"There was never really much doubt that Donald Trump doubted the science of climate change. He had tweeted to that effect repeatedly before becoming president. He told this publication he wasn’t a 'big believer' in human-caused climate change."
"Since 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency has been embroiled in an enforcement battle with a Michigan-based company accused of modifying the state’s largest coal-fired power plant without getting federal permits for a projected rise in pollution. On Dec. 7, as the Supreme Court was considering whether to hear the case, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a memo that single-handedly reversed the agency’s position."
Long-standing disputes over exploitation of public lands bubble over as the Trump administration advances campaign promises to ease restrictions on energy development. A special TipSheet, part of our 2018 Journalists' Guide to Energy & Environment, has resources for covering public lands-related issues as they play out in the coming year.
"Some of the most common avatars of climate change – hulking power stations and billowing smokestacks – may need a slight update. For the first time in more than 40 years, the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the US isn’t electricity production but transport – cars, trucks, planes, trains and shipping."
"Hundreds of U.S. Geological Survey scientists were missing from the biggest conference in their field this month."
"On the last business day of the year, the Interior Department rescinded a 2015 Obama administration rule that would have set new environmental limitations on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on public lands."
"The U.S. has abandoned any claim to climate leadership as the only nation to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. In Trump's Cabinet, climate denial is pretty much cause for a Merit Badge. Congressional leadership doesn't acknowledge climate change to be a problem, or even a thing."
"Exceptionally high ocean temperatures fueled devastating Atlantic hurricanes, while a wet spring and hot summer set the stage for a deadly fire season in the West."
"The new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says the agency will review its policies, unchanged for nearly two decades, for certifying natural gas pipelines, projects that have sparked contention from North Dakota to Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia, where the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines are advancing toward construction."
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