Advanced Search
March 26, 2018
Congress passed a bill to fund the government for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2018, with stable or increased funding for many federal climate and energy programs. Image courtesy of Geoff Livingston via flickr.com.
On March 22, the House passed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill to fund the government through September 2018. The Senate followed suit late that night ahead of a March 23 deadline to avoid a government shutdown. The massive bill largely rebuked the President's budget proposal, which contained deep cuts and numerous eliminations for federal climate, energy, and environmental programs. Instead, the bill either maintained or increased funding levels for these programs. EPA's $8.1 billion overall budget remained stable, despite the White House's demand to cut it by one-third. The Department of Energy saw increases to its research and energy efficiency programs, including the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), both of which were targeted for cuts by the administration. NOAA's major weather and polar observation satellite programs received full funding, while NASA's ongoing earth science initiatives were also spared the chopping block. Numerous "poison pill riders" were left out of the final bill, including a provision that would have prohibited funding to enforce a Bureau of Land Management methane emission reduction rule.
For more information see:
E&E News, Space News, Atlantic
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry defended his agency's $30 billion budget and the $300 million Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program at a March 20 Senate committee hearing. ARPA-E focuses on funding promising early-stage energy technologies that are deemed too risky for private investment. The Trump administration wanted to slash funding for the program again this year, claiming the private sector would be a better judge of what technologies should be funded. At the hearing, Perry pledged to back the program, “If this Congress ... supports the funding of that, it will be operated in a way that you will be most pleased with.” During a prior appearance at a major ARPA-E summit, Perry praised the program's “power of innovation” and named it a “window into our future.” ARPA-E enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, including from the chair and ranking members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Congress' recently issued budget bill increased funding for ARPA-E, despite the White House's proposal to eliminate it.
Dallas Morning News
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to place restrictions on the types of scientific studies that can be used to construct regulations, specifically those relating to climate change, air pollution, and clean water. The policy change has not yet been announced, but was recently discussed by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. Pruitt has stated that EPA should rely on “very objective, very transparent, and very open” science, revealing his personal doubts toward research that does not publish all of its data and methodology. Supporters of the change say that revisiting the science behind environmental regulations could allow the agency to undo them, while opponents view it as a path to undermine laws that are too popular to be undone by Congress alone. The potential policy shift could affect epidemiological studies that rely on confidential medical records, as well as research containing data from private industrial sites like oil wells and power plants.
Bloomberg
Six months after Hurricane Maria struck the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, 121,000 of its residents still lack electricity. The restoration of the island's power grid and telecommunication systems has been slow, but roughly 92 percent of utility customers and 95 percent of cellular sites are now being serviced again. However, some communities are just now seeing electric repair vehicles arrive. Non-profits and volunteers have been working to repair roofs and other damaged structures, while assets such as diesel and solar generators were sometimes paid for through charitable donations and directed to high-risk sites such as hospitals. Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) has partnered with other legislators and activists to draw further attention to the pace of the recovery effort and call for "more decisive, effective, and urgent action from federal agencies, in addition to oversight and additional resources from the White House and Congress." Widespread corruption and mismanagement at Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority (PREPA) have also stymied recovery efforts and sparked an investigation by the House Natural Resources Committee.
CNBC
The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) published a report discussing the health impacts of climate change on Alaskans. The DHSS report emphasized two themes: food access and storage and vulnerability to mental and emotional stress. According to the report, as temperatures rise, it becomes more difficult to store food and thus the risks of foodborne illnesses increase, especially in the native communities where people hunt for wild food. As climate change begins to limit access to wild foods and traditional storage methods (like permafrost cellars), Alaskans are starting to rely on store-bought food, which is not as nutritious and tends to be more expensive. Solastalgia, a distress caused by rapid environmental change in people’s communities, could lead to mental health issues. Lead author Sarah Yoder said, “As people’s way of life changes and as anxiety about how things around the community might change ... that can all impact their general feelings of well-being." Gov. Bill Walker (I) signed an administrative order in the fall of 2017 to create an Alaska Climate Change Strategy and other entities to address these challenges.
