Here are a few fun facts about whale sharks: they have tiny teeth on their eyeballs, they’re gentle giants, and they can live up to 150 years. But here’s the not-so-fun fact: most won’t make it to old age, because they’re under threat.

A new study has revealed that around 62 percent of whale sharks off the coast of West Papua, Indonesia, bear scars or injuries. Two of the biggest culprits? Tour boats and fishing vessels. Of the 206 injured sharks studied, more than 80 percent had wounds directly linked to human activity.

“We found that scars and injuries were mainly from anthropogenic causes, such as collisions with ‘bagans’—traditional fishing platforms with lift nets—and whale shark-watching tour boats,” said Edy Setyawan, PhD, lead conservation scientist at the Elasmobranch Institute Indonesia.

Protecting Indonesia’s whale sharks

Setyawan and his team conducted their research in the Bird’s Head Seascape, a protected marine area celebrated as one of the richest biodiversity hot spots on Earth. Alongside whale sharks, it is also home to sea turtles, manta rays, coral reefs, and countless reef fish.

While most of the sharks studied didn’t have severe injuries, many showed abrasions from rubbing against boats. Whale sharks are naturally drawn to fishing vessels because they feed on baitfish, making the risk of harm nearly unavoidable without human intervention.

Pexels

“We aim to work with the management authorities of the marine protected areas to develop regulations to require slight modifications to the bagans, including the removal of any sharp edges from boat outriggers and net frames,” said Mark Erdmann, PhD, the study’s last author and Shark Conservation Director for Re:wild. “We believe those changes will greatly reduce scarring of whale sharks in the region.”

How does the global fishing industry impact whale sharks?

Regulation is critical to protecting marine life. Not long ago, the Bird’s Head Seascape itself was nearly destroyed by unregulated commercial fishing and even dynamite fishing, which uses explosives to kill large numbers of fish.

“The waters of the Bird’s Head were brought to the brink of ruin,” Conservation International reports. But in 2004, the organization partnered with the people of West Papua, World Wildlife Fun (WWF), and the Indonesian government, among other organizations, to protect the area. Since then, the marine environment has recovered significantly.

Pexels

Still, whale sharks remain at risk elsewhere. They are frequent victims of bycatch, often becoming entangled in fishing gear. The Red List of Threatened Species, put together by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, currently classifies whale sharks as endangered, with the fishing industry identified as one of their greatest threats.

Shipping traffic poses another danger. In fact, many whale sharks disappear after entering busy shipping lanes.

“Satellite tags would be happily pinging on whale sharks, then they would swim into a shipping lane and suddenly they’re gone,” Erdmann said in 2024. “Those ships move at high speeds and can be the size of a football field. It’s likely they’re mowing over whale sharks without even knowing it.” He added: “If we can get industrial ships to slow down in areas with a high risk for collisions, we can make a big difference.”

Gardein

What can help?

Protecting whale sharks is complex, since they face multiple threats, including shipping traffic, tourism, and warming oceans.

But when it comes to bycatch, one of the most effective ways to protect whale sharks, as well as many other species harmed by the fishing industry, is to reduce demand for industrial fishing. With more plant-based seafood options available than ever before, it’s easier to enjoy seafood while protecting marine animals. Read more about some of our go-to vegan seafood products here.

This post was originally published on VegNews.com.

by Martha Pskowski, Inside Climate News, and Mark Olalde, ProPublica

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

Hakim Dermish moved to the small South Texas town of Catarina in 2002 in search of a rural lifestyle on a budget. The property where he lived with his wife didn’t have electricity or sewer lines at first, but that didn’t bother him.

“Even if we lived in a cardboard box, no one could kick us out,” Dermish said.

Back then, Catarina was a sleepy place. A decade later, oil and gas drilling picked up, and he welcomed the financial opportunities it brought. Dermish launched businesses to support the industry, offering everything from guards for drill sites to housing for oil field workers.

The growth also brought flares — flames burning off excess natural gas — that blazed day and night at wells in the surrounding countryside. Initially enamored of the industry’s potential, Dermish now worried that its pollution endangered the health of the town’s 75 residents. He began lodging complaints with the state in 2023, asking it to push companies to control emissions.

Inspectors with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality investigated, finding only a handful of violations, some of which the companies addressed. But that did little to allay the concerns of Dermish and his neighbors, who continued to see flares light up the sky and to smell gas wafting over the community.

“Starting first thing in the morning, talk about the stench. Then you call the state and nothing happens,” Dermish said. “They do absolutely nothing.”

His neighbor Lupe Campos, who worked in the oil fields for more than three decades, lives three blocks from a flare. Toxic hydrogen sulfide escapes from nearby wells, giving the air the smell of “burnt rotten eggs,” Campos said. “It’s hard to bear.”

Lupe Campos (Christopher Lee for ProPublica)

While working to expand the nation’s oil and gas production, President Donald Trump’s administration has maintained that drilling in the U.S. is cleaner than in other countries due to tighter environmental oversight. To mark Earth Day, for example, the White House boasted in a statement that increased natural gas exports meant the U.S. would be “sharing cleaner energy with allies” and “reducing global emissions.”

But Texas, the heart of America’s oil and gas industry, tells a different story.

Texas regulators tout their efforts to curtail oil field emissions by requiring drillers to obtain permits to release or burn gas from their wells.

Yet a first-of-its-kind analysis of permit applications to the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s main oil and gas regulator, reveals a rubber-stamp system that allows drillers to emit vast amounts of natural gas into the atmosphere. Over 40 months — from May 2021 to September 2024 — oil companies applied for more than 12,000 flaring and venting permits, while the Railroad Commission rejected just 53 of them, a 99.6% approval rate, according to the data.

Natural gas is composed mostly of climate-warming methane but also contains other gases such as hydrogen sulfide, which is deadly at high concentrations. Gas escapes as wells are drilled and before infrastructure is in place to capture it. It also can be intentionally released if pressure in the system poses a safety risk or if capturing and transporting it to be sold is not profitable. Typically, drillers burn the gas they don’t capture, converting the methane to carbon dioxide, a less potent greenhouse gas, in a process called flaring. Sometimes, they release the gas without burning it, in a process called venting.

The permit applications showed oil companies requested to flare or vent more than 195 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year, enough to power more than 3 million homes and generate millions of dollars of tax revenue had the gas been captured. Those emissions would have a climate-warming impact roughly equivalent to 27 gas-fired power plants operating year-round, even if the flares burned every molecule of methane released from the wells.

“It’s a gargantuan amount of emissions,” said Jack McDonald, senior analyst of energy policy and science for the environmental group Oilfield Witness. “Because so much of this gas is methane and so much of it is either incompletely combusted or not combusted at all through the venting process, we see a huge climate impact.”

Oilfield Witness gathered and studied the Railroad Commission data on exemptions to the state’s flaring rules and shared it with ProPublica and Inside Climate News. The news organizations verified the data, including by soliciting input from professors at universities in Texas.

Railroad Commission spokesperson R.J. DeSilva said in a statement that Texas has made “significant progress” in addressing methane emissions. Companies must provide evidence that flaring is necessary, and, when approving permits, the agency follows all applicable rules, he said. “If an application lacks sufficient justification, it is returned with comments for clarification.”

“I am proud of the progress that has been made to reduce the waste of our natural resources,” Jim Wright, chair of the Railroad Commission, said in a statement, adding that “there is always room for further improvement.”

