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Judge restores federal protections for gray wolves, except in Northern Rockies
A federal judge has struck down a Trump administration move to take gray wolves in most states off the Endangered Species Act list — a presidential action that led to a controversial wolf hunting season in Wisconsin last year. U.S. District Judge Jeffery White, of California, reversed a 2020 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule […]
Electricity CEOs tout Biden clean energy tax credits, despite stalled plan
Clean energy tax credits President Joe Biden proposed in his massive domestic spending and climate measure last year would help electric utilities build resilience and transmission lines, utility CEOs told Biden at a White House event Wednesday. But the $1.9 trillion budget measure, which Biden and allies call Build Back Better, is in limbo because […]
Biden cites 40-day timeline for Supreme Court confirmation
WASHINGTON — The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin, and the panel’s top Republican, Chuck Grassley, met with the president Tuesday afternoon to discuss a 40-day confirmation timeline for a new Supreme Court pick. “The Constitution says, ‘advise and consent, advice and consent,’ and I’m serious when I say that I want the […]
U.S. Sen. Luján hospitalized after stroke
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján has been hospitalized after a stroke, his Senate chief of staff said Tuesday. Luján, a New Mexico Democrat, checked himself into Santa Fe’s Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center after feeling dizzy and fatigued early Thursday, Chief of Staff Carlos Sanchez said in a statement. He was then transferred to […]
White House methane plan funds orphan well cleanup, rewards reduced farm emissions
The federal government will provide $1.15 billion this year to help states cap defunct oil and gas wells, the White House said Monday, as part of a broad plan to reduce methane emissions. The government-wide methane reduction plan comes about two months after President Joe Biden joined a pledge at the United Nations Climate Conference in […]
Governors attempt to bridge deep political divides in big D.C. meeting
WASHINGTON — Governors of both parties from throughout the United States met here over the weekend to try to speak on a unified front about what their states need from the federal government. But the waters were muddied by governors’ clearly divided political views about two major issues of the moment — voting laws and […]
Federal judge cites climate effect in canceling Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale
A federal judge invalidated leases to drill for oil and gas in a broad swath of the Gulf of Mexico, telling the Biden administration to weigh climate impacts before allowing development. The ruling late Thursday handed a victory to environmental groups that had challenged the Interior Department’s move to comply with a separate court order […]
Reports: Supreme Court Justice Breyer to step down
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is planning to announce his retirement in the coming days, according to multiple press reports Wednesday. The decision by the 83-year-old justice, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1994, would give President Joe Biden his first chance to nominate a member of the Supreme Court, though the […]
Expansion in Gulf of Mexico drilling splits U.S. House panel along party lines
As the Biden administration’s move to scrap new oil and gas leases remains in unsettled legal territory, Democrats and Republicans on a U.S. House panel sharply disagreed this week about the merits of new energy development in the Gulf of Mexico. Democrats on the House Natural Resources Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee, including Chairman Alan […]
Biden says ‘big chunks’ of his spending bill could still succeed, including climate plan
President Joe Biden said Wednesday the climate and child care provisions in his domestic spending agenda could still become law this year, even as the larger plan has stalled in the Senate over other items that Biden conceded may not pass — such as an expanded child tax credit. In a nearly two-hour news conference, […]
Federal pipeline standards backed by top energy regulator after Colonial Pipeline hack
New federal powers are needed to prevent major energy disruptions like the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline that left the East Coast short of gas at the pumps for days, the chairman of the federal commission overseeing energy and some U.S. House Democrats said Wednesday. A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee discussed a proposal by […]
Forest Service in ‘paradigm shift’ to use logging, controlled burns to prevent wildfires
The Biden administration will use $3 billion from last year’s infrastructure law to revamp the federal approach to wildfire management, introducing a 10-year plan to deal with the large swaths of the West scientists consider most at risk of destructive blazes. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, announced the new strategy in Phoenix, […]