EXCLUSIVE: Author John Vaillant tells The Independent that human-driven climate change has created dangerous wildfire conditions and thousands of ‘climate refugees’ in the city of Los Angeles
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As wildfires rage for the third consecutive day through parts of Los Angeles, now including the Hollywood Hills, several neighborhoods have been forced to evacuate for safety purposes. But on Thursday afternoon, a wildfire evacuation alert was mistakenly sent to the smartphone of every resident in Los Angeles County, a region with more than 9 […]
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Using LEDs has the potential to bring down the cost of biomanufacturing, allowing such processes to make materials that previously would have been too expensive.
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Xocean, an Irish marine robotics startup that provides ocean data to the energy and hydrography industries using uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), has raised €115 million ($119 million) as it looks to expand coverage to additional sectors. Founded in 2017, Xocean has built a fleet of remotely-controlled USVs that can remain offshore for long periods of […]
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Watch Duty, an app to track wildfires with live maps and alerts, has become the No. 1 free app in Apple’s App Store as of Wednesday morning. The fire-tracking app surpassed the ChatGPT app for the No. 1 spot as devastating fires continue to rage across Southern California. ChatGPT had been in the No. 1 […]
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Gridware's sensors listen for sounds that the company’s software has been trained to identify as different hazards to the grid.
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Deep Fission's small modular reactors would be lowered on cables down a 30-inch, one-mile deep borehole.
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Nvidia, Apple, and the Pentagon want more rare earth metals. Alta says it can capture more of the critical minerals from low-grade sources than other methods.
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Agriculture, which consumes about 70% of global freshwater, is grappling with increased water scarcity and inefficient irrigation systems. Traditional methods of irrigation not only lead to wasted water and nutrients, but also contribute to lower crop yields, food insecurity, and unnecessary carbon emissions. Hong-Kong based agriculture technology startup Full Nature Farms thinks there’s a better […]
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Hydrogen startups are widely seen as a promising way to eliminate fossil fuels from heavy industry and long-haul transportation. But they have been stuck in limbo for the last couple years, waiting for official guidance from the U.S. Treasury on lucrative tax credits. The wait ended today, with the Treasury announcing final rules for hydrogen […]
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Electra has raised $180.4 million to clean up the dirty ironmaking industry, TechCrunch has learned. The startup has developed a novel method of using electricity to coax pure iron out of low-grade ores, opening the door to cleaner steel. The new funding round, which was disclosed in a regulatory filing, seeks to raise a total […]
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In the 1942 film "Holiday Inn," legendary crooner Bing Crosby describes the stroke of midnight on New Year’s as "one minute to say goodbye before we say hello." In 2025, Americans in several states around the country are "saying hello" to many new laws and changes in tax codes.
In West Virginia, for example, residents saw an automatic 2% personal income tax cut taking effect on New Year's Day.
"If anybody says there’s something [else] that could drive more growth to West Virginia than that, you’re out of your mind," outgoing Republican governor and Sen.-elect Jim Justice quipped of that particular policy change.
However, other states’ residents may face more proverbially "draconian" policies and regulations. Here's a look at some of them.
"Congestion pricing"
The Empire State’s heavily-debated congestion pricing law will take effect on Sunday, Jan. 5.
While Gov. Kathy Hochul and MTA Chair Janno Lieber have been supportive of the change, which charges the average driver crossing or entering Manhattan below Central Park a photo-enforced $9 toll, many New Yorkers remain outraged.
HOCHUL SPURS BIPARTISAN OUTRAGE OVER CONGESTION PRICING
"Congestion pricing, the latest in a long string of tyrannical taxes, has been pressed forward through consistent opposition about the burden on New York families and workers," several New York Republican federal lawmakers wrote in a December letter.
Meanwhile, Democrats like State Sen. Andrew Gounardes of Bay Ridge had urged the congestion-pricing plan to begin "immediately, before [Donald] Trump can block it."
Lather up
Visitors to one of the most popular tourism states in the country will no longer be welcomed by travel-sized shampoo and lotion bottles, as they will be prohibited come the New Year.
