Alex Milan Tracy for Underscore
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The dozens of independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news organizations that make up the Rural News Network are developing the broadest news alliance reporting on rural America. These newsrooms are pursuing coverage that provides a more complete picture of what it means to live and work in these communities.
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LATEST NEWS FROM THE NETWORK
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America’s Rural South Is Paying the Price for Europe’s Energy
September 12, 2024
The nation’s largest climate bill could fuel the biomass industry, leaving Black communities like Adel, Georgia, to suffer the consequences.
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Can battery plant jump-start Edgecombe County’s sputtering economy?
September 09, 2024
With chronic high unemployment, industry losses and a declining population, Edgecombe leaders hope Natron battery plant will spark renewal.
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Signs of a Ceasefire in Michigan’s Energy Wars
August 28, 2024
Rural comunities have been fighting for nearly two decades over large-scale solar and wind farms. A new law might turn down the temperature as the state seeks to reduce carbon emissions from generating electricity.
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In green energy boom, one federal agency made the Yakama Nation an offer they had to refuse
June 24, 2024
Federal rules and a lack of protection for sacred places left the Indigenous nation with an impossible choice.
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Coming soon to a lake near you: Floating solar panels
June 13, 2024
New research finds that “floatovoltaics” could generate a substantial amount of energy worldwide.
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As sprawl threatens farmland, proposed Maine rules single out just one competing land use: solar
June 05, 2024
Some advocates say the rules unfairly single out clean energy based on limited data, but they hope the fees could help funnel development toward brownfields and less productive farmland.
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Vermont set to become first state in the nation to ‘make big oil pay’
May 30, 2024
Gov. Phil Scott has allowed two of the session’s most consequential bills related to climate change to become law without his signature. One holds big oil companies accountable for the damage climate change has caused in Vermont, and another is designed to protect Vermonters from the impacts of more frequent flooding as a result of a warmer atmosphere.
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This county is California’s harshest charging ‘desert’ for electric cars. Local activists want to change that
May 22, 2024
In Imperial County, residents have access to few public chargers and buy electric cars at only a fifth of the statewide rate.
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As Ohio clamps down on clean energy, recent changes make it easier to force landowners to allow oil and gas drilling
May 15, 2024
Streamlined legal requirements and economic factors explain the jump in orders since 2020 to let petroleum companies drill on dissenting owners’ land.
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Virginia lawmakers reached a compromise on energy efficiency – here’s what it will mean for utilities and regulators
April 29, 2024
Advocates say the tool required under the new law should make energy saving programs by Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power more transparent and effective.
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Rivers are the West’s largest source of clean energy. What happens when drought strikes?
April 26, 2024
With rivers across the West running low, utilities must get creative if they are to meet demand without increasing emissions.
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New EPA rules close a ‘huge loophole’ on coal ash, forcing wide-scale cleanup, advocates say
April 25, 2024
A pair of new regulations finalized Thursday are expected to require cleanup of coal ash pollution at all known locations where the toxic byproduct has been dumped.
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Food and Environment Reporting Network
The whole dam truth
April 25, 2024
Hydropower projects are celebrated as tools to address the climate crisis. But they are far from climate neutral and the downstream threats to biodiversity and Indigenous sovereignty are significant and growing.
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Feds reject plan to pump Moneta oilfield waste into potential drinking water
April 24, 2024
Federal environmental officials have rejected a request by Aethon Energy to pump Moneta Divide oilfield wastewater into the Madison aquifer, saying the deep reservoir could be used for drinking water, especially by tribal nations on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
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Illinois rural electric co-op customers seek clarity, consistency from ‘Solar Bill of Rights’
April 24, 2024
The proposed legislation started small but now aims to address a wide range of common frustrations facing rural electric cooperative customers who install solar panels.
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