Even substitute PFAS cause metabolic stress in zebrafish embryos

PFBS (Perfluorobutanesulfonic acid) exposure leads to genetic, metabolic, and morphological disruptions in zebrafish embryos

Kyushu University

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Zebrafish embryos exposed to PFBS showed disruption in glucose and lipid metabolism, as well as physical dysfunction in heart function, facial development, nervous system development, and visual response

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Credit: William Ka Fai Tse/Kyushu University

Fukuoka, Japan—Publishing in the Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances, researchers from Kyushu University used zebrafish embryos to study the health effects of the PFAS called PFBS (Perfluorobutanesulfonic acid), a substitute PFAS thought to be safer than traditional compounds. They found that while PFBS did not generate any obvious external dysfunction, the compound still gets absorbed and accumulates in the zebrafish embryo. Results showed that PFBS caused disruptions in the metabolic pathways for sugars and fat, which led to oxidative stress. Embryos also showed physical dysfunction in heart function, facial development, nervous system development, and visual response.

The results suggest that while PFBS could be considered safer than other PFAS, exposure to it may still cause negative effects on living organisms.

PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a category of highly stable chemical compounds that can be found in many industrial and consumer products. But because they are so stable and do not break down, they accumulate in the environment and in the human body, giving them the alternative name “forever chemicals.” Alternative forms of PFAS have been developed over the years with the hope that they are less toxic and not likely to accumulate in the body.

“PFAS can be found in everything from the non-stick coating on your frying pan to dental floss. Well-known PFAS such as PFOS and PFOA have been increasingly restricted in Japan and elsewhere due to their risk to human health and the environment,” explains Associate Professor William Ka Fai Tse from Kyushu University’s Faculty of Agriculture, who led the study. “Structurally, PFBS has a shorter carbon chain and is thought to be less harmful to organisms. Our group has studied PFAS toxicity for many years and wanted to test if this alternative is better. We used zebrafish embryos to examine how PFBS affects metabolism, cellular stress, and developing organs.”

The team exposed zebrafish embryos to various concentrations of PFBS and observed its effects. First, they found that PFBS is absorbed by the embryos and that it accumulates over time inside the body. RNA sequencing of the embryos showed disruption in gene expression in key metabolic pathways involving glucose and fat.

“Specifically, expression of genes involved in the TCA cycle and lipid metabolism was disrupted. We also detected elevated reactive oxygen species, increased mitochondrial dysfunction, and elevated levels of cell death,” continues Tse. “These were signs of elevated oxidative stress, which we hypothesize is a result of the disruptions in the metabolic genes.”

Although the PFBS-exposed zebrafish embryos appeared normal, biochemical analyses showed significant underlying cellular and morphological changes. Histological analysis showed subtle structural abnormalities in the heart and possible impaired cardiac performance. The embryos also exhibited minor skull deformations, suggesting developmental irregularities in bone structure. Imaging analysis showed a decrease in neural tissue, indicating reduced neural development, and behavioral assays suggest that visual development was also impaired.

The study demonstrates that PFBS can still be detrimental despite being a substitute for more toxic PFAS, especially during the embryonic stage. More study is needed to understand the full effects of PFBS in an organism, such as how it affects adults and whether there are any transgenerational effects of this toxicity.

“We would also like to investigate ways to better detect and remove these newer PFAS from the environment,” concludes Tse. “PFAS contamination is a concerning issue in both environmental pollution and public health. Many of these replacement PFAS compounds remain poorly regulated. Companies need to closely study any new compound they create and communicate any risks they find.”

