How a powerful US lobby group helps big oil to block climate action. When Royal Dutch Shell published its annual environmental report in April, it boasted that it was investing heavily in renewable energy.
The oil giant committed to installing hundreds of thousands of charging stations for electric vehicles around the world to help offset the harm caused by burning fossil fuels. On the same day, Shell issued a separate report revealing that its single largest donation to political lobby groups last year was made to the American Petroleum Institute, one of the US’s most powerful trade organizations, which drives the oil industry’s relationship with Congress. Contrary to Shell’s public statements in support of electric vehicles, API’s chief executive, Mike Sommers, has pledged to resist a raft of Joe Biden’s environmental measures, including proposals to fund new charging points in the US. The Damage Done by Trump’s Department of the Interior. On his first day as Secretary of the Interior, last March, Ryan Zinke rode through downtown Washington, D.C., on a roan named Tonto.
When the Secretary is working at the department’s main office, on C Street, a staff member climbs up to the roof of the building and hoists a special flag, which comes down when Zinke goes home for the day. To provide entertainment for his employees, the Secretary had an arcade game called Big Buck Hunter installed in the cafeteria. Lying EPA Admin Says Consequences of Climate Change Still 50 to 75 Years Away. Former fossil fuels lobbyist to head interior department as Zinke exits.
Ryan Zinke’s exit as interior secretary elevates a former lobbyist to the job, meaning the top two US environmental agencies will now be run by people previously paid by industry.
The deputy secretary, David Bernhardt, will take over at least temporarily when Zinke steps down at the end of the year. He also could be in the running to head the department permanently. And at the Environmental Protection Agency, the acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, who was a coal lobbyist, will be nominated to keep the post. Bernhardt was a fossil fuels and water industry lobbyist at the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck before he joined the Trump administration. He Was Dow’s ‘Dioxin Lawyer.’ Now He’s Trump’s Choice to Run the Superfund Program. Keystone pipeline leak in South Dakota about double previous estimate: paper. Trump's Pick For Key Environmental Post Is A Texan Who Really, Really Likes Fossil Fuels. Kathleen Hartnett White was a top environmental regulator in Texas from 2001 to 2007.
Now, President Trump has chosen her to lead the Council on Environmental Quality, which helps create and implement national policy. Hartnett White was not available for an interview, but her record since leaving state service suggests she would stand out – even in an administration proudly aligned with industry – for the fervency of her support for fossil fuels. Scott Pruitt: EPA Chief Faces Mounting Scrutiny For Ethics Violations. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is facing investigations into his use of taxpayer funds for security and travel along with scrutiny of his ties to industry lobbyists.
Andrew Harnik/AP hide caption toggle caption. Trump Rolls Back Obama-Era Flood Standards For Infrastructure Projects. President Trump speaks during a visit to Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 4.
Michael Reynolds/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Michael Reynolds/Getty Images. The Daily 202: Trump’s true priorities revealed in holiday news dumps. Trump: ‘We are going to have a tremendous year’ With Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve.
THE BIG IDEA: The tax cut bill wasn’t the only Christmas gift that President Trump gave billionaires and big businesses. The fireworks seen at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve were paid for by billionaire industrialist David Koch, according to the Palm Beach Daily News, as part of another private party put on by an even more exclusive club. The Koch party was held at the Flagler Museum, a 75-room mansion that was built by one of the founders of Standard Oil for his third wife at the turn of the last century.
He was the business partner of John D. Trump administration plan would widely expand drilling in U.S. continental waters. A boat with the nonprofit Clean Seas deploys a boom to contain an oil spill in 2015 north of Goleta, Calif.
About 21,000 gallons spilled from an abandoned pipeline. (David McNew/Getty Images) The Trump administration unveiled a controversial proposal Thursday to permit drilling in most U.S. continental-shelf waters, including protected areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic, where oil and gas exploration is opposed by governors from New Jersey to Florida, nearly a dozen attorneys general, more than 100 U.S. lawmakers and the Defense Department. 60 Environmental Rules on the Way Out Under Trump. 1. Revoked Obama-era flood standards for federal infrastructure projects This Obama-era rule, revoked by Mr.
Trump in August, required that federal agencies protect new infrastructure projects by building to higher flood standards. Exclusive: The Interior Department Scrubs Climate Change From Its Strategic Plan. In the next five years, millions of acres of America’s public lands and waters, including some national monuments and relatively pristine coastal regions, could be auctioned off for oil and gas development, with little thought for environmental consequences.