The Empire State's ban took effect on Jan. 1, while a similar ban in Illinois goes into practice on July 1 for larger hotels and Jan. 1, 2026, for smaller ones.
While many hotels across the country have transitioned to affixing bulk shampoo dispensers into shower walls, many tourists still prefer the tiny bottles.
Tax hikes
California’s SB-951 of 2022 stipulated that workers will have slightly more money withheld from their paychecks in 2025. The state’s disability insurance program rate is to increase from 1.1% to 1.2%.
The average California worker will see $8 less per month in their net pay.
Gas prices
California Republicans estimated that new regulations taking effect in the New Year will cause "major sticker shock" for drivers in the Golden State.
"I’m concerned Californians will … be unprepared for the rapid gas spike in 2025, which could be an additional 90 cents per gallon," said state Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones.
CA LAWMAKERS SLAM ‘IVORY TOWER’ ENERGY ‘POLITBURO’ AS GAS PRICE HIKE LOOMS
Jones estimated Californians will pay $900 more over the course of the year for gasoline.
Parental rights
AB-1955, or the SAFETY Act, took effect Jan. 1.
The law prohibits schools from enacting policies that require parental notification if their child changes their gender identity.
In December remarks to FOX-11, bill sponsor Assemblyman Chris Ward said "politically motivated attacks on the rights, safety, and dignity of transgender, nonbinary and other LGBTQ+ youth are on the rise nationwide, including in California."
Ward, D-San Diego, said school districts had wrongly adopted policies to "forcibly out" students and that parents should love their children unconditionally in all cases.
Immigrant health insurance coverage requirements
A 2022 bill relating to health insurance coverage for Coloradans regardless of immigration status will take effect next month, according to the Denver Post.
CALIFORNIA VOTERS NARROWLY REJECT $18-PER-HOUR MINIMUM WAGE
HB-1289 requires the state to provide "full health insurance coverage for Colorado pregnant people who would be eligible for Medicaid and the children's basic health plan (CHIP) if not for their immigration status and continues that coverage for 12 months postpartum at the CHIP federal matching rate," according to the bill text.
Abortion
As of July 2025, Delaware colleges will be required to provide emergency abortion access and contraception or direct the patient to an external facility, according to the Wilmington News-Journal.
A law is also primed to take effect in the First State that mandates insurance coverage and eliminates deductibles for abortion procedures, according to multiple reports.
State Sen. Bryant Richardson, R-Blades, ripped the new law after it passed the legislature earlier in 2024.
"This is a procedure you want my tax dollars to pay for. I’m sorry, I think this is evil," he said.
Stop light
Washington, D.C., will institute a ban on right-turns-on-red within District boundaries. The law is a rare regulation in a blanket context, with New York City being one of the few other major cities with a similar law.
Signage denoting the otherwise tacit law is typically posted when entering New York City from highways like Major Deegan or one of the city's many river crossings, but it is often lacking on the hundreds of small streets on the grid that traverse into Westchester or Nassau Counties.
In the same vein, the District of Columbia reportedly lacks funding for signage on most of the streets entering the nation’s capital from Maryland or Virginia, which may or may not affect enforcement, according to reports.
The $385,000 in district funds allocated to notifying residents and drivers of the law was never identified, a DDOT official told WTTG.
Bird watch
D.C.’s Migratory Local Wildlife Protection Act of 2023 imposes a new building restriction as of Jan. 1.
Permit applications or glazing alterations will require bird-friendly materials on exterior walls and fenestration within 100 feet of grade level, according to WTTG.
The district is also one of a handful of places where the sales tax will see an increase. In the capital’s case, it will rise to 6.5%.
Firearms
Minnesota will institute a ban on "binary triggers" on personally owned weapons, according to reports. That is, the function that allows a gun to fire multiple rounds with one press of the trigger.
Vaping ban
The Ocean State is set to enact a ban on sales of and possession-with-intent-to-sell flavored vape products in 2025. The law is currently facing litigation but will be able to preliminarily go into effect, according to the Providence Journal.
