Worst Climate Stories of the Week—A Deep Dive into Dams

In 1928, the United States Congress authorized what would become the Hoover Dam, on the border of Nevada and Arizona. A marvel of modern engineering, it created Lake Mead and supplies reliable, clean hydroelectric power to a large swath of the American southwest. Hydroelectric dams started appearing across the western U.S. in the beginning of the 20th century to supply power to a growing population.  

Humans have built dams for thousands of years for flood control, agricultural irrigation, navigation, and water supplies for human populations. And it wasn’t just the Europeans who built them. Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest constructed fish weirs to manage fish populations to feed their people. Tribes in the Southwest built sophisticated irrigation systems like weirs and canals. Tribes across North and South America were building dams, berms, canals, weirs, irrigation channels, and all sorts of other modifications of water flow long before the European colonizers ever showed up.

So when environmentalists and tribal activists call dam removal a matter of social justice, like many social justice causes, it just doesn't bear up against history. That's why we've spent so much time covering the Klamath Basin dam removal story in this column. The Trump administration has honed in on the pseudoscience underpinning the radical environmentalist claims of harm done by hydroelectric dams, and has fought back against the "re-wilding" movement that has taken hold in progressive outposts.

That's the first crazy environmental story to cover this week, but we've got more. We have yet more stories of green energy in full retreat; the first day of summer means snow in the U.S., because global warming; this week in exploding EVs; and Great Britain might be having second thoughts on experiments to change the atmosphere.

In our Good News segment, we have an ambitious plan to expand nuclear energy in the U.S., and the Supreme Court rules against California's EV mandate.

Let's get to it.

(DON'T MISS LAST WEEK'S COLUMN: On the Cusp of Something Great)

Dams Under Attack in Western States—Trump Fights Back

Kevin Killough of Just The News has an extensive article this week covering the Trump administration's efforts to block dam removals on the Snake River in Idaho, the white whale of the radical environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest. They've wanted to remove those dams for decades, despite the heavy barge traffic on the Columbia-Snake River system that supports agriculture in the region, and despite the significant contribution of clean, carbon-free hydroelectric power. Killough documents the ecological disaster brought on by the removal of four dams in the Klamath River Basin in Northern California, a frequent topic in this very column. Killough writes:

President Donald Trump issued a memorandum last week blocking an effort that was underway during the Biden-Harris administration to remove four hydroelectric dams in the Snake River. 

Trump’s memorandum revokes a directive from the previous administration, which Trump described as an effort by “radical environmentalism” to raise the “equitable treatment for fish” above that of human flourishing. 

“The negative impacts from these reckless acts, if completed, would be devastating for the region, and there would be no viable approach to replace the low-cost, baseload energy supplied,” Trump stated in the memo. 

Energy Secretary Chris Wright released his own statement, saying:

“The Snake River Dams have been tremendous assets to the Pacific Northwest for decades, providing high-value electricity to millions of American families and businesses. With this action, President Trump is bringing back common sense, reversing the dangerous and costly energy subtraction policies pursued by the last administration. American taxpayer dollars will not be spent dismantling critical infrastructure, reducing our energy-generating capacity or on radical nonsense policies that dramatically raise prices on the American people.”

Today’s Presidential Memorandum revokes the Biden Administration’s “Restoring Healthy and Abundant Fish” directive and directs federal agencies, including the Energy Department, to withdraw from costly policies that would have resulted in the elimination of over 3,000 megawatts of secure and reliable hydroelectric generating capacity – enough generation to power 2.5 million American homes.

The Biden-era MOU required the federal government to spend over $1 billion and comply with 36 pages of costly, onerous commitments aimed at replacing services provided by the Lower Snake River Dams and advancing the possibility of breaching them. Breaching the dams would have doubled the region’s risk of power shortages, driven wholesale electricity rates up by as much as 50%, and cost as much as $31.3 billion to replace.

No study has adequately tied declines in fish populations to hydroelectric dams, and claims to the contrary routinely fail to account for variables such as oceanic overfishing, environmental impacts at sea, and other riparian effects not related to the dams.

Green Energy Makes Ignominious Retreat

Several reports this week indicate that green energy has begun to completely collapse.

• Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) slashes green energy subsidies:

[T]he Trump administration is now working to slash federal government support for these technologies. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) passed the House of Representatives on May 22.

The bill eliminates Production Tax Credits and Investment Tax Credits for renewable systems that begin construction later than 60 days after passage of the bill or for projects that do not complete construction by year end 2028. The bill also halts the sale of tax credits from renewable projects. If the Senate passes the bill, these measures will choke off green energy projects that have relied on federal funding for decades.

• A German steel producer has withdrawn its plans to produce "green steel," despite a billion-euro subsidy, because of a lack of affordable electricity.
• Great Britain announced plans to import electricity from France this winter to avoid blackouts, which have become more of a risk due to reliance on "green" energy. Remember that France saved Spain's and Portugal's bacon with nuclear energy in their April blackout—again caused by "green" energy.
• A quick reminder that "green" energy is terrible for the environment, and will never be reliable.
• Investors see the writing on the wall. "Green" energy stocks tanked this week, after Senate Republicans released a bill that would end wind and solar tax credits.

As always, the question remains: If it's such a hot idea, why must it be mandatory and paid for by the government?

Summer in Montana Means… Snow?

In another blow to The Narrative, this week marks the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere—an occasion that mountain states in the western U.S. celebrated with a snow storm. Snow dusted Mt. Hood in Oregon to celebrate the Summer Solstice.

A little bit of snow accumulating on Mt. Hood in June. Here is a look at a few on the Timberline webcams this afternoon. Always great to see snow anything of the year across the Cascades. pic.twitter.com/MkX8Ne2ruf

— RyanWeather.Com (@Ryan541) June 20, 2025

This Week in Exploding EVs

Last week, it was a cargo ship carrying EVs in the Pacific Ocean that caught fire. This week, 40 decommissioned buses went up in flames in Philadelphia because retired electric buses spontaneously combusted:

The electric buses involved were made by Proterra and had not run in several years. Sauer said SEPTA is involved in ongoing litigation with Proterra, and the buses were still being stored as part of the litigation.

You may remember Proterra, the heavily subsidized electric bus company that went bankrupt, leaving municipalities and school districts across North America with useless buses they could not maintain. Proterra has hit this column numerous times, declaring bankruptcy after receiving seemingly endless subsidies from the Biden administration. Cities that bought in are still dealing with the expensive and destructive consequences, years later.

Great Britain: Say, Maybe Geoengineering Isn't Such a Hot Idea

Great Britain: It's good when the enlightened noble people on His Majesty's service do it, but wait a minute…

WEATHER MODIFICATION: The UK decided to inject aerosolized particles into the stratosphere to 'dim the sun' back in April. Now it is June and the UK is concerned that other countries will do the same, dimming the sun in England creating an environmental disaster. You literally… pic.twitter.com/idpQWDy9uQ

— @amuse (@amuse) June 16, 2025

Now for our Good News segment.

Energy Secretary Announces Bold Plan for Nuclear

Chris Wright made significant news a second time this week:

Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced an ambitious plan to have three small modular reactors (SMRs) built and producing power at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) by July 4, 2026. This initiative was revealed during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on June 18, 2025, aligning with President Donald Trump’s executive orders to boost domestic nuclear energy development.

The program aims to jump-start a "nuclear energy renaissance" in the U.S. to support growing power demands, especially in the tech sector.

SCOTUS v California: Who Ya Got?

If you picked the Supreme Court, you win! In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled that oil companies targeted by California for destruction had standing to sue, reviving their challenge of a state law banning internal combustion vehicles.

Fourth #SCOTUS opinion: A 7-2 Supreme Court *revives* an oil industry challenge to the EPA’s reinstatement of California’s zero-emission cars initiative, finding the group can claim they’re harmed by lower fuel demand. Sotomayor & Jackson dissent. https://t.co/Li6Lmz1ZB3 pic.twitter.com/GQWt8XwUBm

— Katie Buehler (@bykatiebuehler) June 20, 2025

The court slapped down the state's discrimination against a particular industry:

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion that “the government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of court.”

More wins for the free market, more losses for the command economy. More, please!

(READ MORE: Making Automobiles Great Again: Trump’s EPA Will Fix the Most Hated Car Rule in America)