Environment

WASHINGTON - A cross-border battle over water rights extending back some 27 years came to an abrupt end on Thursday when the Supreme Court ruled Florida failed to show its once-thriving oyster region was destroyed by Georgia’s unrelenting thirst for... Read More

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has entered into an interagency agreement with the Forest Service to add up to 600 of its dams to NRCS’s Nationwide DamWatch® system. DamWatch is a web-based application developed... Read More

Populations of the American bald eagle — the bold national symbol of the United States — have quadrupled since 2009, according to a new report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners. Bald eagles once teetered on the brink of extinction, reaching... Read More

SANTA FE, N.M.— The New Mexico House of Representatives has approved the Wildlife Conservation and Public Safety Act which would prohibit traps, snares and poisons on public lands. The vote was 35-34. The measure, Senate Bill 32, passed the New Mexico... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider whether the Obama Administration overstepped its authority in designating nearly 5,000 undersea acres off the Massachusetts coast a national monument, but Chief Justice John Roberts suggested it may be... Read More

WASHINGTON – Justice Amy Coney Barrett released the first majority opinion of her Supreme Court career Thursday, ruling against an environmental group that had sought access to government records. The decision prompted a dissent from two liberal justices Stephen Breyer... Read More

WASHINGTON - It’s hard to believe it’s almost that time of year again, but on Monday came word that the peak bloom for the cherry blossoms ringing the Tidal Basin in Washington is currently expected to occur April 2-5.  That... Read More

Although 2020 was an economically woeful year due to the coronavirus pandemic, a joint report by BloombergNEF and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy indicates renewable energy sources made record contributions to the country’s power grid.  The annual report, called... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Oil and natural gas will continue to play a major role in America for years to come, even as the Biden administration seeks to conserve public lands and address climate change, President Joe Biden's nominee to head... Read More

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Friday cancelled an oil and gas exploration lease sale for a sizable swath of the Gulf of Mexico. Lease Sale 257, which was scheduled to be live-streamed from New Orleans on March 17,... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Wilson Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, on Wednesday morning hosted an event explaining the complexities of measuring the presence of marine debris in the environment, focusing on the need to collect more data.  Measuring the problem... Read More

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - This week, Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., reintroduced the bipartisan Ocean Pollution Reduction Act II, legislation that simplifies the city of San Diego’s required permitting process to operate the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant. The legislation will... Read More

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Wednesday a moratorium on new oil and gas leasing on public lands, one of a slate of executive actions he is taking to demonstrate his commitment to fighting climate change, despite opposition from the... Read More

WASHINGTON —President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to address man-made climate change appears poised to benefit from a bicameral party majority. Biden’s plan, outlined on his campaign website, proposes $1.7 trillion in new “federal investments” over the next 10 years that would... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency last week finalized plans to keep ozone air pollution standards at a level that environmentalists say is too high to prevent respiratory and other health problems.  In 2015 the EPA lowered the... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress who handle environmental issues are adding their voices to a federal court case that threatens to roll back protections of the 1972 Clean Water Act. They are siding with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that... Read More

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The federal government granted Florida’s request for wider authority over wetland development, a move announced Thursday that came under immediate fire by environmentalist who worry that the country's largest network of wetlands could be at risk... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is rushing to issue permits, finalize major environmental regulations and even sell the rights to drill for oil in Alaskan wilderness before Inauguration Day in a push that could complicate Joe Biden's climate and conservation agenda. The eleventh-hour regulatory race... Read More

There's a new kid on the zero-emissions vehicle block — and it has three wheels. The Solo, from Canadian designer and manufacturer ElectraMeccanica, is a single-passenger all-electric vehicle with a range of 100 miles and a top speed of 80... Read More

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador — Just south of the Galapagos' Marchena Island, there's a dive spot known by locals as the "fish arena." There, within the choppy, cool waters of the Pacific, thousands of colorful fish swim in schools, lobsters poke their long antennae... Read More

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., announced in a release that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a critically needed fix to the 2018 Water Resources Development Act that would... Read More

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- The Washington State Department of Commerce has announced $300,000 is available for grants to shellfish growers impacted by declining exports and restaurant sales due to COVID-19.  Local and global market demand for Washington’s world-renowned shellfish has dropped... Read More

WASHINGTON - This week, the America’s Conservation Enhancement Act achieved final passage in the U.S. House of Representatives with support from a wide swath of bipartisan lawmakers.  The ACE Act helps conserve wildlife and wildlife habitat, including by reauthorizing the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom O’Halleran, D- Ariz., criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a recent House hearing on the western wildfires, saying “forest management has long been on the backburner at the federal level.” Halleran made his observation during... Read More

When the first fire of the season broke out on the Hoopa Valley Reservation in Northern California in July, Greg Moon faced a dilemma. As Hoopa’s fire chief and its pandemic team leader, Moon feared the impact of the blaze... Read More

WASHINGTON – In its second report ranking members of the U.S. House of Representatives for their votes on legislation related to toxic chemicals, the Environmental Working Group Action Fund presented Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-N.Y., with a perfect score. Much of... Read More

SODUS POINT, N.Y. — On Mother’s Day three years ago, Tom Frank was at his bayside restaurant, Captain Jack’s Good Time Tavern, when a brimming Lake Ontario surged onto the back patio. Water spilled across the wooden deck, a sun-soaked... Read More

MIAMI — A tropical depression traveling west through the Atlantic could strengthen into Tropical Storm Josephine this week, according to the National Hurricane Center. The depression is about 1,220 miles east-southeast of the Northern Leeward Islands and is traveling west... Read More

Disaster relief efforts following Hurricane Hanna’s arrival on the coast of Texas last week are going well despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, according to the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Administration.  Hurricane Hanna hit Texas with winds... Read More

WASHINGTON - The amount of plastic entering the world’s oceans could nearly triple within the next two decades, according to a report by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C., called “Breaking the Plastic... Read More