Global warming
Vermont’s Global Warming Solutions Act, which initiates limits on greenhouse gas emissions, will take effect in the New Year.
It requires a 26% reduction in 2025 emissions reduction versus 2005 levels, according to the Vermont Public.
The law, however, also opens the state up to legal action from green groups and more if it fails to reach the required reduction level.
That aspect led Republicans to question the new law. Gov. Phil Scott vetoed the bill in 2020, saying it does not propose or create a good framework for "long-term mitigation and adaptation solutions to address climate change."
Meanwhile, Vermont Republican Party Chair Paul Dame recently said it opens up the state and taxpayers’ money to undue risk from such lawsuits.
"These goals were unattainable given the currently available technology, but now the state is getting dragged in to court for completely avoidable reasons," Dame told Fox News Digital.
No coal in your stocking
Oregon’s HB-4083 will direct the state onto a path toward divesting in coal firms and market instruments that include coal interests.
The laws that weren't
With many states, like those above, enacting tax hikes, new regulations and the like, Republicans in states with divided government are expressing cautious optimism that their trend of bucking liberal legislative interests can continue.
While Vermont’s Scott has seen key vetoes like the Global Warming Solutions Act overridden by the Democrat-dominated legislature, some states have the opposite dynamic where a Republican-majority chamber stymies the goals of Democrats.
With the state Senate in Republican hands, the State House one vote short of a 50-50 split and the governorship held by Democrats, Republicans expressed relief that legislation such as a 100% carbon-neutral 2050 Clean Energy Standard did not make it to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk.
In the gun control realm, both an assault weapons ban and proposed repeal of the state Stand Your Ground Law drafted by state Sen. Steve Santarsiero, D-Bristol, died in the legislature.
"It is time we take an evidence-based approach to our gun policy. ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws encourage gun violence. As such, it is time that we repeal ‘Stand Your Ground’ here in Pennsylvania," Santarsiero said in a memo.
Another bill enacting a firearms "Red Flag Law" languished through the legislative term.
A policy that would fund cost-free telephone calls from state prisoners also did not make it through, as did a bid for an "abortion protection package."
FLASHBACK: PA LAWMAKERS DRAFT BILL TO DIVERT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ‘GHOST FLIGHTS’ TO WILMINGTON
Those and several other top-line "draconian" bill failures are a product of GOP persistence, said state Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Gettysburg.
"With a Democrat governor and Democrat House, the state Senate is the last line of reason to prevent Pennsylvania from becoming like California," the 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee told Fox News Digital on Monday.
"There has been a litany of extreme legislation coming from Democrats."
As chair of the Emergency Preparedness committee, Mastriano added that the "most egregious" no-pass in 2024 was legislation to address Pennsylvanian effects from the biohazardous East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment.
Mastriano, along with state Sens. Elder Vogel Jr., R-Beaver, and Michele Brooks, R-Pymatuning, drafted legislation in July to exempt disaster relief payments from state taxes in one case.
That bill did not make it out of the legislature.
Republicans in the state also lamented the failure of the latest effort to withdraw Pennsylvania from a national "RGGI" Greenhouse Gas pact entered into by former Gov. Tom Wolf.
"Leaving our environmental and economic destiny to the whims of RGGI’s New England states is just bad policy for Pennsylvania," State Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Williamsport, said after the Senate approved the eventually-failed bill.
"It is time to repeal this regulation and focus on putting forth commonsense, environmentally responsible energy policy that recognizes and champions Pennsylvania as an energy producer."
"Pennsylvania’s greatest asset is our ability to produce energy," State Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Latrobe, added in a statement.
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Minimum wage hikes are also primed to take effect in several states.
Washington, Connecticut and California are set to see $16 per hour or higher as the minimum wage for most workers. Rhode Island's will rise to $15, Maine's to $14.65, Illinois to $15 and Vermont will go to $14.
