EJToday is a daily weekday digest of top environment/energy news and information of interest to environmental journalists, independently curated by Editor Joseph A. Davis. Sign up below to receive in your inbox. For queries, email EJToday@SEJ.org. For more info, read an EJToday FAQ. Plus, follow EJToday on social media at @EJTodayNews, and flag stories of note by including the @EJTodayNews handle on your posts. And tell us how to make EJToday even better by taking this brief survey.
Want to join the EJToday team? Volunteer time commitments can vary from just an hour a month up to a daily contribution, and would involve helping to curate content of interest. To learn more, reach out to the director of publications, Adam Glenn, at sejournaleditor@sej.org.
Note: Members have additional options to choose from (you'll need your log-in info).
"Devon Hall has lived most of his nearly seven decades in Duplin County, N.C. The land is flat and green there in the southeastern part of the state, about an hour's drive from the coast. It's lovely unless you live downwind of one of the county's many industrial hog farms."
"An audit found that the time it takes the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to issue penalties to polluters has doubled. Some companies that have been known to violate air quality rules were able to keep at it for years, or even decades."
"In a victory for environmentalists and Nigerians whose land was polluted by oil leaks, a Dutch appeals court ordered energy giant Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary Friday to compensate two farmers for damage to their land caused by leaks in 2004 and 2005."
"The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is shelving a controversial rule meant to prevent banks from rejecting corporate customers based solely on their industry."
"After the Trump administration announced its plans to relocate the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) headquarters to Colorado, more than 87 percent of Washington-based employees decided to leave the agency, according to new numbers released by the Biden administration."
"Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration believe they have identified a new species of whale in the Gulf of Mexico. The Rice's whale is a filter feeder that can grow to 42 feet. It's also critically endangered. There are believed to be fewer than 100 of them left."
"President Biden on Wednesday signed a sweeping series of executive actions — ranging from pausing new federal oil leases to electrifying the government’s vast fleet of vehicles — while casting the moves as much about job creation as the climate crisis."
"President Biden today is signing off on an aggressive conservation goal aimed at permanently protecting at least 30% of the nation's undeveloped land and waters by 2030, while calling for the creation of a jobs program focused in part on restoring public lands."
"A freeze on new federal oil and gas leases could earn goodwill for President Biden among environmentalists, but analysts said such a move likely would have a limited effect on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions."
"President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he will ask the U.S. Congress to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels on a day he signed executive actions to combat climate change."
"The Justice Department must consider establishing an environmental justice office under a sweeping executive order President Joe Biden issued Wednesday."
"With his Jan. 27 announcement that the U.S. will commit to protecting 30% of its land and ocean by 2030, President Joe Biden joins a growing community of scientists, Indigenous peoples, and world leaders dedicated to working together on putting ecosystems—land, ocean, and freshwater—on the best paths toward sustainability."
"John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s special envoy for climate change issues, just addressed one of the biggest concerns early critics have of the new administration: Whether the White House will make unsavory concessions to China in exchange for progress on climate issues."
"President Joseph R. Biden on Wednesday said climate change should be regarded as “an essential element of U.S. foreign policy and national security.” That is likely to bring big changes for America’s role in the world."
"The west coast’s enormous atmospheric river stalled over Monterey County on Wednesday, triggering mudslides and threatening other areas even farther north, with the storm expected to swing southward Thursday, posing risks to parts of Southern California burned by last year’s wildfires."
Advertisement 
