Environment

Biden to propose 20-year new drilling ban near sacred tribal site in New Mexico

by Rachel Frazin
The Hill

The Interior Department said Monday that it will propose making lands surrounding Chaco Canyon, which itself is already protected as a National Historical Park, ineligible for new oil and gas leasing or new mining claims.   The move, which the administration described as creating a 10-mile buffer around the park, will not impact existing leases and claims,” according to The Hill.

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Maine Voters’ Rejection Of Transmission Line Shows Again How Land-Use Conflicts Are Halting Renewable Expansion

by Robert Bryce
Forbes

“News coverage of Tuesday’s elections was dominated by Glenn Youngkin’s victory over incumbent Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia gubernatorial race. But when it comes to energy policy and climate action, the lopsided result of a referendum in Maine over a high-voltage transmission project proved yet again that land-use conflicts are the binding constraint on the expansion of renewables in the United States. The rejection of the 145-mile, $1 billion project also showed that the myriad claims being made by politicians and climate activists that we can run our economy solely on renewables are little more than wishful thinking,” according to Forbes.

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NIMBY: Rural Residents Push Back on Large Solar Farms

Habitat magazine

“Now, The New York Times reports, the push for a greener electric grid is running into stiff headwinds. Hecate Energy, a renewable energy developer, had hoped to install a 500-acre solar farm in Copake, N.Y., a quiet town nestled between the Catskill and Berkshire Mountains. The setting was ideal because of its proximity to an electrical substation, critical to the power transmission. But after facing an outcry from some in the community who feared the installation would mar the bucolic setting, Hecate scaled back its plans,” according to Habitat magazine.

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Supreme Court takes on EPA emissions regulation case, offering fossil fuels hope for relief

by Jeremy Beaman
Washington Examiner

“The Supreme Court will hear arguments for a suit seeking to limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions. The decision could result in a significant and lasting scale-back of the agency’s ability to impose expansive standards on the sector and insulate states and utilities that rely heavily on coal,” according to the Washington Examiner.

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Why aren’t current wind turbine blades recyclable?

by Nichola Daunton
EuroNews

“Up until this point, blades have been made of a composite of different materials covered in resin which, like disposable coffee cups, has made them difficult to separate and recycle.  Many of the blades produced since the 1970s – when wind power became popular – are now stacking up in landfill sites. Around 3,800 turbines come out of service in Europe every year,” according to EuroNews.

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Spain’s rare earths pit greens against tech security — and profit

by Valentin Bontemps
Yahoo! News

“Spain’s untapped rare earths are stoking tensions between mining companies and environmentalists and farmers who fear the devastating impact from extracting the minerals considered as essential for a high-tech and low-carbon economy.  The group of 17 minerals are — despite their name — widely distributed across the globe, but exist in such thin concentrations that extracting even small quantities requires the processing of enormous quantities of ore,” according to Yahoo!News.

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Biden takes big step on rules for environmental reviews

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk
The Hill

“The move was the first in a two-step process, with advocates and industry leaders expected to keep a close eye on both rules, since what comes next will define exactly where the Biden administration stands on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires the government to consider environmental impacts of major projects like airports, highways and pipelines and carry out environmental reviews before construction begins,” according to The Hill.

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Biden makes early gains eroding Trump’s environmental legacy

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk
The Hill

“Thus far, the administration has reversed 42 actions and targeted 73, with no steps taken on another 122, according to a tracker from The Washington Post.  But the process for undoing some of the federal rules is lengthy, meaning it could be years before the Biden administration can undo some of former President Trump’s environmental actions, many of which focused on deregulation,” according to The Hill.

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Former EPA chief to chair pro-Trump think tank’s environmental center

by Zack Budryk
The Hill

“‘As we demonstrated during the Trump Administration, it is possible to have a clean environment without imposing government edicts or onerous, job-killing regulations,’ Wheeler said in a statement. ‘Other countries look to the United States for leadership on environmental issues, and we must do a better job of providing that leadership here at home,’” according to The Hill.

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The stormy relationship between solar power and the weather

by Doug Johnson
Ars Technica

“Solar panels have a love-hate relationship with nature.They need to be placed in exposed locations that get a lot of sunlight, but cloudy weather obviously reduces their production. Less obviously, more extreme weather—from snowstorms to hurricanes—can damage or even break solar hardware altogether. New research performed by Sandia National Laboratories and published in Applied Energy showcases how weather events can reduce the amount of energy produced by the United States’ solar farms,” according to Ars Technica.

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Temperature-Related Deaths Are Declining

by H. Sterling Burnett
The Heartland Institute

“Arguably the largest study ever to examine excess mortality associated with temperature was just published in the July 1 edition of one of the world’s most the prominent health journals, The Lancet. The study’s authors, 68 scientists representing universities and research institutes in 33 countries spanning all regions of the world, came to two clear conclusions: cold temperatures contribute to far more deaths each year than warmer temperatures, and deaths associated with extreme temperatures, hot or cold, are declining,” according to The Heartland Institute.

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There Are Far Better Ways to Clean the Environment Than Taxpayer Handouts

by Ross Marchand
Real Clear Energy

“The U.S. Department of Energy is hardly on the cutting edge of technological innovation. Its guaranteed loan program bankrolls safe and well-established companies whose taxpayer-funded projects probably would have happened anyway. Its cleantech startup “investments” do not result in meaningful private sector engagement. There are plenty of examples of what goes wrong when the government tries to steer markets in a specific direction. Despite these failures, policies can be pursued to empower companies to balance innovation and ecology without breaking the bank. Free market reforms are a far better alternative to taxpayer-backed loans and subsidies,” according to Real Clear Energy.

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Climate Change Doesn’t Cause All Disasters

by Bjorn Lomborg
The Wall Street Journal

“But this framing tells only a small part of what is scientifically known. Take the recent flooding in Germany and Belgium, which many, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, are blaming on climate change. Yet a new study of more than 10,000 rivers around the world shows that most rivers now flood less. What used to be a 50-year flood in the 1970s happens every 152 years today, likely due to urbanization, flood-control measures, and changes in climate,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Heads up: Biden Administration will reimpose disastrous “WOTUS” water rule

by Bonner Cohen, Ph.D.
CFACT

“The biggest power grab in the 50-year history of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was significantly blunted in April 2020, when the Trump administration – to the relief of rural communities across the country — rolled back the Obama-era “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule and replaced it with the “Navigable Waters Protection Rule” (NWPR).  That respite, however, was short-lived,” according to CFACT.

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