"Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order on Tuesday directing a new task force to work on tighter regulations aimed at restricting data centers’ air and noise pollution, tempering water and energy usage and preventing utility bill spikes."
"William Lawrence, a data center moratorium supporter who co-founded the progressive Sunrise Movement, won a critical Michigan congressional primary Tuesday over two more-moderate and better-funded Democrats."
"Michigan’s highest court has ordered state energy regulators to redo their environmental review of Enbridge’s Line 5 tunnel project beneath the Straits of Mackinac."
The U.S. freight system delivers significant environmental impacts nationwide, especially in states that host major rail-and-road hubs and seaports. Meanwhile, new federal laws and policies are making it harder to curtail pollution generated by freight trucks, trains and warehouses. Journalist John Lippert looks at how the public, private and nonprofit sectors are rising to this challenge.
"Investigators believe a cyberattack this week on dozens of municipal water systems in Minnesota was probably the work of Iranian hackers, according to U.S. and state officials and others familiar with the matter, a potential act of aggression that comes at a precarious moment in the U.S. war against Iran." "There were no indications that any water supply had been rendered unsafe to drink."
"The state is a major importer of fracking wastewater, which gets pumped underground but doesn’t always stay there. The city of Marietta is fighting back."
"Ohio has made $100 million available for new energy projects in the state, but critics are pushing back on the decision to bar renewable energy projects from accessing the funds — and on the lack of transparency around the process."
"The U.S. Bureau of Land Management scheduled a September 2026 lease sale for 2,800 acres of Wayne National Forest, a preserve long sought by the oil and gas industry. This could mean fracking Ohio’s only national forest for the first time."
"State agencies on Wednesday issued key permits for the controversial Line 5 tunnel in the Straits of Mackinac, concluding the project’s benefits outweigh drawbacks that include disruption to Native American burial sites and harm to wetlands and rare species."
"Washington County residents are raising concerns that injection wells in southeastern Ohio leaking brine waste will eventually pollute Marietta’s drinking water."
