Stormy Weathers Day

Accountability for climate crimes

Author

Brad Johnson
June 04, 2024

PRESENTED BY THE LOWLY KWISATZ

Thursday, May 30th was a big day in meteorologically themed legal news. Donald Trump was found guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty for covering up hush-money payouts to porn star Stormy Weathers. Now that the Teflon Don has been scratched, he’s highly toxic.

Of course, at Hill Heat, every day is Stormy Weathers Day.

At the same time that 45 got 34, the Vermont Climate Superfund Act (S. 259) became law. As Hill Heat first reported, the Vermont Senate passed the act with a veto-proof majority on May 10th. It was delivered to Gov. Phil Scott's desk on May 24th, and he didn't veto it (there's no pocket veto in Vermont), so it was enacted on May 30th.

This means that a state has for the first time demanded Big Oil pay into a climate disaster recovery fund, landmark legislation in holding this criminal conspiracy accountable.

The next step in taking down this criminal conspiracy should be criminal charges. To wit, Public Citizen is hosting a virtual panel today at 3 pm to discuss prosecuting Big Oil for climate crimes, with Bill McKibben moderating. Panelists include Fair and Just Prosecution’s Amy Fettig, Public Citizen’s Aaron Regunberg, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Kathy Mulvey, and other legal experts.

Got a problem pal????

Voters are going to the polls today for primaries in Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Washington D.C. Primary School has the rundown of the DC and New Jersey races and the Iowa, Montana, and New Mexico matchups.

Evergreen Collaborative, a spin-off of the presidential campaign of Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) is “running $1 million of television advertising in Michigan and Wisconsin that aims to highlight President Biden’s record on renewable energy,” featuring the states’ Democratic governors, Gretchen Whitmer and Tony Evers.

As Jack Ewing notes, the price of electric cars is plummeting, meaning more and more people are getting some of that Priussy:

PRIUSSY

Arielle Samuelson and Emily Atkin dig into what it really means to call Mexico president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum a “leftist climate scientist.” Remember - in Mexico, the oil company is owned by the state!

More details from convicted felon Trump’s dinner with oil execs, where he tried to shake them down for a billion dollars, have leaked out like fracked gas from the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Maxine Joselow and Josh Dawsey report that Trump promised Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub he would lean on the Federal Trade Commission to approve oil mergers like Occidental’s $12 billion acquisition of CrownRock.

Shelby Walsh looks at the boom in bitcoin mining operations in the Permian Basin, an example of the growing demand for electricity from data centers across the nation which is the subject of a House Energy committee hearing this morning.

Unfortunately, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency in charge of the national power grid, is going to continue to be a pro-fossil-fuel agency, thanks to the hard work of Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W. Va.). This morning, his committee will vote in three FERC nominees: the right-wing extremist Lindsay See to fill a Republican seat, and pro-fracking David Rosner and climate hawk Judy Chang to fill the empty Democratic seats.

would they still love the Kwisatz Haderach if he was a worm

Hearings on the Hill:

Climate Action Today:

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@[email protected], @climatebrad on Threads, and @climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky.

Hill Heat isn’t powered by fossil-fuel greenwashing cash. It’s powered by readers like you:

Reply

or to participate.