Between May 2021 and September 2024, state regulators approved 280 permits to burn or vent natural gas in Dimmit County, which is home to the small town of Catarina and its 75 residents. (Christopher Lee for ProPublica)

The analysis likely overstates emissions, since the near-guarantee that regulators will approve a permit gives companies an incentive to request authorization for amounts larger than they intend to emit to ensure they’re in compliance. For example, operators in four Texas counties flared about 70% of the volume of gas that their permits allowed, according to a recent effort to compare the state’s flaring data to information collected via satellite. And the Railroad Commission sometimes approves flaring smaller volumes than requested, which is not captured in the data.

“The Texas oil and natural gas industry is committed to ongoing progress in reducing flaring and methane emissions while continuing to meet the ever-growing demand for reliable oil and natural gas across the globe,” Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, a trade group, told ProPublica and Inside Climate News in a statement.

Residents of communities surrounded by flares and leaking wells, like Catarina, want the state and the industry to do more to control oil field emissions. The Railroad Commission approved eight flares within 5 miles of the town during the study period and 280 across surrounding Dimmit County, according to agency data.

The danger posed by the gas became impossible to ignore on March 27, as a 30-inch steel pipeline a half-mile from Catarina failed. The rupture blasted more than 23 million cubic feet of gas into the air, as much as is used in 365 homes in a year, according to data the company that owns the pipeline, Energy Transfer, reported to the Railroad Commission.

On March 27, a pipeline just outside Catarina failed, spewing a large volume of natural gas into the air. As his house shook, Hakim Dermish captured the aftermath on his cellphone. (Courtesy of Hakim Dermish)

Watch video ➜

Dermish recorded the chaos with his cellphone. “The house is shaking,” he says in the video as the escaping gas roars, its concussions jostling the camera.

Fearing for their safety, he and his wife evacuated, heading to a neighboring town for the day. After they returned home that evening, he called the sheriff to ask what had happened. During the conversation, Dermish could feel the gas causing him to slur his words. The next morning, Dermish noticed new gas flares, presumably lit to release pressure in the pipeline network by burning excess gas. A cellphone video he recorded shows a towering column of flame, taller than a nearby telephone pole, billowing and rippling.

“Have you ever seen ‘Lord of the Rings’? Do you remember the Fire of Mordor?” Dermish said in an interview. “That’s what we have here.”

An incident report submitted to the state by Energy Transfer attributed the pipeline failure to a technician’s errors. Without objection from the Railroad Commission, the pipeline was repaired and back in service three days later. The agency did not assess Energy Transfer with a violation or a fine.

Energy Transfer did not respond to a request for comment.

After more than two decades in Catarina, Dermish and his wife are planning to move away. “It’s just too dangerous,” he said.

Hakim Dermish has for years urged Texas oil and gas regulatory agencies to more closely monitor the flares near Catarina. (Christopher Lee for ProPublica) Is American Oil and Gas Cleaner?

While the Trump administration characterizes American oil and gas as cleaner than fossil fuels from other countries, it has rolled back rules regulating methane.

The Environmental Protection Agency has, under Trump, delayed implementing previously finalized rules that would’ve mandated that the industry monitor for methane leaks and address them. He and Republicans in Congress also repealed the country’s first-ever tax on methane. And in June, Trump revoked a Biden administration guidance document laying out how companies should comply with a law aimed at reducing methane leaks from pipelines.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

As the nation’s highest-producing oil and gas state, Texas is a key barometer of the U.S. regulatory environment and whether it has created a cleaner fossil fuel industry.

The Permian Basin — the country’s largest oil field, which straddles the Texas-New Mexico border — was estimated by a 2024 study to emit the second-most methane of any oil field in the world.

The industry disputes that finding, pointing to a June report from S&P Global Commodity Insights that found that the rate of methane emissions in the Permian Basin dropped 29% between 2023 and 2024. “Methane emissions management” is increasingly a part of the industry’s operations, Raoul LeBlanc, a vice president at S&P, said in a statement announcing the findings. However, S&P’s report acknowledged that satellite data showed a much more modest reduction of 4%, contradicting the company’s own data, which was collected by airplane.

“We can say confidently that there is no evidence that methane emissions from the Permian Basin are low,” said Steven Hamburg, who studies methane as the Environmental Defense Fund’s chief scientist.

Companies dispose of oil field waste in this growing dump in Catarina. (Christopher Lee for ProPublica) Texas’ Attempt to Rein In Flaring

In Texas, State Rule 32 prohibits flaring and venting gas at wells, except under a few specific conditions: while the well is being drilled, during the first 10 days after the well is completed and when necessary to ensure safety. Otherwise, drillers must seek an exception.

The Railroad Commission changed the application process for these exemptions in 2020 and issued new guidance in 2021. Operators would have to explain why they could not suspend drilling to avoid flaring and indicate that they had investigated all options for using the gas before flaring.

Oilfield Witness gathered all exemption requests since 2021, which showed the agency repeatedly approving permits that failed to comply with its guidelines. In many cases, oil companies asked to flare indefinitely or didn’t justify why they needed to flare, leaving blank the section of the application asking why the exemption was needed.

Capturing the gas requires an expensive system of pipelines, compressors and other infrastructure that can cost more than the gas is worth. In their permit applications, companies cite this reality, often listing financial considerations as the reason for seeking exemptions, Oilfield Witness found. These were nearly always approved, even though the agency wrote that finances were an insufficient explanation in a presentation on the permitting process.

“The Railroad Commission seems very interested in devolving decision-making processes to the companies themselves,” McDonald said.

The data also showed that nearly 90% of the approved permit applications were backdated, retroactively giving permission for flares that were already burning. Oil companies typically asked the Railroad Commission for permission to flare 10 days after they had already burned the gas.

A spokesperson said that when the commission revamped its guidelines in 2020, it allowed a longer period in which companies could file for a permit after they’d already started to flare. Even so, nearly 900 of the permits were applied for after the updated filing window and still accepted by the agency.

The Railroad Commission also approved more than 7,000 flares within areas where the gas reservoir being drilled was known to be high in hydrogen sulfide, increasing the likelihood that the toxic gas could escape into the air. Of those flares, 600 were within a mile of a residence, the agency’s data showed.

Minimizing flaring permits is “not a priority in any sense” for the Railroad Commission, said Gunnar Schade, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. “The priority is oil produced, and that means revenue for the state. Oil and gas is a priority, so who cares about the flaring?”

Overstating the Progress

The Railroad Commission and the state’s oil industry trumpet their work to reduce flaring. The agency points to state data showing flaring rates dropping dramatically, specifically since 2019. And the Texas Oil and Gas Association announced in early August that drillers in the Permian Basin “slashed methane emission intensity by more than half in just two years.”

But such claims are misleading, according to experts such as David DiCarlo, an associate professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s petroleum engineering school. Using 2019 as a starting point leaves a false impression that there’s been a sharp decline, he said, as methane emissions that year were staggeringly high due to booming production and inadequate pipeline capacity to gather the gas.

DeSilva, the Railroad Commission’s spokesperson, defended using 2019 as the baseline because “about five years ago we began taking proactive steps to reduce flaring in Texas.”

Taking a longer view shows that a median of 2.2% of gas at Texas oil wells was flared or vented over the past decade, according to a ProPublica and Inside Climate News review of state data. (Flaring at gas wells is rare because those sites have the necessary pipeline infrastructure in place to collect the gas.) That figure hovered just north of 2% in the most recently available data, representing a much smaller drop than the state and industry claim. The industry still hasn’t built sufficient pipeline networks to capture gas at oil wells, so, as production rises, so does flaring and venting.

