"For more than six months, twin brothers Ronald and Donald Schweitzer have watched large amounts of salty wastewater bubble up from the ground in their wheat field. The “saltwater purge” has killed three trees and several acres of crops on their northwest Oklahoma farm."
As part of our “2020 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment” to help reporters track the stories coming their way this year, SEJournal Online looks ahead to major developments on the beat — from Washington, D.C. to the Arctic, from public lands to fossil fuels. We also explore pending news on transportation, agriculture, nukes, federal funding, freedom of information and even algae. Also under our gaze, key facets of the climate story. Read our overview analysis and then dive deep into the full offering of special Backgrounders, TipSheets and WatchDogs.
"The 2020 election could be a pivotal moment for the oil industry in Texas, and thus the rest of the U.S. energy sector."
"U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren called for former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry to resign from a board seat overseeing the Dallas pipeline company Energy Transfer, calling his move into an industry his agency oversaw “unethical”."
"Germany announced on Thursday that it would spend $44.5 billion to quit coal — but not for another 18 years, by 2038."
"The Supreme Court of Canada shut down British Columbia’s move to regulate what can flow through an expanded Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta."
"A coalition of grid companies has fired off a new argument on why green energy advocates should embrace strategic, long-haul, high-voltage transmission lines and why federal regulators need to make that happen."
"Last May, an air monitor on the border of the East Coast's largest oil refinery recorded a level of cancer-causing gas more than 21 times the federal limit. In June, an explosive early-morning fire rocked the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery, terrifying nearby residents."
"David Bernhardt, the man in charge of the nation’s public lands, has come through the revolving door of Washington, D.C. lobbying and back out again. Before becoming secretary of the Department of the Interior, he collected nearly $5 million for his firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a lobbyist and lawyer from energy clients. Since he took the new post in July 2017, Bernhardt’s former clients have spent a lot of money trying to influence the Department of Interior."
"For American coal, 2019 was bad, 2020 will be worse, and in 2021, renewables will surpass coal in electricity generation for the first time ever, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration."
