New owners apply for permission to extract oil in Horse Hill despite landmark ruling from supreme court in 2024

After years of trying to dig for oil in Surrey, the company behind the drilling project that was turned down in a landmark supreme court ruling has sold off the site for a fraction of the money it spent on it, and rebranded as a clean energy company.

Meanwhile, the new owners, who picked up the site for £1m, are applying, once again, for permission to dig.

As minister says process needs to be ‘streamlined’, Greens and Lock the Gate say the legislation is ‘corrupt’ and tears up environmental protections

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Queenslanders’ right to object to mining projects – including coal – would be “gutted” by new legislation that would ban opponents from being heard in court without the minister’s approval and then only if they owned a property within a 125km radius of the project.

The Greens have called the move “corrupt” and community action group Lock the Gate Alliance said the state’s LNP government was “tearing up democratic and environmental protections just to make life easier for mining companies”.

Firms manage $7.3tn in assets and could afford to transition away from fossil fuels yet invest in natural gas and coal-fired plants to power datacenters

The energy portfolios of 20 private equity firms produce 1.5bn tons of greenhouse gases a year, more than the annual emissions of any country except China, the US, India and Russia, according to a new report.

Together, these firms manage $7.3tn in assets of all kinds, affording them the ability to shape the pace of the transition away from fossil fuels. However their energy investments include significant fossil fuel assets including natural gas and coal-fired power plants to provide electricity to datacenters.

Labour should replace levy in 2027 rather than 2030 as energy bills are poised to surge over the winter, says lobby group

The North Sea oil and gas industry has called on Labour to scrap the windfall tax on fossil fuel firms three years early, as Britain heads into a winter with energy bills expected to reach their highest level since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), the industry’s trade body, wants the tax replaced in 2027, rather than in 2030, with a narrower levy that only applies during price spikes.

Trump’s EPA strips itself of regulating ability, gutting Clean Air Act in what experts say is a gift to planet polluters

On the heels of the hottest summer ever recorded in the US, the Trump administration has said it will erase any limits on emissions from coal and gas plants that are dangerously heating up our planet.

The US Environmental Protection Agency said it will strip itself of its ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions coming from power plants under the Clean Air Act, removing a key tool to address the climate crisis.

Energy Transfer, whose CEO is a major Trump donor, named as biggest single methane producer in new rankings

Down a short gravel track in a largely nondescript corner of Louisiana sits a gas processing facility, operated by a company whose chief executive is a major donor to Donald Trump. It may be the largest emitter of methane in the US.

The Energy Transfer site, located near the city of Shreveport, is named as the biggest single “super-emitter” in new rankings of US oil and gas operations for the largest releases of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is rapidly overheating our planet, according to a new UCLA study, which is based on satellite data.

Pauline Hanson’s gas policy and the party’s relationship with Rinehart is examined in a new Guardian podcast series, The Populist

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One Nation has come under fire for quietly shelving support for a new domestic gas reservation policy in preference for a policy that favours the party’s billionaire patron, Gina Rinehart.

The Albanese government has announced it will establish a new reservation policy for Australia’s east coast, requiring gas exporters to supply a portion of the gas they produce to the domestic market. The policy is aimed at “modestly” supplying the domestic market to put downward pressure on prices for consumers.

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Trump’s toga | Reform UK donations | Ben Delo | Word watch | Andy Burnham | The name game

Octavian (later Emperor Augustus), following his victorious battles of Illyricum and Actium, announced he would give 400 sesterces to adult male citizens. Will we see the US president wearing an emperor’s purple and gold toga soon (Trump promise of $5,000 for US citizens after midterms decried as ‘bribery’, 10 September)?
David Shannon
Ashton under Hill, Worcestershire

• Can we assume that the donations to Reform UK from the billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo (Report, 12 September) will be followed by some sort of cash offer for every adult in the UK should Mr Farage win the next election?
Phil Thomas
Frodsham, Cheshire

Thousands of miles of new power lines are needed to deliver climate targets and energy security, but bills will rise in the short term and opponents are mobilising

Britain is embarking on one of the largest overhauls of its electricity grid in generations – a megaproject in which five times more infrastructure will be built by 2030 than was constructed during the previous three decades.

Tens of billions of pounds are being spent on new pylons, subsea cables and converter stations to connect a growing fleet of wind and solar farms and carry clean power to where it is needed.

Silicosis sufferers are getting younger as Trump and the coal mining industry push back on protections

Silicosis is one of the oldest workplace hazards and public health experts have known for decades how to prevent it. Yet a new wave of workers, from Appalachian coalminers to Latino countertop fabrication workers, are developing and dying from the disease as industry fights new protections and regulators fail to defend the rules that could protect them.

John Robinson’s grandfather developed black lung back when coalminers could spend decades in the mines before being diagnosed with the disease, often dying in their 60s, 70s and 80s. But Robinson, who mined for coal in south-west Virginia, was diagnosed when he was 47. He’s part of a trend that has grown over the past two decades in central Appalachia, where more coalminers are developing black lung disease at younger ages.

Michigan case is one of several legal disputes as Trump administration uses emergency powers to force a half-dozen coal-fired plants from closing

In a defeat for the Trump administration, a federal court on Friday ruled that the energy department exceeded its authority when it forced a Michigan coal-fired power plant to stay open past its scheduled retirement date last year.

The energy secretary, Chris Wright, had said the 64-year-old JH Campbell Generating plant was needed to ensure reliable electricity in the region, and he used emergency powers to keep it operating. Environmental groups and three states – Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota – went to court to try to overturn orders keeping the plant online.

Greens accuse Labour of hiding position to avoid criticism before contest, in which Zack Polanski is standing

A decision on approving the controversial Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea is to be delayed until later this autumn, with the Greens accusing Labour of hiding their position before the crucial Holborn and St Pancras byelection.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, had been poised to give her recommendation to approve the Jackdaw field off the coast of Aberdeen next week.

Businesses, charities and other groups sign letter calling for levies to be paid by the government

More than 120 organisations including big businesses and charities have called for the removal of “hidden taxes” added to energy bills to help reduce costs for consumers and prevent businesses closing.

In a letter to the chancellor the signatories – including Energy UK, business trade body the CBI, End Fuel Poverty and Age UK – called for levies amounting to 10% of energy bills that fund policies to be paid for by the government. John Healey is to present his first budget on 28 October.