On day 18 of the government shutdown, Trump is grasping at straws to get his dangerous border wall built while Americans are stretched thinner and thinner by the day. While families struggle without pay across the country because of Trump’s political ploy, his administration is nonetheless taking the opportunity to continue to attack clean water, clean air, and public lands. In fact, to add insult to injury, Trump’s Interior Department is continuing to process oil drilling applications during the shutdown.
The Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board voted to grant a permit to Dominion Energy for the Buckingham Compressor Station, a 54,000 horsepower industrial facility proposed for the historic Union Hill community in Buckingham County. The facility will pump fracked-gas through Dominion’s controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
Harrisburg, P.A.-- Governor Wolf signed an executive order today committing Pennsylvania to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050 from 2005 levels, consistent with the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. The executive order also includes a provision re-establishing the Green Government Council, co-chaired by the Department of General Services, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and the Department of Environmental Protection. The goals of the council are to reduce energy consumption in state government by 21 percent, procure 40 percent of state agency energy use from renewables, and replace 25 percent of the state fleet with electric vehicles by 2025.
WASHINGTON, DC - A federal court has ruled in favor of the Sierra Club that the Environmental Protection Agency must expedite the public release of approximately twenty thousand pages of emails, as well as calendars, for acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, Air Office head Bill Wherum, and 23 other political staff involved in Wheeler’s rollbacks of critical public health and environmental safeguards.
Washington, DC -- Electric vehicle sales skyrocketed in the United States in 2018, making up 6% of passenger car sales in 2018 and increasing 80.81% from 2017 numbers. This comes on top of the fact that the one millionth electric vehicle was sold in the United States back in October.
Washington, DC -- Late yesterday, it was announced that one of acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s first actions since taking over for disgraced former Secretary Ryan Zinke will be to tap into the funds raised from entrance, camping, parking, and other fees to fund clean up efforts in national parks. These fees are used for future projects at parks, and by tapping into them may violate federal appropriations laws.
New Report Shows Coal Plant Highly Uneconomic
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, Donald Trump said he would allow the government shutdown to continue for years. The shutdown has 800,000 people going without pay, and has put our National Parks into a state of disarray.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Yesterday, Democratic House leaders, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Taskforce Chair Representative John Sarbanes, introduced H.R. 1, the For the People Act. This landmark democracy reform package is designed to create nationwide automatic and same day voter registration, restore the Voting Rights Act to its full power, put an end to partisan gerrymandering, strengthen ethics laws to curb the undue influence of corporate polluters, and fix our broken campaign finance system, among other initiatives.
Washington, DC -- Yesterday, as a part of the rules package passed in the House of Representatives, now under Democratic control, Congress will establish a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Previously, Speaker Pelosi announced that Rep. Kathy Castor will be the chair of the committee, which will focus on “policies, strategies, and innovations to achieve substantial and permanent reductions in pollution and other activities that contribute to the climate crisis.”