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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Oil and gas prices continue to spike as Iran War continues to escalate; Trump Administration orders restart of oil pipeline off California coast in violation of state law; U.N. warns prolonged conflict in Middle East could trigger record global hunger; PLUS: Trump Administration weighs incredible new strategy to use taxpayer money to block new offshore wind farms... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): For 100 years, Big Oil knew it was turning Louisiana's coast into 'Swiss cheese,' records show; Revealed: the world's worst mega-leaks of methane driving global heating; How blue California and red Texas became green powerhouses; Fossil fuels 'ripping away national security' but renewables 'turn the tables', says UN climate chief; Democrats introduce windfall profit tax as big oil set to make billions from Iran war ... PLUS: A solid-state EV battery that can achieve 800 miles of driving range - It's becoming a reality ... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've been wrestling with server problems all day at BradBlog.com and still are as we try to get today's show posted. It's been up and down (mostly down!) all day, for still-unknown reasons. So, please pardon a slightly briefer-than-usual summary for today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

It was otherwise a very lively and informative show! Among the stories we covered...

• Folks from our affiliate station in Hawaii --- KAKU 88.5 FM, "The Voice of Maui" --- check in with a note to say they've survived the island's latest 100-year storm. It reportedly dumped as much as four feet of rain over the past five days in some locations. That, as the continental U.S. Southwest swelters with record early heat pushing 100 degrees, and cold weather, blizzards and tornadoes slam the other half of the nation.

• Yesterday we broke news on this program that an oil pipeline near Santa Barbara, California --- which had been shutdown since a disastrous rupture in 2015 spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude up and down the coast --- was restarted over the weekend following an unprecedented declaration of the Defense Production Act by Donald Trump late on Friday. The company which now owns the decades old pipeline, Sable Offshore, has failed to meet state requirements to reopen it. Nonetheless, Trump's Executive Order has seemingly bigfooted state law, with oil now said to be flowing again through the still-corroded pipeline as of Saturday, according to Sable and confirmation from several media outlets late last night. Representatives of the State and the Center for Biological Diversity were in Court on Tuesday morning (as our guest, the Center's Talia Nimmer previewed on yesterday's show). Nimmer reports today that the state judge in the case confirmed an existing injunction against operation of the pipeline, issued last summer, but did not order it shut back down at today's hearing. Another hearing is now scheduled for April to sort things out, presuming the pipeline doesn't rupture again before then.

• Trump claims a former President recently told him that he wished he had bombed Iran. All four living Presidents denied such a conversation or even speaking with Trump recently, according to NBC.

• An increasingly delusional Trump is now claiming that "nobody expected" Iran would retaliate by firing missiles at U.S. bases and diplomatic outposts in neighboring countries if Iran was attacked. That is, of course, absolutely not even close to true. We play a bit of audio from Trump's remarks to that end both yesterday and today, where he really sounds as if he is now sort of melting down both physically and mentally.

• Trump is also desperately begging allies to help the U.S. in the Strait of Hormuz to reopen shipping of a fifth of the world's oil, since Iran (predictably) shut it down after the ill-advised U.S. and Israeli attack nearly three weeks ago. All of the allies have, so far, declined to help Trump out of his predictable, self-inflicted mess as oil prices continue to spike with no exit strategy in sight. Trump is said to be furious, but is now claiming he didn't need their help anyway.

• The head of Trump's National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, a longtime loyalist, announced his resignation today in response to Trump's war on Iran.

• If you haven't heard some of the remarkable deposition testimony by a couple of the DOGE Bros who were placed in charge of cancelling some $100 million in federal grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities last year, we've got you covered today. Prepare to be gobsmacked at how stupid these two 20-something Elon-wannabees --- Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox --- come across in these interviews, unable to explain even what DEI means (though they were looking to cancel any grant they could characterize as "DEI"), admitting they used ChatGPT to tell them which grants to cancel, and struggling to explain how gender diversity (or something) was the reason for their cancellation of grants having to do with documentation of the Holocaust.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Cuba's electric grid collapses following Trump's oil blockade of the island nation; how Big Oil now worries the Iran War will decimate demand for their deadly product; and as the number of extreme heat days have now doubled around the globe...

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Today on The BradCast: The President of the United States' war of aggression and distraction against Iran is going poorly enough as is, especially with Iran's entirely predictable shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz and, with it, transit out of the Persian Gulf of a fifth of the globe's daily supply of oil and natural gas. But now he's using his failure overseas as cover to punish, target, threaten and endanger Americans on the home front. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We pick up today's show with a quick update of the weekend war news since we last spoke, before turning to a late Friday declaration by Donald Trump's Energy Sec. (and former fracking CEO) Chris Wright, citing an Executive Order issued by the President to reopen pipelines and three offshore drilling rigs owned by a newly-formed company named Sable Offshore Corporation. The company reportedly met with Trump and other Administration officials to discuss reopening the rigs last year. Their aging equipment is part of a pipeline failure that resulted in a notorious ecological disaster on the California coastline just over ten years ago.