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For more information about this research, see "Perfluorobutane sulfonate induces metabolic stress leading to cellular stress and developmental defects in zebrafish embryos," Zulvikar Syambani Ulhaq, Delbert Almerick T. Boncan, Da-Wei Liu, Chen Hsu, Jingru Qin, Jen‐Kun Chen, May-Su You, Ting Fung Chan, Yukiko Ogino, Yun-Jin Jiang, Keng Po Lai, William Ka Fai Tse, Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hazadv.2026.101596

About Kyushu University 
Founded in 1911, Kyushu University is one of Japan's leading research-oriented institutions of higher education, consistently ranking as one of the top ten Japanese universities in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World Rankings. Located in Fukuoka, on the island of Kyushu—the most southwestern of Japan’s four main islands—Kyushu U sits in a coastal metropolis frequently ranked among the world’s most livable cities and historically known as Japan’s gateway to Asia. Its multiple campuses are home to around 19,000 students and 8,000 faculty and staff. Through its VISION 2030, Kyushu U will “drive social change with integrative knowledge.” By fusing the spectrum of knowledge, from the humanities and arts to engineering and medical sciences, Kyushu U will strengthen its research in the key areas of decarbonization, medicine and health, and environment and food, to tackle society’s most pressing issues.

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Journal

Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances

DOI

10.1016/j.hazadv.2026.101596

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Perfluorobutane sulfonate induces metabolic stress leading to cellular stress and developmental defects in zebrafish embryos

FOREVER CHEMICALS

China's PFOS and PFOA emissions drop sharply, but hotspots persist

Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences

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Graphical abstract.

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Credit: Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) are persistent organic pollutants regulated under the Stockholm Convention. However, consecutive annual changes in PFOS and PFOA emissions across the Chinese mainland, their distribution among environmental media, and their spatial variation have not yet been systematically quantified. A new study develops a bottom-up, consecutive 0.1° × 0.1° inventory tracking PFOS and PFOA releases to air, water and soil across China from 2016 to 2021. The work quantifies sharp national declines alongside persistent localized hotspots and identifies a structural shift in emission sources from dispersed pesticide and industrial uses toward concentrated firefighting and manufacturing sites. It provides a spatially and temporally resolved basis for understanding multimedia release patterns and priority control areas.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been widely used since the mid-20th century and are ubiquitous in water, air, soil and biota. Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) can accumulate in the human body and have been linked to immunotoxicity, endocrine disruption, developmental effects and certain cancers. China has introduced measures including the PFOS Priority Sectors Reduction and Phase-Out Project and restrictions on sulfuramid, but existing inventories often cover single years or selected regions and lack consecutive annual trends, medium-specific releases and national spatial detail. Given these challenges, in-depth research is needed on the consecutive annual, multimedia emission dynamics and priority control areas for PFOS and PFOA across China.

Researchers from Peking University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Southern University of Science and Technology published (DOI: 10.1016/j.ese.2026.100785) the study in Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, available online 29 October 2026. The team built a bottom-up multimedia emission inventory for the Chinese mainland at 0.1° × 0.1° resolution from 2016 to 2021, combining source-specific activity data, literature-derived emission factors and Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis. The inventory covers releases to air, water and soil across five PFOS and four PFOA source categories.

The inventory shows that PFOS emissions fell by about 89% and PFOA emissions by more than 99% over the study period. These reductions coincided with regulatory restrictions and technological transitions in fluoropolymer manufacturing, metal plating, aqueous film-forming foams (AFFFs) and sulfuramid pesticides. PFOS emissions were dominated by use-related releases in 2016, while PFOA emissions were overwhelmingly production-related; by 2021, AFFFs dominated residual PFOS and nearly all residual PFOA emissions. The decline also reshaped the spatial structure of releases, shifting the emission profile from geographically dispersed pesticide and industrial uses toward localized clusters at industrial and firefighting sites. Water remained the principal receiving medium for both compounds. Residual hotspots persisted in the Bohai Rim, Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and Pearl River Delta (PRD), overlapping with dense populations in eastern and southeastern industrial zones. Grid-level emission densities contracted sharply, yet relative spatial heterogeneity remained substantial. A population-weighted emission index further identified the YRD and PRD as priority areas where residual sources coincide with dense populations. The authors used source-specific downscaling proxies, including land-use data for sulfuramid and fire statistics combined with facility locations for AFFF use.

The authors said the sharp declines reflect a structural transformation in China's emission profile for legacy C8 (eight-carbon) PFAS, driven by source-directed regulation and industrial transition. They said residual emissions are now increasingly concentrated in industrialized and densely populated regions, and targeted control should prioritize remaining metal-plating and firefighting-related sources. They added that the inventory offers spatially and temporally resolved source terms for multimedia fate modeling and policy evaluation, while cautioning that replacement PFAS were not included because consistent national activity data and process-specific emission factors remain unavailable.

