"The New York Department of State has refused to give Indian Point a certificate required for future use of the Hudson River — part of the Cuomo administration's ongoing attempt to block the plant's license renewal and force its closure."
"The UK is alone among G7 nations in dramatically increasing its fossil fuel subsidies, despite an earlier pledge to phase them out, a new report has found."
"Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton outlined a $30 billion plan Thursday to help parts of the country recover from the decline of the coal industry."
"Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo rejected a proposal on Thursday to build the first port for liquefied natural gas in New York State, saying it would pose a threat to the environment and make an inviting target for terrorists."
"The EU has warned the Obama administration that a global climate deal at the Paris summit must be legally binding, after the US secretary of state John Kerry said that it 'definitively' would not be a treaty."
"A massive glacier in northeast Greenland has dramatically melted in the past decade and would raise global sea levels by a foot and a half if it thawed completely, according to a study published Thursday."
"Indonesia's forest fires, which this year sent vast plumes of smoke across the region described by climate officials as a 'crime against humanity', could return as early as February, the forestry minister said on Friday, but on not such a large scale."
"Waterkeeper Alliance surveyed 250 bridges used by trains carrying volatile crude oil; there are more than 100K in the US".
Reporters trying to get information from federal agencies find press offices stonewalling and running out the clock on their interview requests. "The public information model," one agency flak said, "is dead." The result: the public is uninformed, the government is unaccountable, and people's health is endangered.
SEJ Members: Most of you have been aware of our efforts to lodge your complaints about agency press office interference with news media access to scientists and officials. With over 50 other journalism groups, SEJ and its WatchDog Project have complained about it to the White House of President Obama, who promised his would be the "most transparent" administration ever. Now journalism groups have landed a December 15 meeting with Press Secretary Josh Earnest to discuss these issues. Here is a communication from the coalition's leaders.
