply and costs at the pump, but industry analysts say Mr. Biden has caused long-term damage to production with mixed signals between his green energy policies and calls for more oil to blunt high gasoline prices.

Private equity firms are increasingly profiting from cleaning up climate disasters in the US, while failing to better protect workers and often also investing in the fossil fuels that are causing the climate emergency, new research has found.

The demand for skilled disaster restoration or resilience workers, who are mostly immigrants and refugees from Latin America and Asia, is soaring as greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels heat the planet, provoking more destructive storms, floods and wildfires.

Republican presidential candidates are zeroing in on energy proposals they say would cut costs with more domestic fossil fuel production and counter President Biden‘s climate-change agenda.

Some of the GOP White House hopefuls have produced in-depth policy proposals to rival former President Donald Trump’s deregulatory energy and environmental record, while others have given the subject far less attention.

Here’s how the major GOP primary candidates say they would handle U.S. energy policy:

European countries are buying more liquified natural gas from Russia than they did before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, revealing a weak spot in the energy sanctions targeting Russia that is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.

In the first six months of 2023, EU countries bought 40% more Russian LNG than they did in 2021, amounting to $5.7 billion in revenue for Russia, according to an analysis this week by the advocacy group Global Witness. This makes Europe the biggest customer for Russian LNG; only the U.S. sells more LNG to the bloc.

Montana lawmakers violated young people’s rights – and the state constitution – by ignoring fossil fuels’ impact on the climate, a judge ruled Monday.

A Montana judge has sided with youth activists who argued that state agencies’ use of fossil fuels and its impact on the environment violated their constitutional rights. 

District Court Judge Kathy Seeley found the state’s policy used to evaluate requests for fossil fuel permits is unconstitutional because it does not force agencies to evaluate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Montana must do more to protect the state and its residents from climate change, a judge ruled Monday in a landmark decision that cited a state constitutional right to a clean environment.

State District Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in favor of a group of youth plaintiffs and invalidated a pair of laws prohibiting state agencies from considering the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions. 

“The degradation to Montana’s environment, and the resulting harm to Plaintiffs, will worsen if the State continues ignoring GHG emissions and climate change,” Seeley wrote.

A judge in Montana ruled on Monday that young people in the state have a constitutional right to a healthful environment, finding in a landmark case that the state’s failure to consider climate change when evaluating new projects was causing harm.

I’ve heard this claim pop up everywhere from Massachusetts to Fox News over the past two years. My neighbor even refuses to plug in his hybrid Toyota RAV4 Prime over what he calls ruinous electricity rates.

What gives?

The basic argument is that electricity prices are so high it has erased the advantage of recharging over refilling. This cuts to the heart of why many people buy EVs, according to the Pew Research Center: 70 percent of potential EV buyers report “saving money on gas” as among their top reasons.