Not Much Recent Progress on Oil Well Flaring

The Texas oil industry and its regulators have celebrated a reduction in the burning of climate-warming gases at oil wells, a practice known as flaring. However, state data shows that, while the flaring rate is below its 2019 peak, it has stayed relatively constant for the past several years.

“They can’t get it below 2% because they keep drilling,” DiCarlo said. Since emissions are highest when a well is being drilled, overall emissions will remain high as long as the industry is drilling new wells. “That’s just the nature of the beast.”

Among the largest beneficiaries of the state’s lax permitting system was an oil company called Endeavor Energy Resources. More than half the approved permanent flaring exemptions went to Endeavor, which merged with the $40 billion Diamondback Energy in September 2024. Endeavor also applied for the longest flaring permit — 6,300 days, or more than 17 years. The Railroad Commission approved the permit without shortening its duration.

Diamondback Energy did not respond to a request for comment.

The industry has simultaneously claimed that it is addressing methane while bristling at oversight.

Natural gas, as seen through a specialized camera that captures infrared energy, streams out of a Diamondback Energy facility near Midland, Texas, in 2023. (Courtesy of Oilfield Witness)

Watch video ➜

Steven Pruett is the president and CEO of Elevation Resources, a Permian Basin oil company, and the immediate past chair of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, one of the industry’s main trade groups. His company saw a 2,408% increase in flaring immediately following new wells being drilled and a 692% increase in flaring overall in 2023, according to emails unearthed by environmental watchdog organization Fieldnotes and shared with ProPublica and Inside Climate News. In the email exchange with University of Texas faculty who were preparing a grant application for a federal methane-reduction program, Pruett blamed the increases on inadequate infrastructure to capture the gas.

Just weeks later, Pruett participated in a tour of the oil field alongside EPA staff, where he echoed the claim that the American oil and gas industry is cleaner than others and that drilling companies were complying with efforts to reduce emissions.

During his term at the helm of the national trade group, it spearheaded multiple lawsuits against the EPA over the government’s methane rules.

Pruett did not respond to a request for comment.

“A Constant Roar”

Those opposed to flaring face long odds in halting the practice, even in rare instances when the Railroad Commission hears objections.

Consider the experience of Tom Pohlman, then sheriff of Fisher County, who had a flare burning next to his home in the Texas Panhandle starting in October 2023. The driller responsible for it, Patton Exploration, solicited companies to extend a pipeline to the oil well to capture the gas and evaluated whether the gas could be used to mine bitcoin. But by July 2024, it still had no deal, so the company sought another permit to continue flaring up to 1 million cubic feet of gas per day for 18 months. “Patton is diligently pursuing every avenue possible to find a solution, but still needs more time,” the company wrote in its application.

When Pohlman learned that Patton Exploration had applied for a new permit, he and his neighbors urged the Railroad Commission to deny it.

“The sound that comes from the flame is a constant roar that we can hear throughout our property both day and night,” the neighbors wrote in their objection. “There is no peace and quiet since the day of its ignition.”

In September 2024, Pohlman became one of the few people to officially challenge a flaring permit in Texas, as he and Patton Exploration representatives went head-to-head in a hearing before a Railroad Commission administrative law judge.

“For approximately 20 of my residents in this area, it completely lights up their yard and everything else,” Pohlman said, telling the judge that the flare was 45 feet high. “I just need liveability for this neighborhood. We’ve had nothing but issues here.”

Patton Exploration’s lawyer, David Gross, acknowledged the neighbors’ frustrations but emphasized the importance of keeping the well pumping.

“You can’t produce the oil without producing the gas,” he told the judge. “It’s the public policy of Texas that the recoverable oil and gas in the state’s reservoirs be recovered because it is in the public interest.”

In January, the three elected members of the Railroad Commission voted unanimously to approve the permit and allow flaring for another 12 months.

A flare lights up the night sky in Catarina. (Christopher Lee for ProPublica)

This post was originally published on ProPublica.

Belém Brazil: How the Equatorial Margin Shapes COP30 Discussions on Energy Transition

In November, COP30 will be hosted in Belém, Brazil, a city of great environmental significance in the lower Amazon rainforest. This will be the first time the country hosts the conference, placing Brazil —an economic powerhouse, home to vital ecosystems, and a strong advocate for energy transition, sustainability and indigenous rights— at the center of global attention. The event’s relevance will amplify discussions, from media and journalists providing reports and analysis to Latin American CSR communication experts translating complex debates into clear, actionable messages and initiatives.

Given its context, one of the key controversies that will gain prominence during the conference will be the Brazilian government’s plans for oil exploration on the Equatorial Margin, situated just off the coast of Belém, Brazil. The city is situated in the Marajó Bay, which is a key feature of this important coastal region.

A heated debate is expected to surround the topic, as it highlights a contradiction in Brazil’s energy transition and sustainability ambitions: how can a country that raises these flags also plan to extract massive volumes of petroleum right next to the Amazon rainforest, one of the most iconic natural landmarks on the planet?

The Equatorial Margin: A Region in the Spotlight

The Equatorial Margin refers to a coastal region in Northern Brazil, approximately 2,200 km long, located near the Equator —hence its name, referencing its geographical location. The region encompasses six Brazilian states: Amapá, Ceará, Maranhão, Pará (where Belém is located), Piauí, and Rio Grande do Norte.

A key aspect of this area is the influence of the Amazon River, as the river’s mouth is located there. Due to the large volume of water that it dumps into the ocean, rich in unique sediments and organic matter, the Equatorial Margin has developed a complex and diverse environment, characterized by mangroves, estuaries, and coral reefs.

Investigations by Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned petroleum corporation, have found a vast offshore area on the ocean floor for oil and gas exploration, comprising five major oil basins. It is estimated that there are more than 30 billion barrels of oil in the area, which the company refers to as a “new frontier” for petroleum. This could have a massive impact on Brazil’s economy and energy security.

However, the implementation of having oil rigs to extract petroleum underground can have serious implications, especially since it is considered a high-risk area for oil spills. This could cause irreversible damage to the intricate biodiversity —which has not yet been widely studied— in the location and potentially further afield, as it is a crucial spot for ocean currents, which could spread the problem to far-off places.

Brazil’s Energy Transition Contradictions

Brazil currently has an ambitious energy transition schedule, aiming to gradually increase the share of renewables in its energy matrix by 23% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality within the following 20 years. The country already boasts the extensive use of hydropower (which is not included in the percentage aim), but is investing in other sources, such as biofuels and wind.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy of Brazil and the Federal Government have a structured plan for energy transition, which emphasizes the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving a sustainable model as key goals. Nevertheless, it also prioritizes energy security. In the case of the Equatorial Margin oil, these two key points present a contradiction of interests.

This issue creates division at the heart of the Brazilian government itself. Marina Silva, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, for instance, is openly against oil exploration in the Equatorial Margin, advocating for the creation of an environmental preservation area in the same location. 

This aligns with IBAMA’s ideology, the country’s primary environmental agency, which twice denied the environmental license for Petrobras to explore oil in the region, citing three main concerns: the need to improve studies of ocean currents to predict where the oil would spread in case of a spill; insufficient communication to the public, particularly Indigenous communities, about the potential environmental impacts; and the absence of a rapid response plan to rescue animals that might be affected by the oil. 

Several other government members, however, value the energy autonomy argument more and are in favor of extraction, including Brazil’s President, Lula da Silva. The country’s leader has stated that the exploration will proceed and “the world is not ready to live without petroleum yet,” defending the importance of extraction due to economic factors.