The inventory provides a quantitative basis for multimedia fate modeling, hotspot mitigation and policy evaluation. It offers spatially explicit source terms for exposure assessment and environmental monitoring, particularly in the YRD and PRD where residual sources coincide with dense populations. The authors recommend prioritizing monitoring of PFOS sources linked to metal plating and firefighting, and PFOA hotspots near fluoropolymer facilities. They also call for facility-level mass-balance measurements and China-specific process-level emission factors to improve future inventories, and for expanding compound coverage to replacement PFAS as nationally consistent activity data become available. Such work could help assess the health benefits of source-control strategies and inform future regulatory priorities.

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References

DOI

10.1016/j.ese.2026.100785

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ese.2026.100785

Funding information

National Natural Science Foundation of China (42521004, 42477455 and 41991310); Fundamental and Interdisciplinary Disciplines Breakthrough Plan of the Ministry of Education of China (JYB2025XDXM909); High-Performance Computing Platform of the Center for Life Sciences, Peking University (computing support).

About Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

Environmental Science and Ecotechnology (ISSN 2666-4984) is an international, peer-reviewed, and open-access journal published by Elsevier. The journal publishes significant views and research across the full spectrum of ecology and environmental sciences, such as climate change, sustainability, biodiversity conservation, environment & health, green catalysis/processing for pollution control, and AI-driven environmental engineering. The latest impact factor of ESE is 14.3, according to the Journal Citation ReportsTM 2024.

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Journal

Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

DOI

10.1016/j.ese.2026.100785

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Spatiotemporal inventory of PFOS and PFOA in China’s air, water and soil (2016–2021): Sharp declines yet persistent hotspots

 

DNA ‘switch’ uncovers new brake on breast cancer growth

Adelaide University

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Adelaide University researchers have found a DNA ‘switch’ that helps the body stop the growth of the most common form of breast cancer, providing new insights that could help with future treatments.

Up to 80% of breast cancer cases are classified as oestrogen receptor-positive (ER+) – meaning their growth is driven by the hormone oestrogen.

Previous research has shown that another hormone receptor, the androgen receptor, can act as a tumour suppressor in ER+ breast cancer. Activating the androgen receptor has shown promise as a potential treatment strategy, but scientists are still working to understand exactly how it stops cancer cells from growing.

Researchers from Adelaide University’s School of Medicine, the South Australian immunoGENomics Cancer Institute (SAiGENCI) and SAHMRI have now uncovered an important piece of that puzzle.

The team had previously identified a gene called ZBTB16 as a possible contributor to this tumour-suppressing effect, with a higher presence of the gene linked to improved survival in patients with ER+ breast cancer.

However, this new study found that changing ZBTB16 levels in breast cancer cells did not alter the ability of the androgen receptor to suppress cell growth.

Instead, the researchers identified a small regulatory region of DNA hidden within the gene that proved to be critical.

“The surprising finding was that ZBTB16 itself was not responsible for the growth-suppressing effect,” said Dr Amy Dwyer from Adelaide University’s School of Medicine.

“Instead, we found that a small DNA ‘switch’ sitting inside the gene helps the androgen receptor to restrain cancer cell growth.”

This DNA ‘switch’, known as HRRINT3, acts as an enhancer – a section of DNA that helps control gene activity. The androgen receptor binds to this enhancer when activated by androgens, hormones that are present in both women and men.

Using CRISPR gene-editing technology, researchers deleted a small section of HRRINT3 to determine what would happen when the enhancer was removed.

“When we deleted this DNA 'switch’, the androgen receptor could no longer suppress breast cancer cell growth as effectively,” said co-author Dr Zeyad Nassar, a cancer researcher with Adelaide University’s SAiGENCI and SAHMRI.

“We also observed broader disruption of androgen receptor signalling and increased activity of genes that drive cell division.

“This tells us that the enhancer is doing much more than simply controlling ZBTB16. It appears to be part of a wider regulatory network that helps the androgen receptor keep cancer cell proliferation in check.”

