While it's too soon to tell what the new Trump administration and 115th Congress will do, our special report suggests we may see a groundswell of environmental deregulation and massive energy development. Backgrounder looks at the top 10 energy-environment issues to watch in the President Trump era.
Conflict is brewing over the leasing of oil and gas drilling rights on millions of acres of federal land, now that the pro-oil-and-gas GOP controls Congress and the White House. And one especially big battle to come? The one over opening for drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a dispute that raged for decades.
While resurrecting the declining U.S. coal industry, as promised by the new administration, is probably not possible, it may not stop a lifting of the moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands. TipSheet looks at how the issue moved front and center, and whether the move would help coal country.
"Far above the Arctic Circle, one of the longest-running controversies in U.S. oil drilling is about to reignite. Bouyed by Donald Trump’s election, Republicans are pushing to allow oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the frigid wilderness in northern Alaska that’s been a political battleground for drillers and conservationists for decades."
"Two federal agencies have approved a 2.4-mile-long open pit phosphate mine proposed by a Canadian company in southeastern Idaho."
To help keep tabs on the newly seated 115th Congress and its gate-keepers of energy and environment law, the latest TipSheet offers a checklist of committee leadership. Plus, a closer look at three key Senate panels, likely agendas and new leadership, such as Senate Energy Committee Chair John Barrasso, R-Wyo. (shown in photo).
"President Obama today announced three new national monuments honoring key events in the civil rights movement and expanded both the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon and the California Coastal National Monument.
The White House said the president was using his authority to mark the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday by creating two new sites in Alabama — the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and the Freedom Riders National Monument — and one in South Carolina — the Reconstruction Era National Monument.
"Less than a month after the Obama administration announced that it was banning offshore oil and gas production in most of the Arctic, there are signs that a place many conservationists regard as the crown jewel of the Arctic could one day be open for drilling."
"Water Is for Fighting Over" explores how Western water woes may not be so disastrous.
The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management issued four plans for management of 6.5 million publicly owned acres of Alaska’s eastern interior.
