The Senate confirmed Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency over the objections of Democrats and environmentalists worried he will gut the agency, as the administration readies executive orders to ease regulation on drillers and miners. Photo: Reuters/Carlos Barria The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday he is not convinced that carbon dioxide from human activity is the main driver of climate change and said he wants Congress to weigh in on whether CO2 is a harmful pollutant that should be regulated.
Category: Global Warming
The Latest: Source says Jags to spend big to improve defense
A little girl in bronze defiantly facing Wall Street’s mammoth Charging Bull didn’t appear suddenly or spontaneously in Manhattan’s financial district in the middle of the night. A little girl in bronze defiantly facing Wall Street’s mammoth Charging Bull didn’t appear suddenly or spontaneously in Manhattan’s financial district in the middle of the night.
The Latest: Source says Osweiler and picks to Browns
Republicans on a pivotal House committee are nearing an initial triumph in their effort to scuttle former President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Republicans on a pivotal House committee are nearing an initial triumph in their effort to scuttle former President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
Jury selection begins in trial of gunman in barracks ambush
Jury selection is about to get underway Thursday, March 9, 2017, in the capita… . In this Friday, March 6, 2015 file photo, a sign marks the location of the barracks for the Pennsylvania State Police in Blooming Grove Township, Pa.
Two cheers for a carbon tax, but don’t expect it to fix everything
Former secretary of state James A. Baker speaks about a plan to repeal and replace the Clean Power Plan at the National Press Club in Washington on Feb. 8. By all means, let’s have a carbon tax. It’s the best way to deal with global climate change.
We can have it all if we’re willing to work toward compromise
Earlier this week, I was invited to sit on a panel hosted by Conservation Colorado to discuss how tourism fits into continued efforts for clean air, land, and water efforts in our community. There’s a pretty good chance that U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton’s aide and I were the only conservatives in the room, which is unfortunate since the event was open to the public.
Germany Pretty Much Bans All Fracking Until 2021
The laws ban a “particularly controversial” form of fracking and impose strict regulations on all other methods. Germany’s parliament and 16 German states approved the laws in June and July of 2016.
Major global warming study again questioned, again defended
Another round of bickering is boiling over about temperature readings used in a 2015 study to show how the planet is warming. The issue is about how readings gathered decades ago were adjusted to try to get a clearer picture of how the Earth’s temperature is changing now.
House to take first crack at repealing Obama-era regulations
Determined to reverse eight years of a Democratic administration, House Republicans are on track to overturn a handful of rules finalized in President Barack Obama’s final months in office to deal with climate change, federal contracting and background checks for gun ownership. Opponents criticize the regulations as job killers that will hold the U.S. economy back.
Peele: Trump limiting access to government, House GOP not helping
It hasn’t take the new president long to start smashing the federal government with a hammer and telling its employees to shut up about it. The EPA, the departments of agriculture, health and human services, and interior, to name a few, have reportedly instructed employees to not send out press releases and to stop posting on social media or adding information to web sites.
Official: Trump wants to slash EPA workforce, budget
The former head of President Donald Trump’s transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday he expects the new administration to seek significant budget and staff cuts. Myron Ebell said in an interview with The Associated Press that Trump is likely to seek significant reductions to the agency’s workforce – currently about 15,000 employees nationwide.
Trump versus Paris accord
The Paris Agreement aimed at combating global warming, which went into effect on Nov. 4, is exposed to the same crisis that beset the Kyoto Protocol adopted at the 3rd United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 1997. When the Kyoto Protocol was adopted, the United States was led by the administration of President Bill Clinton.
Trump doesn’t represent American views on climate change: a visual guide
You could be forgiven for thinking the American public is deeply divided on climate change. After all, the United States elected Donald Trump, a man who has famously – and falsely – called climate change a “hoax.”
Pruitt OK’d as EPA chief over environmentalists’ objections
Over the strong objections of environmental groups, the Senate confirmed Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday, giving President Donald Trump an eager partner to fulfill his campaign pledge to increase the use of planet-warming fossil fuels. In six years as Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt filed 14 lawsuits challenging EPA regulations that included limits on carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Obama admin injects another $500M into global climate fund
The Obama administration has made a second $500 million payment into an international climate change adaptation fund, the State Department announced Tuesday. With the announcement, the Obama administration has now spent $1 billion on the Green Climate Fund despite broad GOP opposition to U.S. financing for the fund.
Continue reading As President Obama Departs, We Owe Him Our Thanks a ‘
The final days of the Obama presidency are upon us. His popularity is rising with the economy, and with the increasingly stark contrasts to his successor.
Tucker Savages College Prof Refusing To Back Up His Claim That…
Fox News host Tucker Carlson stumped a California college professor, who claimed that “98 percent” of the world’s scientists believe in global warming, when he asked the academic how he reached his number. California State University, Sacramento, professor Joseph Palermo went on Carlson’s show to defend a Huffington Post op-ed where he argued that Trump’s administration shouldn’t be allowed to use Twitter since they believed “the science of global warming is bogus.”
Trump nixes pet projects
It’s been a tough year for political elites, here and around the world, what with the passage of Brexit in June in Britain, the repudiation of Colombia’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient in the October FARC referendum and the defeat of America’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient’s preferred candidate in the November presidential election. Not all the consequences are clear.
States face off over Clean Power Plan
Two weeks after officials in two dozen states asked Republican President-elect Donald Trump to kill one of Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature plans to curb global warming, another group of state officials is urging Trump to save it. Democratic attorneys general in 15 states plus four cities and counties sent a letter to Trump asking him to preserve Obama’s Clean Power Plan, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the lead author, announced Thursday.
It wasn’t all bad news for the planet: 5 positive environmental stories from 2016
The year will almost certainly hold the prize for the hottest in recorded history, eclipsing the records set in 2015 and 2014. Researchers tracked how Antarctic ice sheets continue to melt and how the Arctic continues to warm.
Republican attorneys general eager to dism…
As soon as President-elect Donald Trump assumes office Jan. 20, Republican attorneys general who have spent the past eight years battling the Obama administration’s climate change agenda will have a new role: supporting the Republican president’s complex legal effort to roll back that agenda. By contrast, states with Democratic leadership – such as California, where Gov. Jerry Brown has promised all-out war against Mr. Trump on global warming – will go from being environmental partners with the federal government to legal aggressors on their own.
Energy Dept. offers $2B loan to carbon-storage project
The Energy Department said Wednesday it is offering a conditional, $2 billion loan guarantee to capture and store carbon dioxide at a planned Louisiana methanol plant, the latest element of the Obama’s administration’s strategy to slow global warming. The Lake Charles Methanol plant will use petroleum coke, a byproduct of oil refining, to make methanol, a chemical used in products such as paint, glue, plastics and formaldehyde.
India’s Energy Forecasts Are Falling Short And Climate Could Win
Millions in India still are waiting to connect to the grid as routine power shortages often lead to blackouts. It may not be the traditional power companies that meet their needs.
Obama sets rule to protect streams near coal mines
The Obama administration on Monday set final rules designed to reduce the environmental impact of coal mining on the nation’s streams, a long-anticipated move that met quick resistance from Republicans who vowed to overturn it under President-elect Donald Trump. The Interior Department said the new rule will protect 6,000 miles of streams and 52,000 acres of forests, preventing debris from coal mining from being dumped into nearby waters.