Brief #52—Environment Policy Summary Representatives from nearly 200 different countries have gathered in Katowice, Poland to discuss the parameters of the Paris Agreement, known as the COP24. The United States, however, are in a challenging position with regard to...
Brief #50—Environment Policy Summary Last week U.S. lawmakers sponsored the first bipartisan attempt at climate legislation in nearly a decade. The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act would impose a progressively increasing tax on carbon emissions, topping out...
Political controversy erupted this last black Friday, a day normally reserved for nonpolitical pursuits, such as bargain hunting and post-Thanksgiving family therapy.
A devastating fire has been roaring through California, and the death toll has reached at least 77 people, while 1,000 are still missing.
The oil and gas industry is starting to face some blowback at the legal level. A Federal Circuit Judge in Montana recently rejected the Trump administration’s demand to build a Keystone XL pipeline, marking a new wave of environmentally charged legal decision-making.
Brief #46---Environment Policy Summary Scandals are swirling again for DOI Secretary Ryan Zinke, who just days ago compared Civil Rights Leader, Martin Luther King Jr. to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Now, however, the Department of Justice is considering the...
Brief #45---Environment Summary The official death toll from Hurricane Michael is at 26 and counting as of last week, as rescuers continue to find bodies, and reports say many are still missing. The future looks tenuous for the Florida area that was devastated by the...
Brief #44---Environment Policy Summary The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is changing shape. In the last week, the EPA has decided to change its rules on how it uses scientific studies, effectively deregulating public exposure to harmful toxins. Meanwhile, the...
Policy Summary The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) met this past week in order to discuss the global effects of climate change. According to the new reports, gathered from over 6,000 scientific papers with almost 100 authors from 40 different...
Rollbacks appear to be the defining characteristic of the Trump administration, particularly with relation to environmental oversight. Last week, the Department of the Interior in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management decided to ease restrictions on leaking, venting and flaring methane from fossil fuel drilling on public lands, ostensibly saving the fossil fuel industry approximately $1.01 billion over the next 10 years. By contrast, the Obama era regulations, which have since been nixed, would have reduced methane emissions by 35%.
Summer in the northern hemisphere was brutal this year, and the indian summer continues to be so. Deadly heat waves struck Quebec, Sacramento and Tokyo between June to August of this year, all of which combined killed nearly 80 people and hospitalized thousands.
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