Removing the DNA 'switch’ also led to a rapid increase in other androgen receptor-positive breast and prostate cancer cell models, suggesting that it may have a broader role in restraining tumour growth across multiple androgen receptor-positive cancers.

The research has been published in the journal npj Breast Cancer and is the result of a collaboration with researchers at the University of Bordeaux in France.

“This discovery gives us a new piece of the puzzle in understanding how the androgen receptor suppresses ER+ breast cancer,” Dr Dwyer said.

“Treatments that activate the androgen receptor are already being investigated for advanced ER+ breast cancer, so understanding the molecular machinery needed for this anti-cancer effect is important.

“Ultimately, this work could help us develop better ways to identify and treat patients with advanced disease who have stopped responding to hormone therapies.”

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Journal

npj Breast Cancer

DOI

10.1038/s41523-026-01037-5

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

A functional role for an intronic enhancer of ZBTB16 in AR-mediated tumour suppression in ER+ breast cancer

Two ‘forever chemicals’ associated with higher risk of aggressive breast cancer in NIH analysis

Evidence continues to grow on how environmental factors affect women’s health

NIH/Office of the Director

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Women with higher blood levels of two common per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also familiarly known as PFAS, were more likely to develop estrogen receptor-negative, or ER-negative, breast cancer, according to a new study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). PFAS are a large group of chemicals used in common consumer products. Often referred to as “forever chemicals,” PFAS do not break down easily in the environment and can remain in the body for years.

 

The study found that women with higher blood plasma levels of two of these substances, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), were associated with a higher incidence of ER-negative breast cancer. No clear association was observed between the two chemicals and breast cancer risk overall.

 

“Women deserve clear answers about how chemicals in their environment may affect their health,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “This NIH study links two forever chemicals to a higher risk of ER-negative breast cancer and demands further investigation. Under President Trump’s leadership, we will pursue the evidence, confront environmental health risks, and give women the information they need to protect their health.”

 

ER-negative tumors lack receptors that allow hormone estrogen to help cancer cells grow. Compared with breast cancers that respond to hormone estrogen, ER-negative breast cancers tend to be more aggressive and have worse outcomes. Scientists know less about what raises the risk of this type of breast cancer.

 

“Our findings, which we confirmed using a meta-analysis of prior research, indicate that certain legacy PFAS, including PFOA and PFOS, are associated with a higher risk of ER-negative breast cancer, a more aggressive tumor type with few known risk factors,” explained NIH Stadtman Investigator Alexandra White, Ph.D., who led the study. The findings are reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

 

NIH researchers and their collaborators measured 17 PFAS in blood, collected years before women were diagnosed with cancer. Women in the group with the highest PFOA levels had a 67% higher rate of ER-negative breast cancer than those in the lowest group. For PFOS, the rate was 93% higher, or nearly twice as high. These numbers describe relative differences between groups, not an individual woman’s chance of getting breast cancer.

 

The research drew on the Sister Study, led by NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). The larger study enrolled 50,884 women ages 35–74 in the United States and Puerto Rico from 2003 to 2009. None had breast cancer when they joined the Sister Study, but each had a full or half-sister who had been previously diagnosed with breast cancer. For the PFAS study, researchers included 1,609 women who developed breast cancer and a comparison sample of 2,269 women.

 

“These findings matter for women’s health broadly,” said first author, Che-Jung Chang, Ph.D., a former research fellow at NIH and a current researcher at DLH, a scientific research organization. “Although PFAS are persistent in the environment and in our bodies, exposure to them is still potentially modifiable, meaning people can take steps to reduce their exposure, and these findings could open new avenues for prevention.”

 

Because the strongest associations involved tumors without hormone receptors, the authors suggest that PFAS may affect cancer risk through other non-hormonal biologic pathways. Possible pathways include changes in gene activity or immune system. However, this study did not test those explanations. The authors say future studies should evaluate people with higher PFAS exposure and in groups more affected by ER-negative breast cancer.

 

Although most individuals have measurable levels of PFOA and PFOS in their bodies, these compounds have been largely phased out and replaced with new PFAS compounds. “More research is needed, particularly evaluating the risk of breast cancer associated with newer replacement PFAS chemicals,” White said.

