"State officials signed off Thursday on a climate change target that critics say will reduce planet-warming emissions far too slowly. The action comes as economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to slow the growth of renewable energy."
"The U.S. Senate’s unanimous passage of a $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill sent the unprecedented economic legislation to the House of Representatives, whose Democratic leaders hope to pass it on Friday."
An historic multi-trillion-dollar COVID-19 aid bill is approaching passage in the U.S. Congress, and while details are currently sketchy, it appears to include some key environment and energy asks related to oil reserves, emergency transit funding, cuts in airline carbon emissions, clean energy tax credits, and relief for oil, gas and coal industries. Read on, find out more about the many environment and energy reporting angles to the COVID-19 outbreak and stay tuned to SEJournal online for further developments.
"The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday that it’s reviewing a request from the oil and gas industry to ease enforcement of hazardous air and water pollution and other regulatory issues during the coronavirus pandemic. The proposal is drawing objections from public health and environmental advocates."
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"President Donald Trump tried to stop it from happening. The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, did too. Despite their best efforts to make good on Trump’s campaign promise to save the beleaguered coal industry, including an eleventh-hour pressure campaign, the Tennessee Valley Authority power plant at Paradise burned its last load of coal last month."
"Ten miles north of Pensacola, Florida, on the west bank of the Escambia River, an aging chemical plant, its tanks, smokestacks and stainless steel pipes sprawling across hundreds of acres, is a climate killer hiding in plain sight."
"Scientists have found a new point of major vulnerability in the Antarctic ice sheet, in a region that already appears to be changing as the climate warms and has the potential to raise sea levels by nearly five feet over the long term."
"Against a backdrop of a worsening public health crisis, cranky senators continued negotiations over a third phase of COVID-19 stimulus, as House Democrats injected climate change into the pandemic debate with their own relief package."
The momentous COVID-19 outbreak has many, many reporting angles — environment and energy stories certainly among them. Our latest Issue Backgrounder has an extensive rundown on possible ways in for environment and energy reporters, including everything from respiratory disease and air pollution to science denial and climate change, and more. Plus, pending passage of a massive congressional aid package. And an earlier TipSheet on how journalists can prepare for public health emergencies.
"Climate change is worsening the largest plague of the crop-killing insects in 50 years, threatening famine in Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent."
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