There is also pressure from powerful mining and gas companies from around the world, in addition to Petrobras, which could also greatly benefit from the extraction projects. Many of them already operate in petroleum exploration on the nearby coast of Suriname and Guyana, countries that have growing oil industries.

This sets the stage for a head-on clash in Belém, Brazil, next November, where civil society members, big business and government agents from all around the world will all be reunited to address these issues, and many others alike.

Global Reliance on Oil and Hurdles to Clear

The difficulties of transitioning to clean energy are numerous. There are technological and logistical aspects that make it challenging to adapt existing infrastructure, for example, which serves to further fortify our dependence on energy derived from fossil fuels. Moreover, a  lobby led by major oil, gas, and coal investors is, through financial interest, dedicated to making the process even more treacherous.

Some of these players are actually governments —especially in the Middle East— where strong economies with major global influence and significant power in climate negotiations gather, with a substantial portion of their GDP derived from oil and gas extraction and exports. Classic examples include Saudi Arabia, the 17th biggest economy, and the United Arab Emirates.

Brazil, despite its renewable energy potential, has been shaped by these dynamics. Due to the significant relevance the industry holds globally, this exploration could be a substantial contributor to its economy. To join the game, however, it is crucial for the country to form alliances with major exporters, which gives these players significant bargaining power in negotiations with the Brazilian government.

Even though there are many hurdles, ranging from economic, political and technological types, energy transition is an urgent topic to tackle with the aim of ensuring the Earth’s temperature doesn’t rise by the mark of 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial measurements – the amount stipulated to be avoided, as outlined in the Paris Agreement of 2015. This is because the energy sector is the one with the greatest greenhouse gas emissions, particularly those from fossil fuel-based sources.

According to the UNEP Emissions Gap Report, as of 2023, 68% of GHG emissions came from energy production: 26% from power, 11% from industry, 15% from transportation, 6% from buildings, and 10% from fuel (3% of which from oil). 

Brazil’s Environmental Inconsistency

There is a clear paradox, as we established, in Brazil’s standing: a commitment to sustainability coexists with the desire to produce more fossil fuel energy through oil extraction in the Equatorial Margin. This contradiction actually goes far beyond this particular topic. The history of powerful economic agents influencing Brazilian environmental policies goes way back.

A relatively recent example is the Bill 2.159/2021, nicknamed the “Destruction Bill”, which was approved by the Brazilian Congress, and later sanctioned by President Lula with 63 partial vetoes. While the law weakened several licensing rules by removing the need for technical assessments to obtain environmental licenses, the vetoes were intended to mitigate environmental impacts and preserve minimum standards. 

The agribusiness sector, a crucial part of the country’s economy, played a significant role in its approval. This is of great interest to them, as it is a growing business that requires land to expand. The destruction of forests and other ecosystems provides them with additional space to plant more crops or raise cattle, for example.

Based on that, it is highly plausible to be concerned about the role fossil fuel lobbies can play on the Equatorial Margin, conducting actions that prioritize economic gains over environmental considerations.

In Belém, Brazil, the Brazilian government is expected to present a large Sustainability Fund project, which could backfire badly if contradictions in its politics emerge during discussions and negotiations. Due to the nature of the conference and many of its participants, this is actually quite likely to happen.

COP30 in Belém — Brazil’s Energy Contradictions Put on the Spot

As COP 30 convenes, the world will watch how the host nation navigates its contradictions. This could be a great opportunity to bridge the divide and leverage renewable potential, seeking a way to balance economic interests and environmental concerns. Things can also go the other way, exposing inconsistencies that could erode credibility and create conflict.

During the conference in Belém, Brazil, the country may be forced to redefine its role in the energy transition. Tension may also spread to global businesses, as pressure should also find its way to push big companies, especially those in the oil industry, to align their investments with sustainability.

By Nathan Spears

This post was originally published on Canary.

by Lauren McGaughy, The Texas Newsroom, and Yilun Cheng, Houston Chronicle

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

This article is co-published with The Texas Newsroom, the Houston Chronicle and The Texas Tribune as part of an initiative to report on how power is wielded in Texas.

The devastating flooding in Houston caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 killed dozens of people, inundated hundreds of thousands of homes and left the community desperate for a solution.

Since then, local flood experts have extensively studied the possibility of a multibillion-dollar tunnel system across Harris County, where Houston is located. Studies have focused on the construction of pipelines, 30 to 40 feet in diameter, that could ferry massive amounts of water out to the Gulf in the event of a storm.

Now, after years of research and discussion, Elon Musk wants a piece of the project.

An investigation by The Texas Newsroom and the Houston Chronicle has found that the billionaire, in partnership with Houston-area Rep. Wesley Hunt, has spent months aggressively pushing state and local officials to hire Musk’s Boring Co. to build two narrower, 12-foot tunnels around one major watershed. That could be a potentially cheaper, but, at least one expert said, less effective solution to the region’s historic flooding woes.

Hunt’s team has said the Boring project would cost $760 million and involve the company getting 15% of the cost up front from state and local coffers.

Within two months of this push, the Harris County Commissioners Court unanimously voted to study a pilot program that included a look at smaller tunnels, with specifications similar to what Boring had pitched. The commissioners court, made up of five elected members including a county judge, oversees the county’s budget.

Both Musk and Hunt stand to benefit should Boring be selected to build any part of the project. Hunt is reportedly considering a challenge to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in next year’s Republican Senate primary. And landing a job like this would also be a significant win for Boring, which has not completed a major public project in Texas and faces criticisms for its ventures elsewhere.

The discussions about the Boring pitch have happened mostly out of the public eye. Hunt mentioned the project in passing at a town hall in Houston in February. Since then, he has refused to answer the newsrooms’ questions about when Musk sold him on the idea and why he became its pitchman.

Efforts to reach Musk and representatives with Boring were not returned.

Experts and some local officials question whether Musk and his company are the right pick for the job. The Boring Co. has focused on transportation tunnels, not flood mitigation.

“If you build a smaller tunnel, OK, it’ll be cheaper, but it can carry less water,” said Larry Dunbar, a veteran water resources engineer who has advised Houston-area governmental agencies on drainage issues. “So what have you saved? Have you reduced the flooding upstream by an inch? And are you going to spend multimillions of dollars to do that? Well, maybe that’s not worth it.”

In response to the newsrooms’ questions, state and local officials said no public money has been allocated to Boring. County officials added that they have not chosen a tunnel contractor and any process to do so would follow normal procurement rules.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, whose staff met with Hunt’s team during the legislative session to discuss the proposal, remains open to the idea. As president of the Texas Senate with close ties to President Donald Trump, he is a powerful ally.

“If Elon Musk and the Boring Company, or any other company, can build two massive tunnels under the Houston bayous in a few years to save the city from flooding, I am always going to be interested to listen,” Patrick, a Republican, told the newsrooms. “The truth is, Elon Musk is one of the only people in the world who could accomplish this.”

Then-candidate Wesley Hunt, now a Republican representative, speaks with volunteers before they campaign on his behalf in 2020. (Mark Mulligan/Houston Chronicle) The Pitch Process Begins

In 2022, the Harris County Flood Control District released findings from its yearslong tunnel study, which has so far cost nearly $3 million in local and federal funds.

The idea was to build eight tunnels, totalling around 130 miles in length, according to the report. The tunnels would be huge, wide enough for a container ship, and buried 40 to 140 feet underground, depending on the location. Austin and San Antonio have similar systems, although on a smaller scale.

