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U. S. to Pay Millions to Move Tribes Threatened by Climate Change
The Biden administration will give three Native tribes $75 million to move away from coastal areas or rivers, one of the nation’s largest efforts to date to relocate communities that are facing an urgent threat from climate change. The three communities — two in Alaska, and one in Washington State — will each get $25 million to move their key buildings onto higher ground and away from rising waters, with the expectation that homes will follow. The federal government will give eight more tribes $5 million each to plan for relocation.
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Wind Energy
Biden wants to launch 16 offshore wind farms. Can he?
The agency tasked with realizing President Joe Biden’s offshore wind ambitions needs to move fast. To meet the administration’s larger decarbonization goals, the White House wants to help raise 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030 — a pledge that will require pushing 16 individual wind farms through the regulatory gauntlet by the end of Biden’s first term. So far, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has only approved two of those farms.
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Congress
House Oversight to issue report on Big Oil investigation
The House Oversight and Reform Committee will soon issue a report wrapping up its investigation of the oil industry, according to one of the lawmakers leading the probe. “We’ve wrapped it up, but there are millions of documents that now are going to be part of the public record and this report,” said Environment Subcommittee Chair Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who spearheaded the investigation with full committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). “I think it will for the next 10 years pave the way for a lot of activism around the country.” Committee Democrats have been investigating oil companies for more than a year for allegedly misleading the public about climate change to cover the role their products play in warming the planet. [ read more … ]
States
East Coast’s first countywide gas ban passed in Md.
Montgomery County, Md., moved yesterday to become the first county on the East Coast to ban natural gas as a source of heat in new buildings, pleasing green groups even as critics warned of higher energy costs. The gas limits, backed in a 9-0 vote by the Montgomery County Council’s Democratic members, are expected to go into effect by the end of 2026 as part of local building codes. About 1.1 million people live in Montgomery County, which adjoins the District of Columbia and is the state’s largest county. [ read more … ]
Off Topic
Climate on trial: Montana youth take on state energy policy
Growing up in the state that’s home to Glacier National Park, Mica participated in climate strikes at his school. He said he mailed letters to elected officials in Montana, “telling them how much climate change meant to me and hoping they would reevaluate their positions.” He got a few replies — each automated: “Thanks for your concern, we appreciate your feedback.” So when his mother told him and his sister in 2020 that Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based law firm, was planning to sue Montana’s government for failing to protect the environment for kids like him, he was all in. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.