National parks, wildlife refuges and recreational areas in the U.S. received a boost in funding this August when President Donald Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act (P.L. 116-152) into law on Aug. 4. The law will provide $9.5 billion over five years to help maintain and expand parks and natural areas throughout the country. It also provides $900 million a year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which provides grants to local, state and federal governments to preserve and acquire land and water areas. The revenue from energy development and oil and gas exploration will fund these conservation…

A bipartisan bill that aims to help rid the world’s oceans of plastic waste is making its way through Congress. The Save Our Seas 2.0 Act (SOS 2.0) builds on a 2018 law and outlines several steps to reduce marine debris currently floating in the ocean and prevent future waste from piling up. A group of U.S. senators led by Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) introduced the bipartisan bill (S. 1982) in June 2019. It aims to improve the domestic response to current marine debris and prevent future buildup by improving U.S. infrastructure. The bill…

The 2015 Clean Water Rule, also known as the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) Rule, clarified and expanded the Federal Government’s authority to protect the nation’s waterways and water resources from pollution. Finalized under the Obama Administration, WOTUS extended Federal protection to smaller bodies of water such as streams, rivers, and wetlands, which previously had been vulnerable to pollution due to the lack of clarity in existing laws. The 2015 rule faced a barrage of lawsuits immediately after it was issued. As a result of these court challenges, the rule has been in effect in only 22 States, the…

A new proposal by the Trump Administration would significantly expand offshore oil and gas lease sales to tracts off the Atlantic, Arctic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts. The draft five-year (2019 to 2024) plan is a major departure from the current 2017 to 2022 plan approved by the Obama Administration that limits lease sales to 10 tracts off the Gulf of Mexico and one off Alaska’s southern coast. In announcing the new policy, Interior Secretary Ryan Zincke said: “Responsibly developing our energy resources on the Outer Continental Shelf in a safe and well-regulated way is important to our economy and energy…

The controversy over a planned 1,100-mile pipeline, originating in North Dakota and stretching across four States to Illinois, came to Capitol Hill in September, when Senator Bernie Sanders (VT-I) attempted to add an amendment to a water projects bill to slow its development. The Dakota Access Pipeline, as it is called, would carry up to 570,000 barrels of domestically produced oil each day. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota, which opposes the project, says that a spill from the pipeline near their reservation could pollute the water and that construction would destroy sacred sites and burial grounds. Dallas-based…

In a recent speech on the Obama Administration’s approach to rural poverty, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack focused on the use of biofuels in manufacturing as a way to address persistent high unemployment in rural communities. Secretary Vilsack said that such communities — defined as areas where 20 percent of the population has been poor for three decades or more — might rebuild their local economies by producing renewable fuels. According to the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service, an estimated 353 counties are in this category. In 2010, the Agriculture Department created five Regional Biomass Research Centers to help establish…

On April 4, the Obama Administration released Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment. The report was developed over three years by climate change and public health experts from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Agriculture, U.S. Geological Survey, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. According to a White House fact sheet, the assessment: “… reinforces that climate change is a significant threat to the health of the…

The drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, resulted from a 2014 decision by the city to switch its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The change was made without adding chemicals to prevent pipe corrosion, so lead leaked into residents’ water, creating a serious public health problem. As the crisis gained national attention in the fall of 2015, Michigan’s congressional representatives called for action. On February 10, the House passed, 416 to 2, H.R. 4470, introduced by Representative Dan Kildee (MI-D), to require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to notify the public within 15 days after discovering…

On October 19, the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy held a hearing on the upcoming United Nations Conference on Climate Change. Senator John Barrasso (WYR) led the hearing to examine the economic and environmental impacts of the negotiations. The goal of the talks, which are taking place from November 30 to December 11, 2015, in Paris, is to achieve a universal agreement on climate. Nations responsible for about two-thirds of global pollution have come up with greenhouse emissions targets — known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). The United States…

Federal subsidies for wind production began under the Administration of President Jimmy Carter with passage of the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act and the Energy Tax Act. When these subsidies failed to make the industry competitive, Congress, in 1992, created the Production Tax Credit (PTC) to give it a boost. The PTC gives wind energy producers a tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity generated. Although originally intended as a temporary measure, the PTC has been continually extended by Congress under pressure from the wind industry and renewable energy advocates. A setback occurred on January 29, 2015,…