The Buffalo Bayou segment of the Houston project — which Boring has proposed to build — is a centerpiece of the design and would run through the city’s core and some of its most developed neighborhoods. The county estimated it would cost $4.6 billion.

The total cost for the system was projected to be $30 billion, funded by a potential mix of federal, state and local dollars, and the timeline was 10 to 15 years to complete construction.

Given the scope and complexity of the project, the Army Corps of Engineers has been involved in discussions about the tunnels since the beginning. The corps also has jurisdiction over the two federal reservoirs in the area.

Eight years after Harvey, however, the tunnel project has not broken ground.

Hunt has accused the Army Corps of “​​dragging their feet a little bit” because its study of the tunnel system has been delayed. In December, Congress ordered the Corps to finish the analysis. Hunt hailed the decision, but to date the Army Corps has not completed the study.

Just two months later, however, his staffers and Musk’s team started shopping Boring’s proposal to politicians across the state.

Emails, text messages and policy memos the newsrooms obtained through public records requests show Hunt’s chief of staff, James Kyrkanides, repeatedly attempted to obtain public money on behalf of Boring. The documents, which have not been released previously to the public, also lay out how Hunt worked to secure Musk access to lawmakers and other officials ahead of the formal bidding process.

Kyrkanides declined to comment for this story.

In February, Boring pitched its proposal to elected officials in Harris County as an “innovative and cost-effective solution.”

“We are confident in our ability to execute this project successfully to bring peace of mind to residents of Harris County and the greater Houston area during future flood events,” Jim Fitzgerald, Boring’s global head of business development, wrote in a two-page memo about the proposal addressed to Kyrkanides and shared with local officials.

That same month, Hunt spoke at a town hall meeting about his involvement.

“I talked to him” — Musk — “about Hurricane Harvey and how we need tunnels,” Hunt said, according to Community Impact. “He told me, ‘I can do that at a fraction of the cost the Army Corps of Engineers would do it.’”

A few days later, the head of a local nonprofit wrote to a county commissioner saying she’d heard Hunt and Musk were shopping the proposal around and that the idea may have been discussed on board the president’s jet.

“I hear that Congressman Hunt talked to Elon Musk about his boring company while on a trip on Airforce 1,” Colleen Gilbert, executive director of the Greens Bayou Coalition, emailed.

It’s unclear if Trump was on board or took part in the discussions. The president’s spokespeople didn’t answer questions about the apparent meeting.

In April, Kyrkanides made a detailed pitch in an email to Patrick’s staff. He passed along Boring’s proposal and suggested that $60 million be set aside in the state budget “that will be matched with another $60 million” from the Harris County Flood Control District as a “down payment for the $760 million project Elon pitched Wesley.”

“I believe the Lt. Gov. spoke with Elon and the Boring Company this week,” Kyrkanides emailed in May, a month before the regular legislative session wrapped up. “Wesley also spoke with Elon, and everything seems on track!”

Kyrkanides followed up once more mid-month: “Anything you need from us?”

Pushing for Smaller Tunnels

As they pushed the idea to state lawmakers, Hunt’s team repeatedly lobbied Harris County officials, reaching out to at least two commissioners, the county’s legislative liaison and flood control experts.

Early on, Houston officials had concerns about what Boring proposed.

The two-page letter from Boring said its tunnels would be “no shallower than 15 feet to 30 feet below ground surface,” while the county’s previous research proposed a much deeper range for the Buffalo Bayou segment.

An engineering expert in County Commissioner Tom Ramsey’s office warned that Boring’s shallower plan could interfere with bridge foundations, utility lines and existing easements.

“It discusses that the tunnel would be much shallower then anticipated,” Eric Heppen, Ramsey’s director of engineering, wrote in an email to other staffers in his office on Feb. 17. “I would quickly confirm if it can be deeper or if that becomes a load challenge for the system.”

Boring said in its pitch that the tunnel depth is “flexible,” but the company did not respond to the newsrooms’ question about whether it can build to the standards outlined in the county’s study.

Volume was another concern. A single 40-foot-wide tunnel can move about 12,000 cubic feet of water every second, county studies show. Two 12-foot-wide tunnels, laid side by side, as Boring proposed, might struggle to keep pace in a flood emergency, according to Dunbar, the veteran water resources engineer.

“One would need eleven 12-foot diameter tunnels to provide the same flow capacity as one 40-foot diameter tunnel,” he told the newsrooms. “Providing only two 12-foot diameter tunnels does not provide the flow capacity that Harris County or the Corps of Engineers are seeking.”

Boring Co.’s Proposed Tunnels Would be Narrower and Shallower Than County Plan Calls for (Sources: Harris County Flood Control District study; Boring Co. tunnel pitch. Graphic: Ken Ellis, Houston Chronicle.)

The county continued to engage with the company despite these concerns.

In March, Scott Elmer, who’s overseen the tunnel study for the past few years at the county’s flood control district, reached out to Boring executives to set up a meeting. In the following weeks, he and other flood control officials met with Boring engineers at least twice to discuss the specifics of Boring’s capabilities.

During one of the meetings, flood control officials pressed Boring representatives on whether the company could build tunnels that are at least 20 feet wide, according to an agenda shared with attendees via email.

The company was reportedly studying how to make tunnels as wide as 21 feet several years ago. But it’s unclear if Boring ever developed that capability or what it told county officials about its potential to make bigger tunnels. On its website, Boring notes it “maintains the same tunnel design for all projects to avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ for every tunnel.”

An April 10 commissioners court meeting in Houston was a turning point.

That appears to be the first time county officials brought up in public the fact that Hunt had been pitching them on a smaller-scale version of the flood plan they’d studied for years. They referred to this idea as a pilot program that would focus on just a few sections of a larger, countywide tunnel system.

Ramsey, the panel’s only Republican, specifically mentioned the pilot program tunnels could be narrower in diameter, as small as 12 feet, and shallower — specifications that would fit the kind of tunnel Boring has typically built.

Commissioner Lesley Briones, a Democrat, said a pilot project may help kick-start a huge, expensive project that the county has struggled to get off the ground.

No one mentioned Boring or Musk explicitly until Commissioner Rodney Ellis, a Democrat, said he’d gotten wind that the tech billionaire might be involved.

“I’ve heard all of the stories about Elon Musk having a tunneling company,” Ellis said. “I’ve got pretty good ears. I’ve got good Republican friends, too, now.”

He questioned the pitch, saying he was worried it would take the county off track.

However, Ellis and all of the commissioners unanimously voted to produce a white paper studying the idea of a scaled-down pilot project. They also voted to ask the state for flood mitigation funds. The vote didn’t require the county to commit to a specific project.

Later that month, records show the county’s legislative liaison reached out to staff for state Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, to indicate the county’s support for a $60 million budget rider for “underground flood risk reduction systems in Harris County.”

A two-page memo explaining the pilot project included with the request did not mention Musk or Boring and still referenced the larger 30- to 40-foot tunnels.

Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, points to a Texas- and Tesla-themed belt buckle as he answers a question about operating his business in Texas. (Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle) What’s in It for Musk’s Allies

Hunt has been a leading voice on the need for flood mitigation during his short time in Congress.

Last year, he partnered with Democratic U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher to order the Army Corps of Engineers to move forward with the underground tunnel study. The effort was applauded as a bipartisan victory.

But Fletcher, a Democrat, said she was not involved in Hunt’s work with Musk on the Boring proposal and has “not heard from anyone advocating for it.” She said she’s worked with Army Corps of Engineers and local communities “on a transparent, informed, community-driven effort to address water conveyance and flood control in our region.”

