Category: ALABAMA_CN ClimateJustice_CN Executive_Landing_CN

The Biden administration’s choice of Lowndes as the site of its first big environmental justice inquiry was based on the magnitude of the county’s problems. But it also sent a message. The county was a voting rights battleground and a focal point of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, making it a logical choice to open a new front on civil rights.

Last month, the agency denied petitions by conservative-leaning think tanks and attorneys to reconsider its endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, records show, marking the second time EPA has dismissed those claims.
The agency first denied them during the Trump administration’s final hours in office. Then, early on in the Biden administration, EPA withdrew that decision so it could be reviewed by its new team, which has now blocked the petitions too.

Even as President Biden’s signature climate change bill languishes in the Senate, Congress is poised to spend billions of dollars on ambitious new projects that would help the U.S. adapt to climate change. A bill that would authorize the Army Corps of Engineers to build infrastructure to protect against climate impacts is quietly sailing through Congress, demonstrating bipartisan support for measures to protect against flooding and sea-level rise. Lawmakers may not be willing to pass laws that will dramatically cut carbon emissions, but they appear eager to fund projects that will mitigate the harms those emissions cause.

The Interior Department confirmed Wednesday that it will not hold three oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska that had been scheduled to take place, taking millions of acres off the auction block.

Top climate officials in the Biden administration are warning that a federal investigation into alleged dodging of tariffs by Chinese suppliers has put the domestic solar industry in peril just as the United States is trying to ramp up clean-energy production.

The actual purchases would be for deliveries after fiscal year 2023, in “future years when prices are anticipated to be significantly lower than they are today, and will represent a first tranche of purchases to replenish the SPR and with more planned after these purchases are executed,” the department said in a statement.

John Morton was tapped last year to lead Treasury's first-ever “Climate Hub” as part of the administration's whole-of-government approach to climate change. A year later, the former Obama official and sustainable investing veteran says his team is playing a “coordinating and agitating” role within the agency to accelerate the clean energy transition — while also safeguarding the U.S. financial system against climate-fueled threats.

Around the country, solar companies are delaying projects, scrambling for supplies, shutting down construction sites and warning that tens of billions of dollars — and tens of thousands of jobs — are at risk.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Thursday said she shares “deep concern” about the impact of potential solar energy tariffs on U.S. renewable energy goals.

A final rule announced Tuesday by the White House will require agencies to assess the climate impact of roads, pipelines and other infrastructure.