Biden designates monument honoring Emmett Till

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk - 07/25/23 7:22 PM ET

Energy & Environment

The Big Story

Biden designates national monument for Emmett Till, Till’s mother

President Biden on Tuesday designated a new national monument honoring Emmett Till, a 14-year-old whose brutal murder helped to invigorate the civil rights movement.

The monument also honors Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who insisted upon an open-casket funeral for her son so others could see the brutality of the killing.

Till was lynched in 1955 after allegedly making comments toward a white woman in Mississippi. The incident became emblematic of the brutality of the Jim Crow South.

“I can’t fathom what it must have been like,” Biden said Tuesday — on what would have bill Emmett Till’s 82nd birthday. “It’s hard to believe I was 12 years old. I know no matter how much time has passed, how many birthdays, how many events, how many anniversaries, it’s hard to relive this.”

The monument will be made up of three sites: where Till’s body was discovered in Graball Landing, Miss.; Chicago, where Till’s funeral was held; and the courthouse in Sumner, Miss., where Till’s killers were acquitted.

In addition, Biden is directing the National Park Service to make a plan to support the preservation of other key sites in Illinois and Mississippi to tell the story.

Read more from our colleague Cheyanne M. Daniels at TheHill.com.

Welcome to The Hill’s Energy & Environment newsletter, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk — keeping you up to speed on the policies impacting everything from oil and gas to new supply chains.

Did someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.

Essential Reads

How policy will affect the energy and environment sectors now and in the future:

Tuesday marks biggest one-day gas price increase in a year

National gas prices rose by 4 cents on Tuesday to $3.64, the highest one-day increase since last June, according to AAA.

Full Story

July heat waves would have been ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change: research

Without climate change, the heat waves impacting the U.S.-Mexico region and Southern Europe this month would have been “virtually” impossible, according to new research.

Full Story

Whitest-ever paint could help keep the world cooler, researchers say

(NewsNation) — The whitest-ever paint, which aims to boost the cooling of buildings and tackle climate change, has been produced by scientists at Purdue University.

Full Story

In Other News

Branch out with a different read from The Hill:

Climate change may have siphoned a Lake Mead-sized sip of water from the Colorado River Basin

Scientists are holding human-induced climate change responsible for the Colorado River Basin’s loss of more than 10 trillion gallons of water — or about the entire storage capacity of Lake Mead — over the past two decades. Without the impacts of anthropogenic warming, drought conditions would not likely have depleted reservoir levels low enough to require a first-ever federally declared water shortage, which the U.S. government instituted in 2021, the scientists determined in a new study.

Full Story

What We’re Reading

News we’ve flagged from other outlets touching on energy issues, the environment and other topics:

For decades, sewage bubbled to creek near South Carolina’s Saluda River. Here’s why it stopped (The State)
After decades of delays and broken promises, coal miners hail rule to slow rise of black lung (WTAE)
EU braces for possible loss of two climate change leaders (Reuters)
The Government Is Basically Burning Trash to Pad Its Climate Stats (Mother Jones)

On Tap Tomorrow

Upcoming news themes and events we’re watching:

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on permitting reform for electricity transmission, pipelines and energy production on federal lands.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) will testify before a Senate Budget hearing on the costs of climate change on infrastructure.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing on cutting railroad emissions.
Officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs are slated to testify on the implementation of the PACT Act, which aimed to help people exposed to toxic substances in the service during a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing
The Senate Environment and Public Works committee will hold a hearing on mineral recycling.

What Others are Reading

Two key stories on The Hill right now:

Grassley faces criticism over release of FBI document

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is in the political spotlight as Democrats and critics attack him for releasing a lightly-redacted document detailing unfounded allegations of Biden family corruption and bribery and conservatives praise his move in the name of transparency. Read more