Justine Calma is a senior science reporter at The Verge, where she covers energy and the environment. She’s also the host of Hell or High Water: When a Disaster Hits Home, a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals. Since reporting on the adoption of the Paris agreement in 2015, Justine has covered climate change on the ground in four continents. She won a Covering Climate Now award for her reporting on forest restoration in Costa Rica in 2025. “Power Shift,” her story about one neighborhood’s fight for renewable energy in New Orleans, was published in the 2022 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing. She received an honorable mention in the Society of Environmental Journalists awards in 2023 for her reporting on the environmental effects of crypto mining. Find her on Instagram, Bluesky, Threads, and X, or reach her on Signal at bqe210.91.
Governor Greg Abbott announced a permitting pause for data centers in September. But state agencies are still processing permits, according to an analysis of public records by advocacy groups Public Citizen and FracTracker. The governor’s office, however, denies approving any data center-related permits.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act would require data centers to report their electricity use, and allow utilities to charge them more for transmission costs. The bill aims to speed the construction of new infrastructure needed to meet soaring electricity demand, but won’t come up for a Senate vote until after midterm elections.
Microsoft is expanding ‘biomimicry’ at its data centers as it faces more pushback from locals over construction, pollution, and noise.
The clean energy sector lost nearly 37,000 employees last year after Republicans cut funding and eliminated tax incentives for renewables, according to a recent report. And yet even after those losses, clean energy still employs 3.5 million workers compared to around 1.1 million people employed by oil, gas, and coal companies.
[E2 | Good for the Economy. Good for the Environment.]