More than a dozen states, including Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Utah, Tennessee and Mississippi, retain the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
The Bill Gates-backed startup uses AI to comb through massive data sets in an attempt to find more critical minerals.
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As 2025 dawns, it’s a good time to look at the trends that are likely to define the coming 12 months.
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Blasting the way into 2025 could have dangerous consequences for human and animal health alike
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Bitter cold sweeping across the majority of the US could bring storms that result in power outages and ‘significant’ travel disruptions
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A New York democratic bill aimed at charging oil and gas companies for pollution could result in regressive costs for working families in the state, energy and economic experts tell Fox News Digital.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul recently signed the Climate Change Superfund Act, a bill that seeks to charge polluters up to $75 billion for pollution dating from 2000 to 2018. The money will reportedly be used to fund projects rebuilding infrastructure damaged by weather over the years.
While the bill seeks to fine large corporations, some economists say that such actions will result in higher prices for some New Yorkers.
"It’s heartwarming to see Governor Hochul finally acknowledge what energy advocates have long understood: the best way for humanity to thrive is through adaptation to a changing climate. By signing this bill, she’s effectively endorsed that philosophy—though in the most counterproductive way possible," Jason Isaac, CEO and founder of The American Energy Institute, said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital.
BIDEN SETS ECONOMY-WIDE CLIMATE TARGET: REDUCING EMISSIONS 66% IN 2035 FROM 2005 LEVELS
"Instead of incentivizing innovation, this legislation piles billions in new costs onto energy producers, punishing the very industry that keeps the light and heat on for New Yorkers," Isaac continued. "The real tragedy here isn’t just the higher energy costs for working families; it’s watching businesses and residents flee a state that refuses to adapt its own bloated policies to economic reality."
"The result will be higher energy costs for households, families, and small businesses in one of the most expensive states to live in the country," Trisha Curtis, economist at the American Energy Institute, said. "With no plan to address the broader economic consequences, this law will drive people, businesses, and state revenue out of New York and into other more competitive states."
O.H. Skinner is the executive director of the Alliance for Consumers, a Phoenix-based nonprofit committed to ensuring consumer protection efforts, class action lawsuits, and attorney general enforcement actions are consistent with the rule of law. He is also a member of the Washington, D.C.-based Federalist Society.
FIVE WAYS TRUMP COULD DISMANTLE BIDEN'S CLIMATE AGENDA
Skinner called the bill "the latest attempt by left-wing politicians in New York to drive reliable energy production out of existence and force everyone to abide by their preferred Progressive Lifestyle Choices."
"This policy will do nothing except raise energy prices for hardworking Americans and decrease our standard of living, while progressive elites pat themselves on the back for punishing disfavored industries," Skinner told Fox.
"Whether it's charging citizens to drive into their own city, banning new gas appliances, or foisting a massive new tax bound to significantly raise the price of energy, hardly a day goes by that New York government doesn't implement ESG policies that make their citizens' lives quantifiably worse," said Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild.
Fox News contributor David Webb said that the bill is "going to cost New Yorkers."
"If you're an energy company, you're already guilty. They're just going to decide over the next decade how they're going to charge you for your guilt," Webb told "Fox & Friends First," calling Hochul a "far left governor" that is "bound to this ideology."
However, proponents praised the legislation for requiring companies to pay for fossil fuel pollution in the state.
"By signing the Climate Change Superfund Act, Gov. Hochul is addressing the financial burden placed on New Yorkers by the fossil fuel companies," said Richard Schrader, Director of New York Government Affairs at Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental organization. "It’s a key example of what putting fiscal fairness and environmental justice front and center looks like."
In total, 38 firms reportedly deemed carbon polluters will be on the hook, such as American oil giants Exxon and Chevron, as well as the UK's Shell and BP.
Vermont remains the only other state to adopt similar pieces of legislation.
The bill comes just weeks after Hochul rolled out a plan to offer payments of up to $840 to New York residents who switch out their washing machines for a green alternative.
US alone suffered 71 per cent of losses from 10 worst disasters this year
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Climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and severe with expensive and deadly consequences
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