HEADLINES This year, the Indiana General Assembly had three bills introduced that are dedicated to addressing climate change - two of which were youth-led and authored by Senator Ron Alting, a Republican from West Lafayette - and yet declined to hear any of them. ---Norm Holy The Indiana Legislature seems to be looking to squelch every effort to improve the environment.  According to WTIU, the latest effort involves an Indiana bill that could change the way trial court judges look at the facts when they review decisions by state agencies. ---Norm Holy The Mental Health and Climate Change Alliance in Canada has reported that last summer’s heat dome over western North America significantly increased Canadians’ anxiety about the climate crisis. ---Linda Greene One of the biggest concerns about the transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy is whether or not it is possible to build up the necessary infrastructure in a sustainable way.  A lot of attention has focused on the increasing demand for rare-earth minerals like lithium and cobalt, but a new study shows that there are environmental implications to the use of common metals as well. ---Norm Holy People’s utility bills are funding anti-environment lobbying. Electric and gas utility companies, many of which cling to dirty fossil fuels instead of embracing the transition to renewable energy, are forcing their customers to finance anti-environment trade groups. ---Linda Greene Radio station WLDS in Illinois reports that a renewable energy transmission line expected to stretch from Kansas to the East Coast is now attempting to get regulatory approval in Illinois.  Invenergy Transmission has begun the process to get state regulatory approval from the Illinois Commerce Commission for its proposed Grain Belt Expressway transmission line. ---Norm Holy Previously we reported that Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which consists of 225,000 acres of the Superior National Forest, was under dire threat from two federal mining leases that Twin Metals mine held. The company’s aim was to establish a sulfide-ore copper mine adjacent to the Boundary Waters.  Today we have good news: the Biden administration just canceled the leases. ---Linda Greene Opponents of the planned large solar farm north of Gaston packed the regular meeting of the Delaware County Council recently and won both sympathy from council members and a promise they would look at rescinding the tax abatement the council approved for the project last year. ---Norm Holy Indigenous people are reclaiming hundreds of acres of California redwood forest of which they were dispossessed  by European settlers forcing them off their land. The nonprofit Save the Redwoods League has granted ownership of 523 acres on the Lost Coast, which includes 200 acres of old-growth redwoods, to the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, made up of a nonprofit group of ten tribes. ---Linda Greene Endangered salmon have returned to streams 30 miles north of San Francisco for the first time since 2004. ---Norm Holy Over sixty U-S organizations have released a joint statement urging elimination of the nation’s land-based nuclear missiles, known as intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. The statement warns that the weapons are a huge waste of funds and, more critically, an existential threat to humanity. ---Linda Greene The Detroit News reports General Motors Co. plans to invest $6.5 billion in two Michigan sites and create 4,000 jobs in the state, according to a meeting agenda and two sources familiar with the situation. ---Norm Holy President Biden pledged to phase out the federal government’s leases for fossil fuel extraction, yet in its first year his administration approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands than the Trump administration did in 2016, during Trump’s first year in office. ---Linda Greene   CALENDAR