 

This research was supported by NIEHS grants: Z01ES044005; Z1AES103332; and R01ES032831.

 

Reference: Chang CJ, Pullella K, Keil AP, et al. Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Exposure and Breast Cancer Incidence in the Sister Study. Journal of Clinical Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO-26-00318.

 

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About the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS): NIEHS conducts and supports research to understand how the environment affects human health. It is part of the National Institutes of Health. For more information, visit www.niehs.nih.gov.

 

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

 

NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health®

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Journal

Journal of Clinical Oncology

DOI

10.1200/JCO-26-00318

Article Title

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Exposure and Breast Cancer Incidence in the Sister Study

Article Publication Date

5-Nov-2026

Win the Midterms to Defang Climate Monster Trump

The debate over major permitting reform legislation hinges around the fact that as long as Trump is in charge, it will empower his pro-fossil fuel rampage.


The “Drill, Baby, Drill” motif float shows a depiction of US President Donald Trump with reference to the use of fossil fuels and the rejection of environmentally friendly energy production for the Rose Monday parade on March 3, 2025 in Rhineland-Palatinate, Mainz-Mombach, Germany.
(Photo by Andreas Arnold/picture alliance via Getty Images)


Bill Mckibben
Oct 30, 2026

The Crucial Years

As we head towards the midterms, the president’s closing argument has mostly been about various people’s posteriors, but he has also taken the time to make several, um, substantive points.

One is his theory that solar panels become incredibly hot to the touch during their operation, and hence will kill “all the animals.” As he explained his theory, “The animals jump on them and they fry because those black panels are hotter than your stove.” This is not true, as anyone with a functioning brain should be able to easily figure out; there are of course tens of millions of homes and apartments with solar panels, and no reports of burns from touching them. Literally here is a video of a goat dancing on a solar panel. It turns out in fact there are dozens of these pictures online—goats on solar panels are an entire genre.

The second point he’s been making this week is that he is going to lower diesel costs by buying some of the fuel from Russia, thereby abrogating our country’s own sanctions and replenishing the Kremlin’s war budget. Indeed, the diesel is traveling on previously sanctioned tankers. As Svitlana Romanko, the intrepid leader of Ukraine’s Razom We Stand points out, this is utter betrayal: “Every barrel on board these ships exporting Russian fossil fuels is money for the missiles and drones Russia fires at Ukrainian homes every night, bringing more civilian casualties.” But since it’s President Donald Trump, it’s also utterly stupid, in that the quantities are too small to budge the high price of diesel, which, as the zealots at that radical website OilPrice.com write, is “set to persist well into 2027.” Of course, there’s another possible explanation—it’s all part of the grand corruption scheme that the Times has begun to unravel: as Anton Troianvoski and Eric Lipton document:
An American energy company intends to buy Russian technology and use it to access a massive supply of natural gas in Alaska, liquefy it, and export it to allies abroad.

The Kremlin and the White House were interested in the idea. President Vladimir V. Putin discussed the plan last month with President Trump’s peace envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, people familiar with the negotiations said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. It is one of a series of energy deals White House officials believe could help smooth relations with Moscow and eventually pave the way to end the war in Ukraine.

But it turns out that the company was not an all-American affair. The multibillion-dollar project has received secret funding from the same powerful Russian company that was to provide the technology, according to the energy executive who until last month led the US firm and two others involved in company negotiations.


Anyway, there was a third point the president made this week, this one purely monstrous. It came in a speech in oil-patch Lubbock, Texas, where, in an effort to boost flailing Senate candidate Ken Paxton, he declared an end to any real federal oversight of methane emissions from the fossil fuel industry. As Sara Sneath reports:
At a Trump rally in Corpus Christi earlier in the day, Trump shouted out Harold Hamm, saying the founder of Continental Resources was in the audience. In April, Continental Resources wrote a letter to the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] pushing back against measures in the methane rule that prohibit routine flaring of associated gas.


Hamm, careful readers will remember, was the president’s chief donation bundler from the oil and gas industry during the last presidential campaign. Anyway, it’s worth remembering that

Last year, the US emitted more methane from its oil and gas sector than any other country in the world. Methane is responsible for at least a quarter of today’s warming.

