"Microsoft, Pepsi, Levi's and others are calling for carbon taxes or fees that could scale up innovation fast enough to combat climate change. "
"Newly released emails show that Environmental Protection Agency scientists raised strong objections to a 2018 decision by Scott Pruitt, who was head of the agency at the time, to exempt most of southeastern Wisconsin from federal limits on smog."
SEJ joined with several dozen other journalism groups to support the right to film police activity in a public place, and bills to block information of importance to environmental reporters failed in Louisiana, California and Iowa, but a Colorado paper was blocked from covering a wild horse roundup. All that in this month’s WatchDog Tipsheet.
"New York’s Suffolk County had a trash problem. Facing brimming landfills and public pressure, legislators took a first-in-the-nation step: They banned plastic bags. But what the county saw as part of the solution, the plastics industry took as a threat."
"In 40 years of behind-the-scenes advocacy for electric companies, the Utility Air Regulatory Group became ubiquitous in legal dockets and courtroom fights over the future of federal regulation. The group, which last week announced plans to disband, led the charge against dozens of EPA policies deemed too costly or unworkable by industry."
"The bankruptcy of one of the largest domestic coal producers in the country has revealed that the company maintains financial ties to many of the leading groups that have sowed doubt over the human causes of global warming."
"Jay Inslee released a sweeping $9 trillion economic plan Thursday to create 8 million jobs, revitalize the labor movement and rapidly cut planet-warming gases, propelling the Washington governor far out ahead on the Green New Deal at least nine of his rival 2020 presidential candidates vowed to enact."
"Effort to build offshore wind turbines to power up to 6m homes will create more than 10,000 jobs under Climate Jobs New York plan"
The Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference in Colorado this fall will bring attendees to a state rich in contrasts and storytelling fodder. At the same time, SEJ itself is readying for seismic shifts. SEJ President Bobby Magill shares firsthand knowledge of the Square State, plus a look into changes for the organization, in his latest quarterly report.
"A secretive utility industry coalition formerly represented by a top official at the Environmental Protection Agency is dissolving amid investigations into whether its members received special treatment from the Trump administration."