Trump has invoked the wartime Defense Production Act in hopes of preempting California state laws and authorities which had otherwise blocked the reopening of the system of platforms, pipelines and storage known as the Santa Ynez unit, even while Sable is facing civil lawsuits and criminal charges that had stalled the reopening of the unit.

The system was previously owned by ExxonMobil. In 2015, a deteriorating pipeline ruptured, resulted in a massive oil spill near Refugio State Beach, just south of Santa Barbara. At least 450,000 gallons of crude was spilled, coating some seven miles of beachfront along the coast, sending sticky tar balls onto the coastline as far as 150 miles away, killing untold numbers of wildlife and endangered species in the bargain.

California and other advocates had been preventing the reopening of the equipment until Trump's order late last week invoking DPA authority for the first time in U.S. history to help out one single fossil fuel company.

We're joined today by TALIA NIMMER, staff attorney for the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the nonprofit groups that had been suing to prevent Sable from reopening the project. The groups have argued in court that the system of pipelines being used by the company remains deteriorating and dangerous. It threatens, as detailed today, not only wildlife along the coastline, but, as Governor Gavin Newsom is arguing in court on behalf of the Golden State, a $51 billion coastal economy. The Executive Order, Nimmer explains, has usurped state law and authority in an unprecedented act.

The 2015 disaster "was one of California's most devastating oil spills. It resulted in the deaths of thousands of birds and marine mammals, cost millions of dollars, and really had devastating impacts on the community that they are still dealing with today," Nimmer says. "Restarting these idled and failed pipelines is really a big deal that puts our coast and our wildlife in great jeopardy, in great danger, and it should not be permitted without ensuring our coastal community is safe."

The Trump Administration is not waiting for approval from courts. Nimmer tells me that her group "just got word" that the damaged pipelines "have been restarted this weekend."

"It's unclear exactly what is open and what is not at this point," she reports. "But what is clear is that, just this morning, Sable issued a press release saying that they have begun transporting oil through these pipelines. Meaning that the pipelines have been restarted in defiance of state requirements and state law."

Nimmer tells me that Sable, "a newly-formed company, was formed strictly for the purpose of reopening these pipelines and oil operations" after purchasing them from ExxonMobil in 2024. "In its short existence, it has racked up numerous criminal charges and violations from state agencies, including a criminal complaint with five criminal charges that it has illegally discharged fill and other pollution into our waterways, and for conducting unlawful repair work on these pipelines."

"In October of last year," Nimmer continues, "the office of the state Fire Marshall determined that there are still further repairs that are needed before these pipelines can safely operate, which have not been done to date despite Sable having turned on the plugs this weekend."

She describes the move as a "radical and unprecedented way of using" the Defense Product Act "to benefit an individual oil company that has repeatedly broken the law and to greenlight a single oil project that California doesn't want or need."

"This is another example of a radical power grab by this Administration." Moreover, she argues, "it sets an extremely dangerous precedent for all state laws. It doesn't just put our coast at risk. It also puts every state at risk, because they can wake up tomorrow to find that projects they don't want are also being greenlighted and causing major risk to their communities." It is, she asserts, a "a huge infringement on state sovereignty."

Making matters still worse, as Trump is claiming such efforts are needed to counter spiking oil prices after his actions resulted in Iran's shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, the Santa Barbra operation is unlikely to lower the price of gas. "The oil in these pipelines would be a drop in the bucket," according to Nimmer. "It's estimated that only 0.05% of the state's total oil production would come from these pipelines. That would really have no impact on lowering global oil prices."

Much more on all of this today, while the State and the Center for Biological Diversity prepare to be in court tomorrow to try and to stop this runaway Administration's latest attack on the state of California.

In the second part of today's show, we open the phones to listeners ringing in on all of the above and a bit more...

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Follow and stream @GreenNewsReport!...



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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 'Unprecedented' heat waves set all-time high national records in Brazil and South Africa; Commercial jet the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean powered by waste fat and sugar, not fossil fuels; PLUS: President Biden touts booming clean energy jobs, manufacturing in MAGA Republican's district... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): CA's Salton Sea has even more lithium than previously thought; Cybersecurity agency warns that water utilities are vulnerable to hackers after PA attack; New life for old coal: Minelands and power plants are hot renewable development spots; Biden Admin sued for hiding records on opposition to fossil fuel phaseout; LA liquefied natural gas facility is the next carbon bomb ... PLUS: Biden's paradox: Can a green grid coexist with industrial surge?... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: While we were out --- Hurricane season kicks off on both coasts with Alex and Agatha; CO2 levels in the atmosphere hit highest level in human history; PLUS: Biden makes big moves on solar tariffs and clean energy under the Defense Production Act... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Cambridge engineers develop zero carbon cement; Biden delivers a 'break glass' moment for clean energy; Judge greenlights more NEPA reviews on Western oil leases; Undoing Trump, EPA to empower states and tribes to oppose pipelines; Meet the group lobbying against climate regulations "” using your utility bill; Ship pollution rising as world waits for leaders to act; Ukraine migration maps 'what's possible' for the climate displaced; Avian flu takes growing toll on wildlife; Glyphosate weedkiller damages wild bee colonies; PLUS: Ninth Circuit orders fracking moratorium off California coast... and much, MUCH more! ...