Putting The Sun In Sunshine State? Florida’s About-Face On Solar Power
"Solar power has long been a pet issue for progressives and environmentalists. But in Florida, utilities are starting to embrace the technology for economic reasons."
(AL AR FL GA KY LA MS NC PR SC TN)
"Solar power has long been a pet issue for progressives and environmentalists. But in Florida, utilities are starting to embrace the technology for economic reasons."
U.S. courts will be a key venue of environmental conflict in 2019, as the Trump administration pushes back against an extensive array of long-standing environmental law. This special edition Issue Backgrounder looks at seven key legal disputes, including cases involving climate change liability, intergenerational equity and policy, as well as conflicts over maintaining national monuments, defining which waters are subject to anti-pollution rules, disposing of coal ash and extending offshore drilling.
The new year will likely mean subpoenas on EPA’s FOIA response policies, as a Democrat takes the chair in the House Oversight Committee amid charges the agency is choking off politically sensitive record requests. And are new laws in a dozen states making coverage of pipeline protests a felony? That, plus air emission exemptions for animal feedlot operators and data on illegal fishing. All in the latest issue of the WatchDog.
"As global warming changes the Texas coast and cheap food imports flood the country, the people who make their living off oysters and shrimp are disappearing."
"A Belle Chasse marine contractor given the job of stopping a 14-year-old oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is defending itself against a lawsuit alleging it’s unqualified for the work and may cause more environmental damage."
"Hundreds of thousands of homes in the Southeast may have had their wells inundated by record-level floodwater resulting from major hurricanes this year, yet only a fraction have been tested for harmful contaminants."
"Off Cedar Key on Florida's west coast, the water is some of the most pristine in the Gulf. The estuary there has long supported a thriving seafood industry."
"Major hurricanes, devastating wildfires, a drought and a series of extreme storms ran up the count of billion-dollar U.S. climate and weather disasters."
"As Hurricane Michael quickly gained strength over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico in October, Tyndall Air Force Base began sending its stealth fighters to safer bases—all but the more than a dozen planes undergoing maintenance. Two days later, the base was being ripped apart by 155 mile-per-hour winds that left it littered with the twisted metal of torn-away rooftops and hangars.