A West Point graduate and former Army captain, Hunt has shaped a political brand that appeals to both GOP insiders and MAGA-leaning voters. He was a regular at Trump campaign events in and outside Texas and secured a prime-time speaking slot at the 2024 Republican National Convention. He is the only Black Republican in the Texas congressional delegation.

But if Hunt enters the U.S. Senate race against Cornyn, he will likely need a high-profile political win to stand out, according to Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, as incumbent senators in Texas have won nearly every primary over the past few decades.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is also challenging Cornyn in the primary.

Given the volatile dynamic between Trump and Musk, aligning with the latter carries political risk but also the potential for major reward, Rottinghaus said.

“Hunt certainly is well-known enough as a member in his district, but the problem is that when you’re in Congress running for a statewide office, your base support can sometimes be very provincial,” Rottinghaus said. “To partner with Musk would provide for a kind of national profile that Hunt would need to be successful.”

Musk has tapped local politicians when pursuing similar big projects elsewhere.

In Tennessee, Republican leaders recently announced that Boring would build a transit tunnel for cars from downtown Nashville to the nearby airport. The city’s mayor and other Democratic leaders have raised questions about a lack of transparency, competitive bidding and environmental planning. At a public meeting in early August, a Boring official said the company would seek public input for the project but did not answer reporters’ questions about why they had not yet done so, according to the Nashville Banner.

In Las Vegas, where Boring built a transit tunnel system, the company was able to avoid many of the lengthy governmental reviews typical of these kinds of projects because it is privately operated and receives no federal funding, ProPublica previously reported.

In 2022, Bloomberg reported the company had pitched eight projects to Texas officials. Two were water drainage projects in Austin and Houston. Neither appears to have been built.

If Boring secures part of the Houston job, it would appear to be the company’s first public flood control project. The company lists only transportation-related projects on its website.

Texas law requires county governments to open large public projects to competitive bidding and give all potential contractors an equal shot under the same conditions.

While the law does not explicitly bar local officials from discussing projects with individual companies ahead of time, that kind of early outreach — though common in some places — hasn’t been expressly authorized by state courts or the attorney general, according to legal guidance from the Texas Municipal League, which provides legal guidance to local government officials.

Emily Woodell, the spokesperson for the Harris County Flood Control District, said the agency has not shared any sensitive information with Boring about the Houston project and only met with the company to understand its capabilities.

Ramsey, the county commissioner, told the newsrooms he believes there’s nothing wrong with officials entertaining private pitches before the formal bidding process begins.

“All companies that might have an interest in it, that might understand and offer us information, certainly we’d be open to listening,” Ramsey said.

What’s Next

The future of the project, and Musk’s involvement, are still up in the air.

The state never granted Boring the $60 million it wanted for the project. Huffman, the senator overseeing the finance committee, confirmed the rider was never placed in the state budget and told the newsrooms she had nothing to do with the proposal.

“The only involvement my office had with this proposal was when Rep. Hunt’s chief of staff reached out to my scheduler to arrange a meeting between Rep. Hunt and me, but it never took place,” she said in a statement.

County officials also told the newsrooms that they haven’t provided any public money to Musk.

However, in June, the Harris County Flood Control District produced the pilot project report that commissioners voted for in the spring, looking at a scaled-back version of the original tunnel design. This white paper proposed focusing on only a few segments of the countywide tunnel system and considered tunnels as small as 10 feet in diameter as a real option — well within Boring’s ability to construct.

The white paper also floated the idea of a public-private partnership allowing a private firm to design, build and even run the system afterward, just as Boring has done elsewhere.

It does not appear that this report has been released to the public. The flood control district provided it to the newsrooms upon request.

Carlos Gomez, acting public affairs chief for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Galveston District, told the newsrooms he had not heard about the pilot project potentially involving The Boring Co. and could not say if his agency would be interested.

After the newsrooms presented them with the findings of this investigation, Briones and Ramsey emphasized they are not committed to one particular company and that all solutions would be subject to due diligence. Ellis told the newsrooms that Musk should not be involved, calling him “someone who has shown blatant disregard for democratic institutions and environmental protections.”

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Commissioner Adrian Garcia, both Democrats, declined to comment.

Woodell, with the flood control district, said there have been no further discussions with Boring in months. She said the county has looked at smaller tunnels before but acknowledged that engineering analyses found large-diameter tunnels would be the most effective option for a countywide system. Woodell added the county might still consider smaller tunnels in “specific locations.”

“There will never be a single solution to flooding in Harris County,” she said.

If Harris County moves forward with a smaller-scale project like the one Hunt wants, which doesn’t rely on federal funding, the process to design and build it could still take up to a decade.

Jim Blackburn, co-director of Rice University’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center, said Musk’s slimmer tunnels might still prove useful. But he warned against handing a project of this magnitude to a private company without proper vetting.

“The scale of the problem we have really demands, I think, all of us to be open-minded about ideas,” Blackburn told the newsrooms. “Invite them in. Just don’t give them the contract tomorrow.”

Lauren McGaughy is an investigative reporter and editor with The Texas Newsroom, a collaboration among NPR and the public radio stations in Texas. She is based at KUT News in Austin. Reach her at lmcgaughy@kut.org. Yilun Cheng is an investigative reporter with the Houston Chronicle. Reach her at yilun.cheng@houstonchronicle.com.

This post was originally published on ProPublica.

by Wendi C. Thomas, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with MLK50. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week.

Marilyn Gooch was already skeptical about one of her newest neighbors, xAI’s supercomputing facility, when her cousin walked across the street in June with a blue mailer from the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce.

Her cousin didn’t know what to make of the postcard featuring the logos of nine local, state and federal agencies and the chamber’s assurance that billionaire Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company operated “in full compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local regulations and oversight.” The facility — part of Musk’s bid to dominate the AI market — opened at a breakneck pace almost a year before, brought to Memphis, Tennessee, largely due to the efforts of the local Chamber of Commerce.

Across the country, communities are grappling with the boom of data centers and supercomputing facilities, which consume voracious amounts of electricity and water and can emit smog-producing pollutants. In places from Maricopa County, Arizona, to Prince William County, Virginia, residents have used zoning restrictions as a means to keep supercomputers at bay — an option not available to Memphians because the xAI building was already zoned for industrial use.

Since the opening of the xAI supercomputing facility, Gooch had joined residents and environmental justice advocates sounding off at meetings about potential health impacts of xAI. She learned about the area’s already high concentration of toxic emissions from nearby industrial plants, including an oil refinery, and the county’s high asthma rates.

Of greatest concern: the emissions from the dozens of methane gas turbines — each roughly the size of a semitrailer — that were initially used to power xAI’s new facility located less than 2 miles from her home in southwest Memphis. Based on its analysis of county health ordinances and federal regulations, the Southern Environmental Law Center has asserted in multiple official and legal documents that these turbines violated the Clean Air Act and should never have been allowed; the Shelby County Health Department disagrees.

Gooch saw the mailer as an attempt to quiet their concerns.

First image: Heat shimmers above gas turbines at the Memphis, Tennessee, xAI site in April. Second image: Marilyn Gooch. (First image: Ariel J. Cobbert for MLK50. Second image: Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America.)

In the face of intense public opposition, the chamber has gone to unusual lengths to promote xAI, whose $12 billion investment the chamber believes will transform the shrinking city into a global hub of technological innovation. The chamber wants Memphis to be known as part of the “Digital Delta,” expanding beyond its blue-collar identity as the distribution capital of the country and FedEx headquarters.

