Parts Per Billion

It's well known that using PFAS-laden firefighting foam caused big problems for the military, but it's sometimes overlooked that civilian firefighting agencies are facing many of these same problems.

Bloomberg Law reporters Pat Rizzuto and Andrew Wallender are finding more instances of litigation against fire departments over their use of this foam. And they say the main US firefighters' union is now partnering with law firms after cutting ties with companies that make PFAS-coated protective gear—a sign that lawsuits from individual firefighters may soon follow.

Pat and Andrew join this episode of our environmental policy podcast, Parts Per Billion, to talk about this new frontier of PFAS litigation and why revelations about contaminated protective gear are stirring up strong emotions from the firefighting community.

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As a multidecade megadrought continues in the West, the Colorado River Basin is drying up. Today we’ll talk about what that means for the millions of people who depend on that water. And we’ll look at what states and regulators are doing to ensure that communities get the water they need to survive.

Seven western states are frantically working to reach an agreement on how to divvy up the available water ahead of a Feb. 1 deadline—at which point the federal government has suggested it would impose its own rules to fix the problem.

That's the topic of discussion on today's Parts Per Billion, our weekly environmental podcast. Bloomberg Law’s water and public lands reporter, Bobby Magill, explains what's at stake—and which states might get first dibs at the dwindling water supply.

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About a year ago, Richard Glick was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and was poised to get renominated to a new term. Today, he's out of the job.

Glick's plans to more closely scrutinize gas pipeline projects ran afoul of the powerful chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.). Without Manchin's support, the Biden administration couldn't get Glick's nomination through the Senate.

Bloomberg Law reporter Daniel Moore spoke to Glick shortly before his term at FERC expired and he joins our environmental podcast, Parts Per Billion, to talk about what went down and about how losing Glick will affect the Biden administration's climate change goals.

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News of the world's first nuclear fusion reaction with a net energy gain created a lot of excitement, and justifiably so—fusion could one day be an infinitely renewable, carbon-free energy source.

Policy makers, including President Joe Biden, said they want to see a fusion reactor providing electricity to the American grid within 10 years. But scientists say that timeline is probably too ambitious, if not impossible.

On today's episode of our environmental policy podcast, Parts Per Billion, Bloomberg News reporter Will Wade explains the promise of nuclear fusion power, what a realistic timeline for its development looks like, and whether it might draw research funding away from other renewable energy projects.

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Companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are now some of the country's largest consumers of electric power. And as Bloomberg Law's Daniel Moore reports, they're starting to wield their strong purchasing power.

Big Tech companies are pushing the energy industry to bring more renewable power projects online, Moore says, and they're also hiring energy lobbyists to achieve these goals in Washington.

Moore joins our environmental policy podcast, Parts Per Billion, to talk about where the tech industry wants the country's electric grid to go and what that means for both utilities and ratepayers.

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The 117th Congress is coming to a close at the end of this year and, now that most of the midterm races have been called and partisan control of both chambers decided, we have a pretty good idea of what the dynamics will be in the new 118th.

Bloomberg Government energy reporter Kellie Lunney joins this episode of Parts Per Billion, our environmental policy podcast, to talk about what to expect on Capitol Hill for the next two years. For one, she says, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) will maintain considerable influence over the chamber as his party's surprising performance in the midterms means he'll continue to lead the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Even if Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) wins the December runoff against Republican Herschel Walker and becomes the Senate's 51st Democrat, Manchin could still jam things up for his party on any number of issues.

Lunney also talks about what could happen during the lame duck session currently under way, and specifically about whether any environmental provisions will hitch a ride on two huge pieces of must-pass legislation.

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The Biden administration has made it crystal clear that, to solve climate change, we need to source more of the critical minerals that go into electric batteries--and we need to source them domestically.

One potentially huge source of these minerals is in northern Alaska. But what will that mean for the Alaska Natives who have been living off of the land there for centuries?

On this episode of Parts Per Billion, Bloomberg Law reporter Bobby Magill tells us about his trip to northern Alaska and why the Native population there feels so ambivalent about this modern day gold rush.

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Ali Zaidi, the White House's new climate czar, doesn't have the name recognition of his predecessor, Gina McCarthy. But maybe that's the point.

McCarthy was instrumental in getting the Inflation Reduction Act, and its billions of dollars for climate projects, through Congress and to President Joe Biden's desk. But now the task turns to getting that money out the door in a quick-but-not-too-quick manner, and the White House thinks Zaidi is the technocrat for the job.

On this episode of Parts Per Billion, our environmental policy podcast, we talk about the new national climate adviser with Bloomberg Law reporter Stephen Lee. Lee tells us what Zaidi will be tasked to do and how he'll get it done while working alongside climate officials such as John Kerry, John Podesta, and others.

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Because it's so effective, PFAS-laden firefighting foam isn't easy to replace. However, there are indications that PFAS alternatives might finally be ready for prime time.

The Department of Defense is expected to change its policies early next year to allow for the use of non-PFAS foams, while some states are also pushing civilian firefighters to phase in the use of these new foams.

On this episode of our environmental policy podcast, Parts Per Billion, Bloomberg Law reporters Pat Rizzuto and Andrew Wallender talk about why this may not be as big of a breakthrough in the fight against PFAS contamination as it may seem. They say the PFAS alternatives will at least initially be hard to come by—especially if the military uses its massive purchasing power to buy them all up. There's also the matter of safely disposing of existing stocks of firefighting foam, which will be a challenging task in itself.

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It's been nearly 20 years since a handful of northeastern states got together to start a cap-and-trade program for their power sector's greenhouse gas emissions.

Since then, the membership of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, has been anything but static. New Jersey left under former Republican Gov. Chris Christie, then rejoined under his successor. Virginia and Pennsylvania joined RGGI recently, but the current and likely future governors of those respective states are far from enthusiastic about it, signaling potentially more departures to come.

However, RGGI has stood firm amid the swirling political winds and made meaningful reductions in emissions, according to William Shobe, an economist at the University of Virginia. Shobe spoke to Bloomberg Law's Jennifer Kay about why he thinks this markets-based approach to climate change has fared better than similar programs in other states—and in other countries.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Parts Per Billion? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

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