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Obama using final budget request to push for action against climate change
Barack Obama called on Congress to double funding for clean energy research on Saturday, using his final budget request – and one of the last high-profile moments of his presidency – to push for action against climate change. The president said his final budget on Tuesday would propose doubling clean energy research spending from $6.4bn to $12.8bn by 2020. [ read more … ]
States, industries make final pleas to Supreme Court
Dozens of states, utilities and coal groups Friday made their final arguments in an attempt to urge the Supreme Court to block the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. The request to the court to step in and block the controversial rule as a lower court weighs the case is widely seen as an unusual legal maneuver, but that shouldn’t stop the court from taking action, a coalition of more than two dozen states led by West Virginia said in its filing to the justices. [ read more … ]
FERC ruling seen as boon for Clean Power Plan
The Supreme Court’s recent move to uphold a federal energy conservation rule bodes well for the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, environmental lawyers say. With U.S. EPA’s rule to cut power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions already mired in lawsuits and widely expected to wind up in the Supreme Court, lawyers on both sides are scouring the justices’ recent environmental decisions for clues about how they’ll handle the case. [ read more … ]
Built Up by Oil Boom, North Dakota Now Has an Emptier Feeling
The “man camps” sprang up from the prairie, rows of trailers and modular steel boxes that housed thousands of workers chasing their fortunes in North Dakota’s oil fields. But these days, the man camps are missing something: men. Roughly eight years ago, at the peak of the last recession, oil drilling began to transform these remote corners of the plains into an economic beacon, attracting billions of dollars in new investments and thousands of workers in search of good-paying jobs and an escape from America’s economic pain. But now, as oil prices have skidded to $30 a barrel, new drilling has dried up here, and the flood of wealth and workers is ebbing. [ read more … ]
U.S. reaches ‘turning point’ in low-carbon growth
The United States has reached a watershed in efforts to decarbonize its energy economy, setting records in 2015 for natural gas and renewable energy production, alongside rising investment in energy efficiency and the continued retirement of dozens of older coal-fired power plants. Experts say the drivers behind the shifts, outlined in the “2016 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook,” stem from policy directives at the national and international levels, as well as technological revolutions in the gas industry and increasingly attractive economics for renewables such as wind and solar power. [ read more … ]
Pope Francis ramps up environmental message
Pope Francis today urged people to protect their “common home” from environmental degradation in a new video message. While not mentioning climate change specifically, the pope’s message in the video carries the same themes as his papal encyclical last year that discussed the scientific basis for climate change and called for urgent action to protect the planet. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.