Federal

Louisiana's U.S. senators are spearheading an attempt to require the federal government to hold two lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico each year — a move the senators say would protect jobs and secure conservation funding.

Louisiana coastal officials are pushing the state’s congressional delegation to support an expected emergency supplemental appropriation bill aimed at this year’s record-breaking hurricane season to provide money for emergency repairs to beaches, barrier islands and other wetland restoration projects.

The Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act will restore and protect coastal areas that buffer communities and birds from climate change.

The hope is to ready them up to face future weather threats.

In January, the Blue Carbon for Our Planet Act (H.R. 5589) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, followed in June by a companion Senate bill.

Incoming U.S. Treasury secretaries have been confronted over the past two decades with the financial rescue of other countries, the bailout of the U.S. banking system and a trade war.

While FEMA’s Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA) has made progress in modernizing the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) system, a new report from the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said the new system is struggling with data quality issues.

The Federal Reserve’s November 2020 “Financial Stability Report,” which usually examines how economic and market forces could impact banks, insurance companies, and other firms, has addressed the implications of climate change for financial stability for the very first time.

Opponents of the Pebble Mine are underwhelmed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s latest bill to fund federal resource agencies.

In the aftermath of a bitterly contested election, House and Senate negotiators are finalizing the details of the Water Resources Development Act with an eye towards passage in the lame duck.

Michael Kuperberg had worked as executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

The withdrawal has been expected for years, but marks “a bitter moment,” experts say.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will continue to release water from Lake Okeechobee to estuaries on the east and west as Tropical Storm Eta is expected to drench South Florida with up to 10 inches of rain starting this weekend.

In Utah, it’s air pollution; Missouri, it’s extreme weather; in California, it’s sea level rise. And the planet’s future, voters say, hangs in the balance.

A working group led by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy has developed an innovative measurement-based standard – “BCarbon” – for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in the soil as organic carbon.

Craig McLean, the acting chief scientist of The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the government agency that (among other things) helps track hurricanes, has been removed from his post because he asked Erik Noble, an agency appointee hand-selected by President Donald Trump to acknowledge the agency’s scientific integrity guidelines.

From coast to coast, our nation has been rocked by disasters this year — and not just from the pandemic. Record-breaking hurricanes, unprecedented wildfires, and severe droughts have made too many Americans painfully aware of how vulnerable our health, safety, and economy are to climate change.

This is the only known site where a coastal ice age forest this old has been preserved in place, with thousands of trees still rooted in the dirt they were growing millennia ago before being reclaimed by the Gulf of Mexico.

David Legates has spent his career disputing climate science. Now he’s a top manager in the federal agency most involved in assessing global warming’s threat.

NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey has concluded its hydrographic survey response following Hurricane Delta.

After years of stressing process over policy, Alaska’s U.S. senators have both announced their opposition to development of the Pebble mine.

House Natural Resources Committee Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today unveiled his Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act at a virtual press conference with Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), and a range of bill endorsers.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has taken a dramatic step to encourage communities to use environmentally friendly features such as wetlands for flood protection instead of building sea walls and levees.

WASHINGTON - The growing amount of plastic waste clogging the world's oceans is drawing the attention of the Trump administration, with EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler calling the problem a "top priority" Monday.

NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) has completed their latest application of the Integrated Vulnerability Assessment Framework for Los Angeles County, California.

Since the federal disaster declaration for Hurricane Sally, Escambia County residents have received approximately $25.8 million in total federal funds.

Over 80 US organisations, including a wide range of leading seafood firms, have written to Washington in support of expanding the country’s seafood production through sustainable offshore aquaculture.

Hurricane Delta, the 25th named Atlantic storm of the 2020 hurricane season, made landfall in southwest Louisiana in almost the exact same place Hurricane Laura swept through just weeks ago.

The House of Representatives' Natural Resources Committee is focusing on addressing global warming and the threat of the resulting sea level rise on Guam, the CNMI and other U.S. territories and freely associated states.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 -- Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, issued the following news release on Oct. 2:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recently circulated a draft proposal to renew its existing Nationwide Permits (NWPs) as well as create two new NWPs that would authorize seaweed and finfish aquaculture in coastal waters.1

As Hurricane Douglas bore down on Hawaii and Hurricane Hanna threatened the eastern United States, FEMA administrator Pete Gaynor came clean about climate change. He admitted to Congress for the first time, that, yes, climate change does make storms worse.

