Energy Justice Network

Trump (without Congressional approval) had the U.S. join Israel’s attack on Iran and now 20% of the world’s oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, along with natural gas, 20% of the world’s gas-based fertilizer, and more. This will impact the world economy for years, as it’ll impact our food growing season as well. Trump, with no plan after attacking Iran, appealed to other countries (that he’s already alienated) to help safeguard passage in the Strait of Hormuz. None are agreeing to help. And we apparently don’t have the minesweepers we’d need. Trump acts like we'll be fine because the U.S. produces more oil and gas than we consume. Heather Cox Richardson, in two recent daily updates, spells out the flaw in this thinking. Very eye-opening reading. See links in comments for the two full articles. Here are two critical excerpts:

“The U.S. does indeed produce more oil and natural gas than it consumes, but it cannot use much of what it produces. The key is prices and refineries. The U.S. tends to produce light, sweet crude oil, a term for oil that flows easily and has low sulfur content. Because it is easy to refine and more valuable than heavy, sour crude, U.S. producers have an incentive to sell it on the open market. Even if they wanted to keep it at home, U.S. refineries are set up to refine the cheaper heavy crude oil, so the U.S. does not have the refining capacity to process the oil it currently produces and must buy what it needs from elsewhere. This means the U.S. is inextricably tied to the international oil markets.”

“Oil is now selling at more than $100 a barrel, up from about $70 a barrel before the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran that began on February 28, and gas prices have risen by at least $0.70 a gallon since then. As David Goldman of CNN reports, Iran’s ability to stop most traffic through the Strait of Hormuz threatens not just about 20% of the world’s oil supply as well as natural gas. About 20% of the world’s fertilizer also passes through the strait, which will affect crops for this year’s growing season. It will also limit helium—necessary for the cooling process when making silicon chips and cooling medical equipment—and aluminum.”

Trump's EPA finally came out with the new regulations for large trash incinerators. The current regulations are from 2006 and are supposed to be updated every five years. It took a federal lawsuit to get EPA to update these, and Biden's EPA, in 2024, proposed new regulations that were the weakest of three options they were considering for 8 of 9 pollutants (and the middle option on nitrogen oxides that trigger asthma attacks). After legal delays, the Trump EPA issued these new regulations yesterday that are even weaker than Biden's EPA proposed.

The first three bars on each pollutant are for existing trash incinerators with Biden's EPA proposal in orange and Trump's final regulations in red. The The second set of bars are for new trash incinerators, with Biden's EPA proposal in light blue and Trump's final regulations in purple.

These are the numbers for the typical type of trash incinerator (mass burn water wall). For two of the pollutants, there are different standards for different types of incinerators. See pages 29-30 for the standards for existing and new incinerators here:https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2026-03/large-municipal-waste-combustors-final-rule-prepub_0.pdf

In response to our Stop Trashing Our Air Act in Philadelphia -- a bill on the cusp of passage, that would ban the city from contracting to burn our trash, recyclables, or compostables -- incinerator company, Reworld, has increased its donations to our mayor's campaign and is now the second largest spender on lobbyists in Philly. We got this data to the WHYY reporter who just covered our work on this. Learn more at www.PhillyZeroWaste.org