Environmental Politics

"The Trump administration’s effort to open up drilling across more than a million acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) faces significant legal hurdles, according to experts who are likely to assist in challenging the newly announced plan.

The Interior Department on Monday finalized plans to move ahead with a longstanding item on the GOP’s wishlist: allowing drilling in the Alaskan wilderness. The move could have dire consequences for polar bears, caribou, birds and other species that live in the coastal area in the northern part of ANWR.

"At least 17 Native candidates running for Congress, state legislature and other offices in Alaska and Wyoming will have their primary elections Tuesday."

"The century began with a great deal of optimism around marine protected areas as tools to protect the oceans. Two decades later, conservation goals and fishing interests remain at odds."

"California on Monday finalized a legal settlement with four of the world’s largest automakers that binds them to comply with its stringent state-level fuel efficiency standards that would cut down on climate-warming tailpipe emissions."

"The Trump administration finalized plans Monday to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, a move that will auction off oil and gas rights in the heart of one of the nation’s most iconic wild places. Achieving a goal Republicans have sought for 40 years, it marks a capstone for an administration that has ignored calls to reduce fossil fuel consumption in the face of climate change."

"Legislation being discussed by some members of Oklahoma’s congressional delegation to address a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision threatens to undermine tribal sovereignty, several Native American groups warned in a letter this week to Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe."

"U.S. authorities on Friday gave wildlife managers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho permission to start killing hundreds of sea lions in the Columbia River basin in hopes of helping struggling salmon and steelhead trout."

"Federal investigators have accused Ohio's recently deposed House speaker of running a racketeering ring. The question now is whether they will charge the utility that financed it. The case has significant implications for how corporations seek to shape public opinion on climate and energy policy. Electric utilities have joined the rush to employ dark money groups since 2010, when the Supreme Court eased restrictions on corporate spending in elections."

"President Trump is withdrawing his controversial nomination of William Perry Pendley to lead the Bureau of Land Management."

"Withdrawing from the Paris agreement does not make economic sense for the US, a group of economists has argued, as the cost of clean energy has fallen since the agreement was signed in 2015, while the risks of climate catastrophe have increased."