Despite the upcoming election frenzy and the myriad of things Congress has to deal with, negotiations between the House of Representatives and Senate to resolve differences between the two versions of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) in each chamber are ongoing, according to barge industry sources.

CHARLESTON, S.C.—Conservation groups today challenged in federal court a Trump administration rollback of clean water protections that sharply curtails the ability of states and local residents to protect their drinking water, rivers, streams, wetlands, aquatic life, and other local interests.

EPA, Corps of Engineers Ask South Carolina Court to Reject Case

BOSTON – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with Restore America's Estuaries (RAE) announced the awarding of $1.8 million in new funding to local organizations working for clean water and healthy coastal ecosystems in Southeast New England.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has allegedly halted a probe into a case of possible political interference in conservation measures.

The authorized project consists of restoring Barren Island (72 acres), which is 100 percent wetland, in combination with the restoration of James Island (2,072 acres), with a habitat proportion of 45 percent upland to 55 percent wetland and an upland dike height of 20 feet above mean lower low water.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has approved Mystic Aquarium’s request for a permit to import five beluga whales from a facility in Canada.

The Department of Marine Resources finally has a budget almost two months after the start of the fiscal year, but the issues that led to the impasse will likely appear in next year’s session.

Service continues to work with partners for marten conservation

The federally protected marine sanctuary has kept three major reefs safe from encroaching offshore oil drilling and commercial fishing.

WASHINGTON (CN) — Conservationists sued the Trump administration on Tuesday for failing to protect the Nassau grouper, one of the largest coral reef fish, four years after it was designated a threatened species.

BREMERTON — Navy and state leaders are at odds over a proposed rule for military testing in Puget Sound and coastal waters of Washington that allows the increased potential to harass and harm marine life, including the endangered and fragile Southern Resident orca population.

Four of the nine research projects being funded will be conducted my Maine researchers and institutions

Washington, DC—The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and other animal and environmental protection groups applaud the Department of Commerce’s decision to prohibit Mystic Aquarium from breeding five captive-born beluga whales from Canada as part of an import permit issued Friday. The permit also precludes Mystic from training the whales for performance.

Green sea turtles are now nesting at a windward Oahu beach where the military trains.

With sweeping declarations identifying a need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create thousands of high-paying jobs, the proposed Green New Deal superficially appears to be the climate legislation that green advocates have been waiting for.

Making good on threats issued months ago, three Chesapeake Bay watershed states, the District of Columbia and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation took the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to court Thursday for its failure to push Pennsylvania and New York to do more to help clean up the Bay.

RICHMOND—Governor Ralph Northam, who serves as chair of the Chesapeake Executive Council, issued the following statement today after Virginia joined Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia in filing suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its failure to enforce the terms of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement which require partner states to reduce their pollution levels in the allotted time frame.

Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt announced last week that the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission has approved more than $130 million in funding for various wetland conservation projects.

Reps. Don Beyer (D-VA-08) and Francis Rooney (R-FL) today introduced the Strengthening Coastal Communities Act, bipartisan legislation that would direct offshore wind revenues to NOAA’s Coastal Resilience Grants Program.

Using U.S. Navy archives, historical accounts, news reports, museum databases, and official records of individual ships, Stacker explores the most important, most advanced, and most successful ships in the long and storied history of the United States Navy.

The Environmental Protection Agency has approved a new ocean dumping site for dredged material just off the Seacoast, after a years-long permitting process.

At least three prominent researchers who question the severity of climate change rebuffed the opportunity to take a senior position at NOAA.

The NCCOS Competitive Research Program is pleased to announce its Fiscal Year 2021 Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) for its Effects of Sea Level Rise (ESLR) Program.

The U.S House of Representatives passed the Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act (H.R. 4447) aiming to reform U.S. energy policy and authorize significant investment in the transition to greater use of low-carbon energy.

President Trump has officially extended the moratorium on offshore drilling to North Carolina and Virginia.

“Every year you don’t have offshore wind off New England’s shores, the gas industry is selling more gas to keep homes warm,” says the Rhode Island senator.

FEMA will open applications on Wednesday, September 30, 2020 for two hazard mitigation grant programs totaling $660 million.

A new Federal Emergency Management Agency-run program, Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, will provide millions of dollars to cash-strapped local and state governments and federally recognized Indian tribes for projects that build resilience to protect people and property before the next disaster.

House legislation would require federal projects to be more resilient, lowering disaster risks and costs

McFadden, who died recently at age 86, spent 53 years as a Hurricane Hunter, logging 590 penetrations into eyes of hurricanes.