That’s according to a leaked draft, obtained by The Nation, of the Department of the Interior’s strategic vision: It states that the DOI is committed to achieving “American energy dominance” through the exploitation of “vast amounts” of untapped energy reserves on public lands. Alarmingly, the policy blueprint—a 50-page document—does not once mention climate change or climate science. That’s a clear departure from current policy: The previous plan, covering 2014–18, referred to climate change 46 times and explicitly stated that the department was committed to improving resilience in those communities most directly affected by global warming.
Trump to reverse Obama-era order aimed at planning for climate change. President Trump is expected to revoke an order requiring federal funds recipients to consider risk-management standards when building in flood zones.
(Andrew Harnik/AP) President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that he said would streamline the approval process for building infrastructure such as roads, bridges and offices by eliminating a planning step related to climate change and flood dangers. Mercury from industrialized nations is polluting the Arctic – here's how it gets there. Scientists have long understood that the Arctic is affected by mercury pollution, but know less about how it happens. Remote, cold and seemingly pristine, why is such an idyllic landscape so contaminated with this highly toxic metal? I recently returned from a two-year research project in Alaska, where I led field research into this issue alongside fellow scientists from the University of Colorado; the University of Nevada’s Desert Research Institute; the University of Toulouse and the Sorbonne University in France; and the Gas Technology Institute in Illinois. Our work was the most comprehensive investigation to date of how mercury is deposited to the Arctic tundra, a vast northern ecosystem surrounding the Arctic Ocean.
Our findings show that the gaseous form of mercury – emitted by coal-burning, mining and other industrial processes in the industrialized world – is being lofted into the region from thousands of miles away. Tracing mercury’s pathways. Florida governor has ignored climate change risks, critics say. TAMPA — Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has been ubiquitous in recent days as Hurricane Irma bears down on the Sunshine State, warning of deadly winds and storm surges and imploring residents to heed evacuation orders. “This is a catastrophic storm our state has never seen,” he cautioned at one of many news conferences. By all accounts, Scott and other officials have aggressively tried to prepare the state and its residents for the destructive storm’s impact and immediate aftermath. But for all of Scott’s vigor in readying Florida for Irma’s wrath, his administration has done little over the years to prepare for what scientists say are the inevitable effects of climate change that will wreak havoc in the years to come.
With its far-reaching coastline and low elevation, Florida is one of the states at greatest risk from rising sea levels, extreme weather events — including more-powerful hurricanes — and other consequences of a warming planet. Poison once flowed in America's waters. With Trump, it might again. As a scientist working for decades on national and global water and climate challenges, I must speak out against what I see as an assault on America’s water resources.
I grew up in New York in the 1960s hearing about massive Polychlorinated Biphenyl – a toxic chemical used as a coolant – contamination in the Hudson River and the threatened extinction of bald eagles and ospreys from eating contaminated fish. I remember watching on television Ohio’s Cuyahoga River burning. Scott Pruitt Is Carrying Out His E.P.A. Agenda in Secret, Critics Say - The New York Times. Together with a small group of political appointees, many with backgrounds, like his, in Oklahoma politics, and with advice from industry lobbyists, Mr. Pruitt has taken aim at an agency whose policies have been developed and enforced by thousands of the E.P.A.’s career scientists and policy experts, many of whom work in the same building. “There’s a feeling of paranoia in the agency — employees feel like there’s been a hostile takeover and the guy in charge is treating them like enemies,” said Christopher Sellers, an expert in environmental history at Stony Brook University, who this spring conducted an interview survey with about 40 E.P.A. employees.
Such tensions are not unusual in federal agencies when an election leads to a change in the party in control of the White House. But they seem particularly bitter at the E.P.A. Driven by Trump Policy Changes, Fracking Booms on Public Lands. America’s Carbon-Pusher in Chief. Bikini Atoll nuclear test: 60 years later and islands still unliveable. This Congressman Doesn’t Think Climate Science Is Real. He Just Went On A Secret Tour Of The Melting Arctic. President Trump falsely claims the U.S. spends "billions and billions and billions" on the Paris climate accords. EPA website removes climate science site from public view after two decades. Five takeaways from the Scott Pruitt emails.
A Pen Isn't the Only Gift Trump Gave Dow Chemical. GOP Vote to End Key Environmental Regulations.