With 2019 in full swing, the SEJournal offers an analysis of the year ahead in environment and energy news, with an overview of our full special report, the “2019 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment.” Plus, don’t miss SEJ’s Jan. 25 event with top reporters to help you keep track of the big stories on the beat. RSVP here to attend in-person or online.
"Western Republican governors are pushing back against the Trump administration's decision to ax mitigation rules for energy developers."
U.S. courts will be a key venue of environmental conflict in 2019, as the Trump administration pushes back against an extensive array of long-standing environmental law. This special edition Issue Backgrounder looks at seven key legal disputes, including cases involving climate change liability, intergenerational equity and policy, as well as conflicts over maintaining national monuments, defining which waters are subject to anti-pollution rules, disposing of coal ash and extending offshore drilling.
"The Canadian government, two territories and several First Nations are expressing concerns to the United States over plans to open the calving grounds of a large cross-border caribou herd to energy drilling, despite international agreements to protect it."
"Joshua Tree National Park will remain open during the government shutdown after officials moved to use park fees to avert the planned closure."
"In a rare rebuke, the United Nations has instructed Canada to suspend construction of the Site C dam on B.C.’s Peace River until the project obtains the “free, prior and informed consent” of Indigenous peoples."
"Two Democratic representatives from the San Francisco Bay Area on Tuesday delivered to the White House trash they picked up from national parks as they urged President Trump to end the partial government shutdown."
"At the spot where a rugged chain of islands breaks away from the Alaska Peninsula, a secluded national refuge protects millions of seabirds, grizzly bears and caribou."
"Joshua Tree National Park will be temporarily closed as of Thursday morning because of damage caused by visitors during the partial government shutdown. Park officials said few rangers are on hand to prevent off-road driving, which causes destruction of the park's namesake trees."
The economics of fracking may be as big a worry as its environmental impacts, finds a new book on the energy extraction industry. Our latest BookShelf reviews the volume from a seasoned business reporter, who questions conventional views about a renewed U.S. energy “dominance,” probes the financial instability of the industry’s boom and raises the politically destabilizing spectre of a future decline for the fossil fuel market.
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