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gregor.us
Journalist covering cities, climate, and energy. Proprietor of Cold Eye Earth (formerly The Gregor Letter) https://www.coldeye.earth | @coldeye.earth
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Today Lawfare is launching a new tracker, Alien Enemies Act Proclamation: The State of Play The table, created by @rparloff.bsky.social, is following challenges to deportations occurring under the Alien Enemies Act invocation. Find it here: www.lawfaremedia.org/alienenemiestable

For anyone who doubts the urgency of Newsom's filing, I would direct them to the WSJ article on ICE's new mission, and tactics. The executive has gone fully extra-judicial, and with full intent to do so.

A new class of materials that passively harvests #water from the air. Because science. From a project funded by the US National Science Foundation. blog.seas.upenn.edu/penn-enginee...

The new Acela trainset in Southampton Yard in South Boston now has a friend 🥹

Latest thrill show from UKR special forces: Grain Train.

[NY Post Headline Font] Space-Ex!

Incredible ruling from Boasberg in which he calls upon Kafka, that's right, Franz Kafka, to illustrate the indefensible catch-22 tactics ICE, DOJ, and DHS have been inflicting on the country. Does literature still matter? Indeed it does.

Probably the single most devastating attack on an enemy air capability since the Israelis wiped out Nasser’s entire air force in a matter of hours. (And then proceeded to do the same to his lesser allies)

If I know the NYT, this article on SF's newest public park will have elevated a small band of curmudgeons to disproportionate size, in order to craft its story of opposition. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/u...

When you review the history of the IEEPA, and the Presidents that used it, starting with Carter, the clarity of the US CIT decision yesterday is sharp. The signals coming from the WH also seem to indicate they too may have anticipated getting roadblocked, and are now already on to Plan B.

So, the most competitive candidate against Cuomo in the NYC primary has rent control as a center piece of policy? It's like both left and right have become enamored more than ever with pre-industrial royal edicts and other It Shall Be Thus commands. How absurd.

If tariffs keep the fed from cutting, Trump should scrap them and take the rate cuts. US would save $280b annually w/ a 1 pp decline in its avg rate. Stocks could soar and cap gains taxes could kick in. Foreigners would really “pay” about 1/3rd, unlike the fake claim of their tariff payments.

Someone needs to bring a big arena rock sized amplifier up in front of the White House and just put sad trombone on infinite loop.

Actual quotes from the Dallas Fed's monthly manufacturing report: "Business sucks" "DOGE has killed us. Our customers are fighting tariff increases and dramatic funding cuts from USDA and USAID." "We have a large order delayed until 2026." www.dallasfed.org/research/sur...

I'm not sure the article sufficiently considers the role of economic weakness in emissions decline. In particular, this image would seem to highlight some cyclicality since the peaks (sans cement and coal: other sectors) were all quite recent. www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-cle...

ACA no doubt acted as a systemic stabilizer in the main, but in the particulars allowed alot of people to go independent for work. When you add in the tariffs, not hard to see how this adds further downward pressure on small/home biz.

There's been a thesis that the bulk of data center growth would occur here in the US (IEA, etc). But in the aftermath of the House bill, one wonders that we're about to be the worst domain for building new power capacity.

Reviewing China's Nuclear Generation China has 60.96 GW of nuclear operating & 33.65 GW under construction. China's goal is 110 GW by 2030, making it the global leader in nuclear capacity. China approved at least 10 units in each of last 4 years. #energysky www.neimagazine.com/news/china-a...

it's simultaneously true that people were overly worried about federal government deficits 10-15 years ago and probably not worried enough about them now

Based on the exchanges inside SCOTUS today, the vibe I get from Justice Barrett is that she's now had her Gandhi moment.

While a decline in global oil consumption is entirely off the table for years to come, we are at least in the zone already that can see demand growth convert to a sideways path. www.coldeye.earth/p/large-thing

Terrific stuff here.

This scholar from overseas, one of 1.1 million foreign students that the United States is privileged to have at our universities, was seized off the street and imprisoned for six weeks — after she broke ZERO laws, but wrote one op-ed expressing views. And she still believes in America.

I tip my cap to @talsmith.bsky.social for asking such perfect questions, and thereby obtaining one of the more important interviews of the year. For a number of folks in macro this weekend, this is deliciously revealing. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/b...

The 55 million acres used to grow corn ethanol and soybean biodiesel in the United States would generate about 22 terawatts.☀️🔌💡

I just really need everybody to understand that everything that’s happening in and to the global economy now (and all the businesses and people in it) is the entirely predictable result of the intentional decisions of one guy who doesn’t understand how the global economy works.

The trajectory of energy transition is controlled far more by economic growth, than renewables growth. As I like to say, a small thing growing at a high rate can be quite powerful, until it faces off against a very, very large thing growing at a low rate.

Must admit I'm no longer clear what diversity means in university admissions. Also unclear universities ever figured this out either. If you tell me Princeton's undergraduate population is due to be 60% Asian by the year 2040 - through connection to over 40 countries - how is that not diverse?

Stellar reporting here on a dark horse trend now emerging in the US: mobile natgas turbine arrays that, under temporary classification, escape enviro regs.

Just how small was this week's US-UK trade deal (as currently written)? As these two charts from @JosephPolitano show, very, very small: www.apricitas.io/p/farce-of-t...

NEW: Rumeysa Ozturk is free from ICE custody. There was a delay as ICE sought to fit her w/ an ankle monitor, prompting a 2nd order from a federal judge clarifying that she was to be released without any monitoring or restrictions. She is with her lawyer; expected to return to Mass. tomorrow.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like if a US exchange student in a foreign country (say, Turkey?) was imprisoned for six weeks because they wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper it would be a huge domestic story and an international incident.

Must be quite the scene today at Villanova.

If the US established a contractual payment for services rendered with El Salvador, kinda makes it hard to claim that the party to that contract, the US, has no means by which to return Garcia to the US. Just now in Boasberg's courtroom:

Evidence of Trump's impact is everywhere — except, for the most part, in economic data itself. So forecasters are scouring earnings calls, sifting through obscure indicators and collecting anecdotes to try to suss out where the economy is headed. #EconSky www.nytimes.com/2025/05/07/b...

Good piece here by Luke. My comment: if we reach back to the 1999 paper by Bernanke, and then consider all that's transpired since, one conclusion is that the Fed should neither raise rates to confront high oil prices, nor cut rates to honor lower oil prices.

As "machines of loving grace" enters common usage ever more regularly, we should also make it practice to cite its author, Richard Brautigan. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/t...

The pyramids are hot, these days.

DALLAS FED SURVEY: “.. What actions, if any, are you taking (or planning to take) in response to higher tariffs? Please select all that apply.” @stephaniekelton.bsky.social www.dallasfed.org/research/sur...