This all-out push includes a five-member special operations team to provide what it calls “round-the-clock concierge service” to ensure “seamless execution of the company’s rapid expansion plans.” The chamber also managed xAI’s PR efforts, and while it has not held open public meetings about xAI, it hosted at least 12 invitation-only meetings to tout the project’s benefits to Memphis. And the chamber sent its first mailer in recent memory, which spread incorrect information about the governmental oversight in place to monitor Musk’s new facility.

Former chamber president Beverly Robertson said she can’t recall another instance of the chamber doing such a full-court press for a company — but then again, she and others noted, Memphis has never attracted a company of xAI’s scale.

The public had no input into the opening of the facility in their community. As a private business, xAI had no obligation to seek community feedback, the chamber has said. And because xAI did not seek or receive tax incentives, it wasn’t subject to review from government bodies or elected officials, some of whom learned about xAI’s arrival from the news.

The community’s lone chance to hear from xAI in person came in April during a heated health department hearing about residents’ concerns over the gas turbines. Brent Mayo, an xAI executive, read a statement about the company’s plans to meet the highest emissions standards. He left before the public comment period began.

An xAI spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about the chamber’s mailer or to questions about the number of gas turbines powering the supercomputer.

The Chamber of Commerce announced xAI’s arrival with a page on its website titled “xAI Marks Its Spot in Memphis” over a photo of Mayo, center, flanked by chamber employees. (Screenshot by MLK50)

In this reliably Democratic and majority-Black city, some residents were upset by Musk’s alignment with President Donald Trump, his brief tenure as the chainsaw-wielding head of the Department of Government Efficiency, and the antisemitic and racist posts from xAI’s chatbot Grok, which is powered by the supercomputer known as Colossus. In response to this criticism, the chamber says it defends projects, not people.

But what dominated the civic discussion was potential damage to the region’s air from xAI’s temporary turbines, especially the nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde they can emit, which contribute to smog. Even with brief exposure, smog increases the risk of respiratory problems, asthma and heart diseases, according to the World Health Organization.

The mailers sent in mid-June to residents in at least two neighborhoods, including Gooch’s, appeared to be addressing those fears, asserting that the chamber “will continue to prioritize compliance with existing standards and policies.”

For seven generations, Gooch’s family has lived in Boxtown, a Black neighborhood in southwest Memphis. Environmental justice activists say Boxtown has been plagued for decades by pollution from nearby industrial plants. In Gooch’s ZIP code, the median household income is just shy of $37,000 and the poverty rate is twice that of the city as a whole.

Boxtown residents gathered for a National Night Out event in the neighborhood in August. (Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America)

Gooch took the mailer from her cousin and scanned the alphabet soup of agency acronyms for the nine the chamber claims have “regulatory oversight and authority over xAI’s Supercomputing Facility.” Before retiring, she worked in human resources for 25 years and maintained workplace safety reports. “There’s no way they’re going to be monitoring and looking at all this,” she remembers thinking. “That’s so far beyond their reach.”

Only two agencies on that mailer have clear oversight over xAI’s impact on air quality and public health, the community’s primary concerns. The first is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which under the Trump administration aims to make the United States the world’s AI capital. Local oversight falls to the Shelby County Health Department, which says it is installing a long-awaited air monitor in south Memphis. Both agencies help ensure compliance with the Clean Air Act, the enforcement of which the current administration is weakening as part of a pattern of broader environmental rollbacks.

Two other agencies represented on the card — Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation — told MLK50: Justice Through Journalism and ProPublica that they have no authority over xAI’s supercomputing facility. The other five agencies say they do oversee some aspects of the facility, such as fire safety, zoning or potential whistleblower complaints — none of which address the health concerns that most preoccupied the community.

The mailer sent by Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce in June (MLK50)

The “Chamber’s mailer stating MLGW has regulatory oversight and authority over the xAI facility is in error. MLGW does not have regulatory authority or oversight of xAI or any business,” Ursula Madden, Memphis Light, Gas and Water’s spokesperson, said in an email.

Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation spokesperson Jennifer Donnals said in an email that “TDEC does not have regulatory oversight over supercomputer facilities.” The agency issued a permit related to construction and stormwater management at the Colossus site, she said.

Bobby White, the chamber’s chief government affairs officer, who said he wrote the text featured in the mailer, told MLK50 and ProPublica that he’d used the word regulatory “loosely.” He said the chamber sent the mailers to show residents that xAI didn’t set up shop in Memphis without consulting with anyone.

”It has been my intent to make sure people have understood that the company has essentially abided by rules and law as they currently exist,” White said in a written statement. “I have also in public and private ways tried to advise activists and leaders that changing this company’s or any company’s behavior comes down to changing the policy that allows for it.”

One of xAI’s staunchest critics is State Rep. Justin J. Pearson, who represents a majority-Black district that includes Boxtown. Memphis Community Against Pollution, co-founded by Justin Pearson and now run by his brother KeShaun Pearson, was at the forefront of the fight to get the Shelby County Health Department to deny xAI’s permit for 15 permanent turbines. It was joined by other local groups including Young, Gifted & Green, the Chickasaw Group of the Sierra Club and Tigers Against Pollution.

State Rep. Justin J. Pearson, standing on the right, is one of xAI’s staunchest critics. (Andrea Morales/MLK50)

Justin Pearson said the chamber’s mailer misled residents by including agencies that have no authority or only indirect authority over xAI.

“It’s the red handkerchief of the magician,” Pearson said. “The propaganda that they are putting out to try and convince people that there’s nothing to see here, there’s nothing to worry about, is only at the behest of a multibillion-dollar corporation.”

White said xAI did not ask the chamber to send the mailer and accused environmental activists of misleading residents with claims that “the turbines were somehow operating counter to existing policy and regulations.” He said he got involved after seeing his former sixth grade teacher, church members and community leaders he’s worked with for years at a “raucous town hall meeting on the subject of gas turbines, where people were being whipped into a frenzy and still leaving without good information.”

The chamber emphasized White’s message in a more nuanced way in a July webinar held less than a month after the mailers arrived in Gooch’s neighborhood: “XAl’s presence in Memphis has occurred with the oversight of, input from, and/or strategic alignment with the following agencies/organizations,” read a slide, with the logos of the same agencies.

Chambers of commerce exist to promote businesses and lobby for a pro-business climate, said Darrin Wilson, an associate professor at Northern Kentucky University who studies local economic development. But he said pro-business organizations should still be expected to provide accurate information.

“You want to make sure that the residents of Memphis and Shelby County have 100% accurate and full information around something that is going to impact their day-to-day lives,” he said, “so that they can make decisions for themselves and advocate on their own behalf.”

First and third images: Tigers Against Pollution, an environmental group, protest against xAI at the Shelby County Health Department in Memphis in July. Second image: Surveillance cameras monitor xAI’s Colossus site. (Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America)

The chamber maintains that xAI is an indisputable win for the city, expected to create an estimated 500 high-paying jobs and, in the first year alone, generate tens of millions of dollars in city and county property taxes, soaring to as much as $100 million next year. The city’s mayor plans to direct 25% of tax revenues from xAI’s first facility to the neighborhoods closest to the operation. xAI has recently committed to funding repairs and new athletic fields at four neighborhood public schools.

