Tag Archives: climate change

Politico reports: The State Department is eliminating the Office of Global Change, which oversees international climate change negotiations for the United States. Staff were told about the move verbally Thursday afternoon, according to three people who were granted anonymity to speak about the decision to avoid reprisal. The news thrust the office into chaos and raised questions among staff about …

The Telegraph reports: A protester has defaced Donald Trump’s presidential plaque inside Trump Tower. Footage shared on social media showed a man in a black T-shirt spray painting “USA” in bright green over a gold plaque marking Mr Trump’s first term. Other clips showed the man then sitting cross-legged in front of the “45th president of the United States” sign, …

“”Make no mistake, at the end of the day, this has nothing to do with the Earth cooling, global warming, which has evolved into the generic climate change, so if it gets warm, they have a name for it. If it gets cold, they have a name for it. If it snows, they’ve got a name for it. If it …

Bloomberg News reports: White House officials are preparing executive orders that would strip some environmental nonprofits of their tax-exempt status, setting up a possible Earth Day strike against organizations seen as standing in the way of President Donald Trump’s push for more domestic oil, gas and coal production. The effort, described by people familiar with the matter, comes alongside other …

The Associated Press reports: The Trump administration has granted nearly 70 coal-fired power plants a two-year exemption from federal requirements to reduce emissions of toxic chemicals such as mercury, arsenic and benzene. A list quietly posted as of Tuesday on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website lists 47 power providers — which operate at least 66 coal-fired plants — that are …

The Washington Post reports: A new Trump proposal would eliminate nearly all National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration labs focused on studying the world’s weather, climate and oceans and would slash much of the agency’s budget — part of what the White House document describes as an effort to sever all “climate-related programs” from the agency. Documents detailing the administration’s proposal, …

“I’ve been very outspoken about this. It’s a sham – this whole climate change is a sham. First of all, God controls the climate because he controls the sun and the sun controls the weather, primarily.” – GOP Rep. Mary Miller, speaking to an apparent Christian nationalist podcaster. Last year Miller earned national headlines when she declared that climate activists …

Axios reports: The Trump administration is pulling nearly $4 million in funding from Princeton University, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced Tuesday. The cuts come days after the administration already paused dozens of Princeton’s research grants following similar federal funding reviews or revocations at other Ivy League schools like Columbia and Harvard. The Department of Commerce said awards, including those …

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration has removed environmental protections covering more than half of the land managed by the U.S. Forest Service as part of the president’s aim to significantly bolster the U.S. logging industry. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said “heavy-handed federal policies” have prevented the United States from making use of its “abundance of timber resources that …

Courthouse News reports: A federal judge temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from suddenly canceling three multibillion-dollar clean energy grants on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan found that the EPA had likely violated the law by issuing identical termination letters to Climate United Fund, Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities, which said their grants were terminated, effective …

Florida Politics reports: U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds continues to weigh in on Florida’s insurance market as he runs for Governor, now suggesting that foreign companies and “climate change” analyses are partially to blame for high costs for homeowners. “A lot of these reinsurance companies, a lot of them who are out of Europe, they’ve been trying to price in climate …

Bloomberg reports: US President Donald Trump said he would look to counter China’s economic advantage from coal-based electricity by authorizing his administration to ramp up production of power from the fossil fuel. It’s not clear what Trump was referring to or how his social media decree would affect US policy. Trump already signed an executive order declaring a national energy …

Axios reports: Monthly press calls featuring NOAA scientists detailing global climate conditions during the previous month have been suspended indefinitely, the agency told Axios. NOAA is the top weather and climate agency in the U.S. and among the foremost worldwide. The monthly U.S. and global climate calls typically feature climate scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) in …

Politico E&E reports: President Donald Trump has long rejected climate science. Now, his administration is grappling with how to assemble a body of federal climate research to show a warming world is benefiting humanity. The claims would be highly misleading and ignore decades of scientific research that shows climate change will have increasingly dire effects. But a federal report downplaying …

The Washington Post reports: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has privately urged the White House to strike down a scientific finding underpinning much of the federal government’s push to combat climate change. The 2009 “endangerment finding” cleared the way for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act by concluding that the planet-warming gases pose a threat to public …

Courthouse News reports: A trio of environmental groups sued the Department of Agriculture on Monday for removing all of its website landing pages focused on climate change after President Donald Trump returned to power in late January. Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the D.C.-based Environmental Working Group claim in their civil complaint …

Via press release from Texas AG Ken Paxton: Attorney General Ken Paxton has successfully stopped a Biden Administration edict that would have forced Texas to adopt unlawful greenhouse gas reporting measures after the Trump Administration dismissed the Biden Administration’s appeal of a lower court’s decision in Texas’s favor. Under the rule, Texas would have been required to measure and report …

The Washington Post reports: The head of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. resigned Tuesday morning after declining to comply with a Trump administration demand to freeze the assets of a multibillion-dollar Biden administration environmental grant initiative. Veteran prosecutor Denise Cheung did not spell out her reasons for her sudden resignation in an emailed announcement to …

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration has warned more than 1,100 Environmental Protection Agency employees who work on climate change, reducing air pollution, enforcing environmental laws and other programs that they could be fired at any time. Many had been hired to work on programs that Congress created through two recent laws, doing things like helping communities replace …

Politico reports: Agriculture Department employees have been ordered to delete landing pages discussing climate change across agency websites and document climate change references for further review, according to an internal email obtained by POLITICO. The directive from USDA’s office of communications, whose authenticity was validated by three people, could affect information across dozens of programs including climate-smart agriculture initiatives, USDA …