Earth & Space Science News
On March 22, the U.S. District Court for Northern California heard a lawsuit that the cities of San Francisco and Oakland filed against oil companies, including Chevron and Exxon, over the firms' liability for damages stemming from greenhouse gas emissions. The suit argues that the industry knew about the likely consequences of fossil fuel use decades ago, but actively fought regulations and spread false information about scientific findings. Presiding Judge William Alsup ordered a five-hour tutorial on climate change science at the hearing. Each side would have 120 minutes to talk about climate science history and the state of today's best available climate science. The litigants have been asked to answer a series of questions produced by Alsup, such as, “What are the main sources of heat that account for the incremental rise in temperature on Earth?” Alsup is known for asking litigants to tutor him on technical issues, but legal experts claim that such a hearing on climate change is novel. Both sides regard the tutorial as an opportunity to argue for their claims.
McClatchy
A new study from the University of Michigan and Tulane University found that 20 percent of American eaters, whose diets were heavily reliant on beef, were responsible for nearly half of diet-related greenhouse gas emissions. If this group decreased its beef consumption and calorie intake, they could achieve 10 percent of the emissions reductions needed for the United States to meet its goals under the Paris Climate Agreement. When diets were ranked by their emissions, the study found that the top 20 percent were responsible for eight times more emissions than the lowest 20 percent, with beef consumption accounting for 72 percent of the gap. This was the first study to look at what individual people actually consumed, rather than measuring how food commodities move through the broader economy. The study's researchers constructed a database of the environmental impacts of producing 300 commonly eaten foods and connected this to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a survey that includes self-reported dietary data for more than 16,000 Americans.
InsideClimate News
Backyard ice rinks are a long-standing tradition in Canada, where winter sports are deeply embedded in the culture. However, climate change has led to rapid warming in the Northern Hemisphere, making it increasingly difficult to maintain a backyard rink and drastically shortening the outdoor skating season. Robert McLeman of Wilfrid Laurier University noted a temperature of 23 degrees Fahrenheit or lower is necessary to maintain a good skating surface. "Any warmer than that and the rink is no longer skateable. And that’s sort of on the horizon for us in the second half of the 21st century," he said. Researchers with Rink Watch, a citizen science project gathering data from more than 1,500 backyard rinks, predicts the number of skating days in Toronto will decline by 34 percent by 2090. His colleague Colin Robertson said, “The fact that this could be taken away and is tied to climate has been a real eye-opener." The changing conditions have led everyone from skating enthusiasts to the National Hockey League to give renewed consideration to global warming.
NY Times
Researchers are closely monitoring the effects of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP) on the Arctic region. This class of pollutants includes methane, black carbon, tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). While SLCPs do not persist in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide does (a matter of weeks or years versus centuries for CO2), their global warming potential is much greater. Average temperatures in the Arctic region are already warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet and the effects of SLCPs are a major factor. For instance, the contribution to warming by one gram of black carbon is 100 to 2,000 times more than an equal amount of CO2 over 100 years. One NASA study concluded that up to a quarter of the Arctic's warming can be attributed to black carbon. Black carbon originates from human activities like the production and burning of fossil fuels and biomass, in addition to natural sources like forest fires. Regional natural gas flaring contributes 42 percent of the black carbon found on the ground in the Arctic.
According to a new study appearing in Nature Climate Change, reducing carbon emissions could prevent 150 million premature deaths across the globe. The effect would mostly be felt in Asian countries with polluted air – 13 million lives could be saved in large Indian cities alone. Although the Clean Air Act has vastly improved air quality in the United States, over 330,000 lives could be saved in major American cities if air quality conditions were to improve further. However, these outcomes would only be possible if emissions were reduced enough to cap global temperature rise to less than 3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century which, although lower than the target set by the Paris Climate Agreement, is still unlikely to be achieved. The study projected that if governments fail to work towards zero emissions by 2100, there would be about 7 million deaths per year related to air pollution. Drew Shindell, a professor at Duke University and the study's lead author, said, “There’s got to be a significant amount of progress within the 2020s or it’s too late.”
Washington Post
Louisiana State Government Purchases Land to Resettle Residents Displaced by Sea Level Rise
Report: Climate Change to Spur Migration of More Than 140 Million People by 2050
Massive Amounts of Toxic Waste and Chemicals Were Unleashed on Houston by Hurricane Harvey
Study: Anthropogenic Climate Change to Overtake Natural Variability as Lead Source of Heat Waves for Parts of United States within Decades
Global Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions Hit Historic High in 2017
Writers: Jieyi Lu and Joanne Zulinski Editor: Brian La Shier
Advancing science-based climate solutions
Top-Rated Climate Nonprofit – 4-Star Charity