Environmental Politics

"Using satellite imagery and data on dozens of factors — including air and noise pollution, park space, open water and tree canopy — NatureQuant has distilled the elements of health-supporting nature into a single variable called NatureScore. Aggregated to the level of Census tracts — roughly the size of a neighborhood — the data provide a high-resolution image of where nature is abundant and where it is lacking across the United States."

"The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed a resolution that would overturn a federal agency's rule requiring states to measure and set declining targets for greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles using the national highway system."

"The Biden administration straddled the line on a controversial Canadian oil pipeline in a court filing Wednesday, saying a lower court’s order to drain portions running through tribal land may violate a 1977 treaty but agreeing with a Native American tribe that the operator is trespassing on tribal land."

"Trump administration officials barred experts from warning legislators that they were about to write a major environmental loophole into law, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staffers alleged in newly revealed internal communications."

"A surge in FirstEnergy political spending ahead of the utility’s push to secure a legislative bailout for its nuclear power plants included a $1 million dark money contribution to support the campaign of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s eventual running mate."

"The Environmental Protection Agency is considering significantly strengthening proposed limits on planet-warming pollution from power plants — a crucial part of President Biden’s climate agenda — according to three people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because no final decisions have been made."

"Canada’s largest oilsands companies are “misleading” the public about their industry’s environmental impact, according to new peer-reviewed research."

"It was a key pledge in President Joe Biden’s effort to show renewed international leadership on climate change: The U.S. government, the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world, would require its contractors and suppliers to disclose their carbon emissions and climate risks."

"When it was time to outline their vision for managing America’s federal lands under a future Republican presidency, pro-Donald Trump conservatives turned to a man who has spent his career advocating for those very lands to be pawned off to states and private interests."

"Ten years after the weeklong confrontation, the federal government faces paralysis over how to oversee a desert ecosystem."