Julia Kane, a researcher for Fieldnotes, said the Trump Environmental Protection Agency was giving oil and gas corporations exactly what they want. “The oil and gas industry says it’s a ‘good-faith’ partner eager to help craft regulations, but time and time again it’s worked behind the scenes to delay and weaken them,” she said.

All of this, of course, is pretty much par for the course. You could pick any week in the last two years and come up with roughly the same kind of idiocy and perfidy and graft; the Trump presidency is an ongoing evil MadLibs.

The trouble with his current gust of malignity, however, is that right now a pair of Democrats in the Senate—Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico—have been trying to persuade their colleagues, and by extension the rest of the country, to support a “permitting reform” bill that would make it easier to build energy stuff. It’s traveling under the name BAAJA, for Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, I guess on the grounds that “affordability” is something all right-minded people support (except, of course, for Trump who thinks it, like global warming, is a “hoax.”) Anyway, the grand bargain these two senators have struck with the oil industry is hundreds of pages long, and would overturn much of the environmental review process in America.

If you have any doubts about the necessity of making changes in how we review things, read Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance. But the devil comes in the details—or rather, the devil is Donald Trump, and the pertinent detail is whether he can be contained in a meaningful way. Obviously Whitehouse and Heinrich knew that this would be an issue, and they did their best to build in some guarantees that it wouldn’t be able for him to use it push dirty energy at the expense of clean. But from the start there have been questions about this—I wrote two weeks ago about Harvard professor Jody Freeman, so centrist in this work that she actually served on the board of a major oil company, who said:
A close read suggests it’s structurally designed to lock in and subsidize natural gas & other fossil projects over cleaner renewables for years to come, using the courts and taxpayer dollars.


Since then, what you might call normie Democrats have been sounding increasingly urgent alarms in increasingly urgent language, and urging the drafters of this massive legislation—currently scheduled for a vote five days after the election—to figure out how to amend key provisions. Exhibit No. 1 here would be John Podesta, the insider’s insider. White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton, counselor to Barack Obama on climate and to Joe Biden on energy policy, chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign—I think it’s safe to say he understands presidential power as well as anyone alive. So it landed with a thud two days ago when he told Jael Holzman that the bill as written would hand Trump a “loaded howitzer.” He focused on the sections around “permitting certainty,” which were written to try and keep the president from interfering (as obviously he has been doing) with clean energy projects. But:
This was “one place where I think they made a huge mistake,” Podesta said, calling the restriction on revoking or rescinding decisions “one of the worst provisions of the bill.” He complimented lawmakers for trying to address Trump’s attacks on already-permitted renewable energy projects, including stop-work orders on offshore wind facilities under construction, and for seeking commitments from the administration to continue permitting projects in exchange for a deal.

However, Podesta said they are “going to have to take it out” or significantly revise it because he believes this language would allow Trump to illegally approve projects on sensitive or protected lands and courts would not be able to force the government to undo approvals that violate the law. He argued this would mean Trump could permit development in many areas land conservation groups, tribes, and anti-drilling advocates have long fought to protect from industry, including the Chaco Culture National Historic Park in New Mexico, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, and the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.

“I think they have handed Trump not just a loaded gun, but they’ve handed him a loaded Howitzer to go after public lands, to permit stuff that even if it’s illegal can’t be reversed by the courts,” Podesta said. “They’re going to have a permit gorge like you’ve never seen, not really caring about whether they’re going through the legal steps to do it, and under this bill, those can’t be reversed. That’s got to change if this bill’s going to pass.”


Abigail Dillen, president of EarthJustice, who have been leading the legal fight against Trump’s environmental extremism, followed up Podesta’s warning:
Over the next two years, BAAJA would create more legal runway for this president to make corrupt deals and green-light harmful projects of all kinds, and it would constrain any future president from repairing the damage. People can reasonably differ on long-term projections. But once you know what’s in this bill, how BAAJA plays under Trump should be clear as glass…

Most sweepingly, the bill’s certainty provisions would render Trump permitting decisions irrevocable with very limited exceptions. The next administration would likely inherit a raft of destructive and unpopular projects, and BAAJA would make it wildly risky financially and even impossible for the next president to revisit them. To be clear, the damage would not be confined to energy-related projects. Think detention centers, petrochemical complexes, data centers on public lands—whatever kinds of projects appeal to this president.


