Government

"The Biden administration has finalized standards for federal buildings that will eliminate onsite fossil fuel usage for new projects by the end of the decade, the Energy Department confirmed Wednesday."

"The Department of Energy created a one-stop shop for federal permitting, helping transmission developers avoid the lengthy patchwork of regulatory approvals that has slowed major projects. The program makes the department the lead agency in permitting and finalizes a yearslong, multiadministration effort to coordinate the work of at least nine agencies with a hand in permitting power lines."

"As a competing bill emerges, supporters defend RAWA as the ’gold standard.’"

"The National Weather Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday — Earth Day — presented a new online heat risk system that combines meteorological and medical risk factors with a seven-day forecast that’s simplified and color-coded for a warming world of worsening heat waves."

"San Francisco is the latest U.S. city preparing to receive a pair of pandas from China, in a continuation of Beijing’s famed “panda diplomacy.”"

"In January, an alert citizen in Muleshoe, Tex., was driving by a park and noticed that a water tower was overflowing. Authorities soon determined the system that controlled the city’s water supply had been hacked. In two hours, tens of thousands of gallons of water had flowed into the street and drain pipes."

"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."

"With fires growing in size and duration, federal officials in charge of juggling resources and dispatching crews are pivoting to a new business model they describe as the biggest shift in wildfire management in decades."