According to press reports, xAI’s presence is continuing to expand in the Memphis area. Its second supercomputer facility, Colossus 2, is expected to come online soon. Musk has announced he’s moving a power plant from overseas to power Colossus 2. And just across the state line in Mississippi, an xAI-affiliated firm purchased the site of a former Duke Energy power plant less than 2 miles from Colossus 2.

After months of weighing whether to approve xAI’s permit request to operate 15 permanent, cleaner turbines, the county health department granted the permit in July. The Southern Environmental Law Center has appealed the permit decision to the Shelby County Air Pollution Control board, an appointed body that hears such protests. The health department did not publicly explain its decision to grant the permit.

A gas turbine outside xAI in March, four months before the Shelby County Health Department approved a permit for 15 permanent turbines. (Andrea Morales/MLK50)

The chamber says that xAI has taken a number of steps to address environmental concerns. It claims that emissions from the permanent turbines, which will be a backup power source, will be far less than the maximum the EPA allows. To protect the electrical grid in times of peak demand, xAI is also using Tesla Megapack batteries as another backup power source.

In addition, the company is building an $80 million wastewater facility that will allow xAI, plus the Tennessee Valley Authority and a nearby steel manufacturer, to use recycled water to cool their plants instead of relying on the aquifer the region depends on.

“What we’re really seeing is a company that, quite frankly, is doing as much as you could hope a company would do in terms of being environmentally conscious,” White said.

Still, people in Gooch’s neighborhood have reason to worry about air quality. Last year, the American Lung Association gave Shelby County an F grade for ozone, an air pollutant that contributes to smog. The county also has the state’s highest rate of ER visits for asthma, and the city has been named an asthma capital by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

In southwest Memphis, the cumulative cancer risk associated with exposure to 13 carcinogens in the air was 4 times higher than the national average, according to a 2013 study by University of Memphis researchers.

Many of Marilyn Gooch’s relatives are buried at Boxtown’s New Park Memorial Gardens. (Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America)

“Every family member that I’ve had that lived in the Boxtown area has died of some form of cancer,” Gooch said, acknowledging that some were smokers.

Gooch, a member of the Boxtown Neighborhood Association, attended one of White’s xAI presentations at a nearby church this spring. She remembers White saying that Memphis needs more tax revenue and can’t afford to let xAI, or other companies, slide across the state line to Mississippi.

She’d planned to ask questions, but after listening to White focus on the finances, she decided not to.

“His whole spiel was about money, economics,” she recalled. “Not all money is good money.”

This post was originally published on ProPublica.

by Abe Streep

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

The top Democrat on a House committee is demanding that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins account for discrepancies between her public statements about wildland firefighter staffing and a ProPublica report showing there were thousands of vacancies in the Forest Service’s firefighting workforce as peak wildfire season approached.

In June, the Forest Service claimed it had reached 99% of its hiring goal for its wildland firefighting workforce. But ProPublica’s reporting indicated that the agency was selectively counting firefighters, presenting an optimistic assessment to the public. As many as 27% of jobs were vacant as of July 17, according to data obtained by ProPublica.

Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California and the ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, made the request to Rollins in a letter sent Thursday morning. “The Trump Administration’s staffing decisions are exacerbating an already dire situation: The Forest Service’s firefighting capacity has been dangerously hampered by Department of Government Efficiency and Trump Administration layoffs, deferred resignations, and other early retirements and resignations just as climate change is extending the fire season,” he wrote.

The Forest Service’s assertions about its readiness are contradicted not only by its own staff — a wildland firefighter in California quoted in the ProPublica report called the 99% figure “grossly inaccurate” — but by its own statistics. In July, ProPublica reported that, according to agency data, its fire and aviation management program contained more than 4,500 active vacancies, including for such crucial primary firefighting positions as hotshots, dispatchers and engine captains. At the time, a spokesperson for the Agriculture Department disputed that the Forest Service had that many vacancies within its fire and aviation management program but did not provide data showing otherwise. A spokesperson for the Forest Service later claimed that ProPublica’s figures were inaccurate, telling the High Country News, “Their numbers likely come from outdated org charts and unfunded positions.” However, ProPublica excluded all unfunded positions from its analysis, and its data came from active agency organizational charts.

When asked to support its claims that the agency’s fire service is fully staffed, a spokesperson wrote: “The Forest Service is fully prepared and operational to protect individuals and communities from wildfires. The Forest Service has over 19,000 workers, both in and out of the Fire and Aviation Management group, who hold incident response qualifications.”

According to experts, the agency has long resisted providing a comprehensive and transparent breakdown of its wildland firefighting force. “Unless Congress tells them to, they’re not going to do a report of that magnitude,” said Robert Kuhn, a former Forest Service official who between 2009 and 2011 co-authored such an assessment. Kuhn cited the cost and effort involved in analyzing a sprawling and complex agency. Earlier this year, Grassroots Wildland Firefighting, a labor advocacy organization, wrote, “None of the federal agencies have developed a modern formula for determining how many wildland firefighters and support personnel are truly needed to address 21st century issues.” Most federal wildland firefighters work for the Forest Service, within the Department of Agriculture. In addition, the federal government employs thousands of wildland firefighters at four agencies in the Department of the Interior. President Donald Trump has ordered all of them to consolidate their wildland fire programs. Details about that unification have not been released.

Every year, the Forest Service reports that it has filled its ranks with what are known as primary firefighters. But according to current and former Forest Service employees, that assessment — the basis of the claim that the agency reached 99% of its hiring goal — is misleading on a number of levels. The Forest Service simply counts “operational firefighters” working within a specified pay range. That figure includes both temporary seasonal firefighters who have just joined the agency and experienced year-round veterans — but it does not distinguish between the two and therefore elides a great loss of institutional knowledge. In recent years, the agency has suffered an exodus of experienced firefighters. The agency’s assessment also excludes both senior-level fire managers and crucial support staff. The public associates wildland firefighting with its most iconic figures: smokejumpers, hotshots and members of engine crews, who often are supported by aircraft dropping retardant. But the nation’s wildland fire apparatus also includes, for example, human-resource specialists, ecologists, wilderness rangers, meteorologists, trails workers and other employees who possess qualifications allowing them to work on a fire line. Those qualifications are listed in what’s known as a “red card.” An archaeologist could have a red card allowing them to, say, oversee the distribution of food at a fire camp.

A recently departed staffer received this email of Forest Service wildland firefighting job openings in August. (Obtained and redacted by ProPublica)

According to internal data reviewed in July by ProPublica, approximately 1,600 red-carded staff left the government this winter and spring. The Forest Service has claimed that the actual figure is 1,400. Garcia asked for a full accounting of DOGE’s impact on the Forest Service, demanding “all documents and communications regarding staffing, hiring, reductions in force, the Deferred Resignation Program, or the ‘Fork in the Road,’ and firefighting resources and capacity at the Forest Service.”

The agency’s rosy public assessments of its own force have also been belied by its efforts to rehire the workers it forced out. In a July memo, the Forest Service’s chief, Tom Schultz, allowed that the agency did not have enough resources and was now recruiting red-carded staff who had separated from the agency. More recently, emails reviewed by ProPublica show that, since July 22, the Forest Service has sent multiple recruiting notices to departed staff. The emails advertise dozens of openings for essential firefighting positions — such as dispatcher, engine captain and hotshot superintendent — in at least seven states. When asked about the emails, an agency spokesperson wrote, “We do have active recruitments out for FY26.”

In his letter, Garcia requested that Rollins provide the oversight committee with “a detailed and comprehensive accounting of current staffing and staffing changes at the Forest Service, including firefighting jobs” since Jan. 20.

This post was originally published on ProPublica.