Environment

Brief #141 – Environment
By Todd J. Broadman

The Interior Department will put up for auction 144,000 acres of federal land to oil and gas companies. The Department says that this lease sale is actually scaled back by 80 percent of the original acreage slated for potential drilling. 90 percent of the land to be leased is located in Wyoming. In tandem with the sale, royalties paid to the federal government on any revenue that result from new drilling will go up from 12.5 percent to 18.75 percent.

Brief #140 – Environmental Policy
By Stephen Thomas

The administration of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Vice President Kamala D. Harris is attempting to hold public corporations accountable for their impacts on global warming, ensuring in the process that investors know whether the firms in which they have a financial stake are taking climate change seriously.

Brief #138 – Environment Policy
By Todd J. Broadman

Since March 10, 2022, nearly all Americans can go without their masks indoors per new Center Disease Control guidance. Nearly for the entirety of the pandemic, different guidance has been given about masks – which has led to a lot of confusion and misinformation. Local, state, and federal government look to the CDC for guidance on how and when to guide their citizens on mask mandates.

Brief #136 – Environmental Policy
By Todd J. Broadman

The politics of immigration along the border between Texas and Mexico now involves the National Butterfly Center (NBC). The NBC is a 100-acre nature preserve located in Mission, Texas. Since 1993, the NBC has served as a protected migratory refuge for the monarch, the rare pale sicklewing, and over 80 other butterfly species.

Brief #133 – Environmental Policy

By Timothy T. Loftus

The race to electrify the transportation sector, now the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, will entail controversial decisions and tradeoffs involving the use and management of America’s public lands.

Brief #132 – Environment Policy
By Todd J. Broadman

Seventy million American homes and businesses depend on natural gas, oil, or propane on-site for heating, hot water, and cooking. The annual carbon dioxide generated is 560 million tons or 40% of total US emissions when you include the carbon used in building construction. The amount of methane, a far more potent CO2 gas, that routinely leaks as part of the gas distribution process, is equivalent to all US vehicle emissions.

Brief #131 – Environment Policy
By Katelyn Lewis

Federal officials announced Thursday their plan to tighten restrictions on the amount of lead allowed in drinking water in an effort to reduce the health hazards such exposure has caused in poor, often minority communities across the U.S.

Brief #130 – Environment Policy
By Timothy T. Loftus, Ph.D.

This past October, the Northwest News Network reported that a coalition of conservation groups, the Nez Perce Tribe, and the State of Oregon reached an agreement with the Biden Administration and federal agencies to pause, until next summer, long-running litigation over the operations of Snake River dams within the Columbia River Basin.