Message From the Editor

In the desert of West Texas, amid the nation’s most active (and polluting) oilfields, solar panels now cover an area five times the size of New York City’s Central Park. Facebook is the major financier behind this $416 million project and the social media giant has framed the solar endeavor as helping it reach its goal of 100 percent renewable energy.

But Justin Nobel reveals that the majority of this solar power will actually go to Shell’s fracking operations in the Permian oil patch. Yup, Facebook’s solar panels are powering fracking. Read the story.

Speaking of the Texas oilfields, Earthworks has a new report that finds Texas regulators have been dragging their feet when it comes to holding polluters accountable in the Permian. Sharon Kelly has the story.

In case you missed it (because it’s 2020, after all), Hurricane Delta became the tenth named storm to hit the U.S. this year. Julie Dermansky’s powerful photos and reporting from the ground (and air) show how this hurricane has pummeled the same industrialized stretch of Louisiana coast that’s still recovering from Hurricane Laura just weeks earlier.

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

P.S. We couldn’t do our public interest journalism and research on climate deniers and the fossil fuel industry without the support of readers like you. Can you donate $10 or $20 right now?

This Massive Facebook Solar Project Will Power Shell’s Fracking Operations in Texas

— By Justin Nobel (10 min. read) —

In the heart of the Permian oil patch in West Texas, a massive $416 million solar array began converting sunshine to electricity this summer. One of the project’s main financiers has a very familiar name — Facebook.

The social media corporation helped make possible the 379-megawatt Prospero I solar array, located about 18 miles west of the city of Andrews and covering an area five times larger than New York City’s Central Park. The project represents a model initiative for Facebook, which is striving to become a leader on climate change. A June 2019 Associated Press article about Prospero I repeatedly implies its energy will power Facebook’s data centers, where photos, videos, and other information is stored. The article quotes CEO Mark Zuckerberg in saying that, “These new solar projects will help us reach” a goal “for all our data centers and offices to use 100% renewable energy by 2020.”

Texas Regulators Failing to Act on Pollution Complaints in Permian Oilfields, New Report Finds

— By Sharon Kelly (10 min. read) —

Over the past five years, environmental advocates with the nonprofit Earthworks have made trips to 298 oil and gas wells, compressor stations, and processing plants across the Permian Basin in Texas, an oil patch which last year hit record-high methane pollution levels for the U.S. During those trips, Earthworks found and documented emissions from the oil industry's equipment, and on 141 separate occasions, they reported what they found to the state’s environmental regulators.

However, in response to those 141 complaints, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) took action to reduce pollution — by, for example, issuing a violation to the company responsible — just 17 times, according to a new report published today by Earthworks, which describes a pattern in which Texas regulators failed to address oilfield pollution problems, allowing leaks to continue in some cases for months.

Hurricane Delta Compounds Oil Pollution Left By Hurricane Laura in Louisiana’s Wetlands

— By Julie Dermansky (7 min. read) —

Hurricane Delta made landfall in Creole, Louisiana, on October 9 — 13 miles east of where Hurricane Laura struck 43 days before. It touched down in an area packed with oil and gas wells, pipelines, and rigs.

An assessment of how much oil was spilled after Laura had not been made when Hurricane Delta created a new round of destruction along a similar track, from Port Arthur, Texas, to Baton Rouge. 

Polling Shows Growing Climate Concern Among Americans. But Outsized Influence of Deniers Remains a Roadblock

— By Dana Drugmand (9 min. read) —

More Americans than ever before — 54 percent, recent polling data shows — are alarmed or concerned about climate change, which scientists warn is a planetary emergency unfolding in the form of searing heat, prolonged drought, massive wildfires, monstrous storms, and other extremes.

These kinds of disasters are becoming increasingly costly and impossible to ignore. Yet even as the American public becomes progressively more worried about the climate crisis, a shrinking but vocal slice of the country continues to dismiss these concerns, impeding efforts to address the monumental global challenge.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Turning Point USA

Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is a youth conservative activist organization founded by Charlie Kirk in 2012. The nonprofit, which has ties to the fossil fuel industry and Koch-funded organizations, says its mission is working to “promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.” Individuals affiliated with TPUSA have downplayed the climate crisis, and while maintaining it is nonpartisan, the organization has close ties to the Trump administration. The group recently made the news when Facebook announced it was banning a marketing firm that it says was running fake accounts for Turning Point USA, although the nonprofit says the firm was working with its separate 501(c)(4) entity, Turning Point Action.

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database or our new Koch Network Database.