Alaska and Hawaii

"The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it would restore protections for Alaska’s Bristol Bay, blocking the construction of a massive and controversial gold mine near the world’s largest sockeye salmon run."

"The House Natural Resources Committee late on Thursday passed legislation that will go into a wider budget reconciliation package that includes restoring protections for a pristine Arctic wildlife refuge from oil and gas drilling."

"The Biden administration will review a Trump-era decision to greenlight oil drilling access in most of the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, the Interior Department revealed in a court filing yesterday [Wednesday]."

"On Sept. 2, an area north of downtown Juneau will hear a loud, discordant siren. Juneau’s power company will be testing a disaster plan for a scenario where the 168-foot Salmon Creek hydroelectric dam fails and floods a largely commercial district near the regional hospital."

"Congressional Democrats and their environmentalist allies are increasingly confident they’ll be able to stop drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the reconciliation process."

"A federal judge in Alaska on Wednesday blocked construction permits for an expansive oil drilling project on the state’s North Slope that was designed to produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day for the next 30 years."

"The Interior Department today said it will restart an environmental review of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s oil and gas program, following its determination earlier this year that the Trump administration’s assessment was flawed."

"The Biden administration announced sweeping protections for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest on Thursday, including an end to large-scale old-growth logging and a proposal to bar road development on more than 9 million acres."