And here’s Carl Pope, former executive director of the Sierra Club and an environmentalist so centrist he once barnstormed the country with fracking executives touting the desirability of natural gas:
Title IV, “Permit Certainty,” is the draft’s most troubling section. Environmental policy has historically improved through two linked processes: identifying new risks and applying existing clean up technologies to abate them; in parallel, pushing research on clean up technology options and then adopting stronger standards as science and technology advance. Title IV works to obstruct both.

For example, a data center permitted to use fossil-fuel power could claim protection even after cleaner, cheaper alternatives become available for their needs. Likewise, if regulators later discovered dangerous contamination—such as PFAS, or “forever chemicals” in a watershed—the provision could impede stronger water-quality standards needed to protect nearby residents.

What BAAJA describes as a regulatory floor may function as a public-health ceiling. Instead of preserving agencies’ ability to respond to new evidence, it could lock in yesterday’s permits and yesterday’s pollution standards, under which millions of tons of unnecessary pollution are emitted by outmoded power plants.


For the first few weeks, this fight has been mostly confined to very elite and in-the-know circles. Earlier this week, for instance, Tom Steyer came out for the bill on the grounds that it “beats the status quo.” When I saw it, I flashed back to a gathering convened on his ranch 15 years ago: I shared a cabin there with… John Podesta and Carl Pope. We shouldn’t have this closed a political circle on questions this large.

So it’s good to see that policy is increasingly joined by politics in this debate: Given that we’re hoping for a blue wave in next Tuesday’s election, it may be hard to persuade Democrats to go along with the Whitehouse-Heinrich plan, because the conventional wisdom is starting to harden around the Ossoffian ideal that the best way to deal with Trump is to stand up to him.

A fairly important straw in the wind came earlier this week when four key Senators—Oregon’s Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, Ed Markey from Massachusetts, and Tammy Duckworth from Illinois—wrote a letter to Whitehouse, Heinrich, and their Republican co-sponors arguing that the Trump administration has clearly enforced environmental laws unfairly over the last two years and there is every indication they will keep trying to do so. As they pointed out, the Department of Energy has admitted to canceling billions of dollars in grants to states that had voted for Kamala Harris:
This vindictive, partisan discrimination based on whether a grantee is in a State represented by two Democratic Senators that President Trump lost in the 2024 election is disgraceful. It violates core constitutional protections, harms communities comprised of Americans from across the political spectrum, and, ironically, harms millions of Trump voters who live in these States. No American should be caught in the crosshairs of such a brazenly corrupt scheme. No one has explained why a Senator from a targeted State should help the Trump administration fast-track fossil fuel projects while it refuses to restore funding that Trump officials admitted was terminated on an illegal, partisan basis.


They propose a test of whether or not the Trump administration is serious going forward:
It would be compelling if, before the motion to proceed vote, the Trump administration directed DOE to 1) reinstate every award it terminated in October 2025 that it has not already restored, 2) to allow recipients to draw down those funds under the original award terms, and 3) to commit in writing that it will not terminate an award because of the political identity of the recipient’s State or the party affiliation of its elected officials.

While such action may not fully address the wide range of concerns individual Senators have about various portions of this complex legislation, it would represent an important first step and carry far more weight with us and, more importantly, our constituents whose awards were illegally terminated, than mere informal assurances that the Trump administration will stop interfering with clean energy projects.


As Rachel Frazin notes in The Hill, this constitutes a high bar, especially since Merkley is likely to succeed Whitehouse as the chair of the Senate’s Environment Committee should the Dems win the chamber—it’s considerably higher than the sign off on a few wind projects that former DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm suggested this week would be signal enough. (And as Heatmap reported this week, Trump hasn’t been signing off on those anyway—in fact, it appears that they’re thinking of banning the importation of wind turbine equipment on “national security grounds”). According to Frazin, the letter from the four Senators
represents a fracture in the Democratic caucus. It’s not entirely clear how widespread the sentiment is among Democrats, but if enough of them vote against the bill, it could hamper its chances.


