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Flooded U.S. Air Force base underscores climate risk to security: experts
Flooding at a U.S. Air Force base in Nebraska that damaged buildings and forced the removal of a plane integral to the nation’s nuclear attack response highlight the risks climate change poses to national security, experts said on Monday. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned whether humans cause climate change and has been angered by assessments from his military and intelligence agencies that say the phenomenon poses national security risks. [ read more … ]
Deluge could ‘test the limits’ of Midwest
Low-lying communities from Minnesota to Missouri are bracing for what could be the Mississippi Basin’s worst flooding since 1993 as temperatures rise and rainstorms continue to track over areas with deep winter snowpack. The weekend brought some of the worst flooding in decades to towns along the Missouri River and its tributaries in Nebraska and Iowa, killing two and forcing evacuations from communities south of Omaha, Neb. [ read more … ]
Policy & Politics
New Mexico governor touts passage of oil and gas reform, ethics bills
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who was elected after promising to wean the state off its reliance on fossil fuels, saw many but not all of her priorities pass the Legislature. Lawmakers approved the Democrat’s signature “Energy Transition Act” last week. It will require utilities to draw 50 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2030, and all of it by 204 [ read more … ]
California leads 19 states in opposing Trump’s roll-back of climate rules for new coal plants
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra led 19 states on Tuesday in opposing the Environmental Protection Agency’s roll-back of Obama-era emission rules for new coal plants, referred to as a “defacto ban” on building new coal-fired power plants. The state AGs asked EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to immediately withdraw the administration’s proposed roll-back of the regulation in joint comments, laying out a legal argument for why the administration’s actions are “arbitrary and capricious.” [ read more … ]
How co-ops are bringing solar power to rural America
In 2014, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association studied what some of its members saw as a touchy subject: local electricity powered by the sun. NRECA, based in Arlington, Va., is the trade association for 900 local rural electric co-ops that came to life in 1942, when its members were dependent on coal. Many derived 70 percent or more of their power from coal, while just 1 percent of co-ops had gone beyond experimenting with solar as late as 2013, according to a survey at the time. [ read more … ]
Inside the utility sector’s quiet fight to save EVs
Utilities began dispatching lobbyists across Capitol Hill last year to preserve the federal electric vehicle tax credit and build momentum for other transportation electrification measures, even as they largely avoided political fights over those issues. Those efforts would run head-on with conservatives who have the ear of President Trump: The president’s proposed budget seeks to eliminate the tax credit and gut funding for two offices that lead clean transportation research. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.