Infrastructure

"Imagine a home so efficient that it could be heated with a hair dryer. That’s the promise of a passive house, a design standard that’s becoming increasingly popular in the architecture community for its benefits to occupants and the climate."

"As states across the country roll back how much they pay rooftop-solar owners for the surplus electricity they send back to the grid, Puerto Rico is bucking the trend, protecting its generous solar credits until at least the end of the decade."

"The same flood-control system that protected L.A. from the atmospheric rivers also saw tens of billions of gallons of stormwater flush to the sea."

"Attorneys general from 13 Democrat-led states and Washington, D.C., are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen a proposal that seeks to limit Americans’ exposure to lead service lines."

"Fossil fuel companies are trying to strip a series of climate-friendly measures out of the latest round of model building codes used to regulate construction virtually everywhere in the United States."

"The Senate’s border and Ukraine spending package contains more than $2 billion in funds for uranium processing, as the U.S. works to reduce global reliance on Russian energy exports."

"A federal bank that finances projects overseas is set to vote on Thursday on whether to use taxpayer dollars to help drill oil and gas wells in Bahrain, a contentious decision that prompted two of the bank’s climate advisers to resign, according to people with knowledge of their decisions."

"Clean electricity alone won’t get us to a fossil-fuel-free society — we’ll need other tools to fully decarbonize. ​“Clean” hydrogen, for all of its hype and baggage, might be the most promising way to cut carbon from difficult sectors like aviation and steelmaking. It could also be a boondoggle or a bust — it all depends on how the gas is made and how it’s used."

"Stalled efforts to reform the nation’s rail safety and chemical oversight as well as lingering toxic exposure concerns will loom over President Joe Biden’s upcoming visit to the Ohio town devastated by last year’s train wreck."

"They vowed to fix water woes and save cities millions. But a Times investigation found the deals racked up debt and left many worse off than before."