And the odds of that happening seem to me to be increasing, because news of the bill seems to be escaping DC containment. Remember—this election is being largely fought over data centers, which Americans truly hate. Paul Krugman Thursday morning called the polling on these data factories “astonishingly negative” and provided a nifty little chart to drive the point home.






Essentially, no one (who isn’t an oligarch) strongly supports them, and most of the country hates them. So if the permitting bill might make it easier to build them—well, my guess is that many politicians in both parties are a little wary now of the data center issue, and don’t want to get crosswise on it. Too many traditional allies are up in arms—here, for instance, is the new NAACP resource for Black voters opposing data centers, complete with a great picture of Justin Pearson waging a remarkable campaign for Congress on the issue. Here’s the letter from the Climate Justice Alliance, with more than a hundred frontline groups coming together to say:
Your closed-door deal bolsters the work of the Trump administration which is hell-bent on dismantling environmental justice at every turn, and we are beyond outraged at what you are saying our lives are worth. Reject this travesty.


Equally pointedly, in Heinrich’s New Mexico this week, students walked out of classes to protest data centers and they linked their protest directly to the permitting bill:
“We will not get back the last 20 years of climate progress Project Jupiter will undo,” Isabelle Taylor-Ault, a student organizer and junior at NMSA, said to the crowd outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe. “You, the adults, the ones supposed to be fighting for us, you may get the privilege of dying of old age, but our children will die from climate change.”

A handful of state lawmakers sitting on the interim Water and Natural Resources Committee—which was meeting on the Capitol’s third floor—headed down to watch the protest unfold.

In Albuquerque, protesters directed much of their ire toward US Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), who recently unveiled a sweeping, bipartisan permitting reform bill that protesters say reduces tribal input and empowers fossil fuel companies to quickly break ground on more harmful projects.

More than 100 protesters marched from the UNM bookstore down Central Avenue to Heinrich’s downtown Albuquerque office. In front of a large sign that read, “Heinrich is a sellout,” protesters with YUCCA, as well as Indigenous and environmentalist groups, described the bill as a betrayal by a longtime champion for tribal and environmental causes.


Indeed, it didn’t take long after that demonstration for one of Heinrich’s colleagues—New Mexico congresswoman Melanie Stansbury—to come out swinging against the bill, saying she was “adamantly opposed” in what the New Mexico Political Report called a “rare public split” between members of the delegation.

The stakes are of course enormous. If the data center buildout continues (and in New Mexico, for instance, Oracle’s Project Jupiter depends on a gas pipeline), then a Sierra Club analysis just released says the new facilities would soon produce more greenhouse gas emissions than Mexico. As Eric Roston and Olivia Raimonde write:
The US power sector would emit 2.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2030, after factoring in planned AI projects. That’s 618 million tons more than 2025 levels, by the Sierra Club’s calculations, or about a 42% increase.

A year and a half ago, researchers at the nonprofit environmental group would have estimated that the buildout and its impact would have been a quarter or half of current projections, said Jeremy Fisher, the Sierra Club’s principal adviser for climate and energy. “The numbers continue to sort of boggle our minds,” he said.


It’s hard to predict exactly how BAAJA would affect that, which is part of the problem: The bill is a bit of a black box, and the only thing we know for certain is that for the next two years Donald Trump occupies that black box, snarling about solar panels that kill all the animals and eager to do any favor that the fossil fuel industry demands.

So the key thing, of course, far beyond debate on this bill, is to try and defang that monster, and the chief method for that is simple: Win the elections Tuesday in as sweeping a fashion as possible. If you’re looking for a way to pitch in, there are plenty. For those of us of a certain age, Third Act’s Party Line senior-to-senior phone and text banking is operating day and night; if you’re a youngster, Seed the Vote can figure out ways to put you to work. I’m hunkered down for one last long weekend of all-out effort, and I hope you are too. We could come out of next week a different country, and wouldn’t that be sweet!


© 2022 Bill McKibben


Bill Mckibben
Bill McKibben is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and co-founder of 350.org and ThirdAct.org. His most recent book is "Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?." He also authored "The End of Nature," "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet," and "Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future."
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