Category: OKLAHOMA_CN SD_CN WV_CN WYOMING_CN

A majority of Americans see the effects of climate change in their own communities and believe the federal government should do more to stop them. Despite growing concern about the climate crisis, some states are doing far less than others to boost energy efficiency, decrease the use of fossil fuels, and protect air, water, and soil quality. Are you living in a state that’s taking environmental actions?

Reporting on clean energy from my kitchen table is one thing. Standing atop the Continental Divide — wind whipping at my face, construction workers grading roads nearby, pronghorn jogging across the sagebrush landscape — is something else entirely.

“I feel good about how prepared we are, but I know we’re going to have some tough days, some bad days,” Mike Morgan, director of the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, said during a recent presentation of the state’s fire annual wildfire plan.

Early this January, a geyser in West Texas started spewing tens of thousands of barrels of salty water a hundred feet into the air and coating the nearby land with salt deposits. It took about 10 days to discover the culprit was an old, dry oil well plugged in 1957 by Gulf Oil. By the next day, the Texas Railroad Commission had turned over the blowout and remediation to Chevron (who acquired Gulf Oil in the 1980s), who assumed full responsibility immediately and without question.

The Bureau of Reclamation announced it would hold water in Lake Powell — a major supplier of water to agriculture and municipalities — and add more water from the Flaming Gorge Reservoir upstream to stave off dropping water levels that could impact the electricity supply for nearly 6 million homes, mainly in Arizona.

State Director Glenn Pauley announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is investing over $38,000 in Wyoming renewable energy infrastructure for three small businesses. Nationwide, the announcement includes 165 projects to expand access to safe water and/or clean energy for people living in disadvantaged communities, totaling nearly $800 million in climate-smart infrastructure in 40 states, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Currently, six percent of Wyoming is “abnormally dry,” according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map, released on Thursday. The rest is experiencing drought, 59 percent of which is considered “severe” or “extreme.” The news is not good for wildlife—or for hunters. In response, wildlife managers are reducing this year’s allotment of statewide pronghorn tags by 8,000 and mule deer tags by 3,300.

The Environmental Protection Agency for the first time is proposing a measure that would force four Western states to reduce their harmful emissions because of the impact they’re having on air quality in neighboring states — including Colorado.

Electricity generation projects in Wyoming harnessing the power of wind are moving forward, and the industry is a fairly major player in energy production. Just like fossil fuels are abundant here, so, too, is wind as a natural resource.

In a victory for President Joe Biden, a federal appeals court Thursday refused to revisit its March decision reviving administration plans to account for potential damage from greenhouse gas emissions when creating rules for pollution-generating industries.