"A proposal to cut the federal government's take from deepwater oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico is making its way towards Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's desk."
"In Charleston, S.C., where the ports have been expanding to accommodate larger ships sailing through the newly widened Panama Canal, a real-estate developer named Xebec Realty recently went looking for land to build new warehouses and logistics centers."
Infrastructure is much in the news these days, with battles over politics and funding yielding stories for environment reporters. In play are a Trump plan, who gets to pick projects, who pays and much more. But in an election year, how likely are infrastructure plans to move forward? The backstory, with angles for environment and energy, plus what to watch for in 2018, in our Backgrounder on infrastructure.
Covering local infrastructure projects often means covering energy and the environment. This week’s TipSheet offers a companion to our special backgrounder on the national infrastructure story emerging out of Washington. We’ve got dozens of resources and links for finding infrastructure news and information from Congress, executive agencies, infrastructure organizations and environmental groups.
"President Trump endorsed a 25-cent gas tax hike to pay for infrastructure at a White House meeting this morning with senior administration officials and members of Congress from both parties, according to two sources with direct knowledge."
"The budget deal that [passed early Friday morning] includes the one-year, retroactive renewal of a host of expired tax breaks." They included extension of tax breaks for renewable energy.
"The U.S solar industry, after at least six years as a sizzling job creator, lost almost 4 percent of its jobs last year, according to a survey out today. Most business owners said they expect growth to resume this year."
"A group of Democratic senators is demanding that Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt recuse himself from repealing one of President Obama's signature environmental rules, which is intended to curb the release of greenhouse gases from the nation’s power plants."
"Stewart Resnick is the biggest farmer in the United States, a fact he has tried to keep hidden while he has shaped what we eat, transformed California’s landscape, and ruled entire towns. But the one thing he can’t control is what he’s most dependent on — water."
"The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday that the recent bankruptcy of a Pennsylvania oil refiner was evidence the nation’s biofuel policy needs an overhaul in comments that infuriated biofuels advocates."
