Federal

Money must be spent on coastal restoration and hurricane protection

Representatives Suzanne Bonamici and Bill Posey, Co-Chairs of the Congressional Estuary Caucus, yesterday led 38 House Members in calling on the Biden Administration to provide $10 billion in the next recovery package for coastal restoration and resilience projects.

The Biden administration is proposing a massive infrastructure plan to replace the nation's crumbling bridges, roads and other critical structures. But to make those investments pay off, the U.S. will need designs that can endure the changing climate.

In the implementation of the federal Endangered Species Act, and its California counterpart, wildlife agencies should make greater use of conceptual ecological models and adhere to best practices for their use.

The U.S. Department of the Interior today announced nearly $249 million in Fiscal Year 2020 energy revenues to the four offshore Gulf oil and gas producing states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas — and their coastal political subdivisions (CPS).

Congressional progressives on Monday unveiled a new bill to invest $10 trillion in renewable energy, green infrastructure and climate justice initiatives over the next decade.

(Bloomberg) -- The American Petroleum Institute board voted Thursday to endorse putting a tax or other price on carbon dioxide emissions, a shift for the oil industry that could influence the Biden administration’s plans for a government-wide assault on global warming.

Georgians love their loggerhead sea turtles, which last summer crawled up on beaches from Tybee Island to Cumberland Island and laid 2,632 nests full of eggs.

The Business Network for Offshore Wind has launched Season 3 of its popular Offshore Wind Insider podcast. Released monthly, the podcast features conversations with industry trailblazers covering all aspects of the offshore wind industry and pressing topics, from clean energy development, diversity and inclusion, to job creation. The latest episode, released today, features Amanda Lefton, newly appointed Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), to discuss the future of offshore wind in the U.S.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service is convening a series of workshops in May to get information on recovery plans for 15 Indo-Pacific coral species that are under threat.

How big is too big for a national monument designated by a president? That has been an unanswerable question, legally, for some years, but a U.S. Supreme Court decision declining to hear a challenge to the designation of Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument off the East Coast could move us closer to an answer.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is holding a technical meeting Monday to talk about Lake Okeechobee releases and changes to release protocols that are expected to be in place by the end of 2022.

Ocean scientists say the Biden Administration is taking office at a critical time. Sea levels are rising, fish are migrating away from where they're normally caught, and the water itself is becoming more acidic as it absorbs carbon dioxide that humans emit.

As it drafts its next decadal strategic plan, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) should shift its focus to providing insights that help society prepare for and avoid the worst potential consequences of climate change, while protecting the most vulnerable, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

When hurricanes or major storms strike the United States, most of the media coverage focuses on how climate change is exacerbating the intensity and frequency of major storms. But even as these catastrophic events occur, climate change is only a partial––if very visible––part of the problem.

On Wednesday, March 10, 2021, the U.S. Senate confirmed Michael Regan as the next EPA Administrator.

When a federal court ruled the federal Bureau of Land Management skipped crucial steps in approving resource management plans for Montana last year, it reflected a trend tainting much of the environmental rule-making under the Trump administration.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden said on Monday he intends to nominate Todd Kim, former solicitor general for the District of Columbia, to lead the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division as its assistant attorney general.

Tuesday, Alaska Congressman Don Young introduced the America Needs Worthwhile Resources (ANWR) Act.

A coalition of San Diego County elected representatives introduced a bill Monday to address water pollution along the U.S.-Mexico border.

On Wednesday, former Gov. Gina Raimondo, who has the support of the commercial fishing industry and some environmentalists, was sworn in as U.S. commerce secretary.

In partnership with five other federal partners (FEMA, USGS, USDA, USACE, NPS), NOAA maintains an inventory of available topo and bathy elevation data. The inventory just recently underwent a rebuild with new features, so we wanted to get the word out to elevation data users. I have attached the text. The link to the USIEI is coast.noaa.gov/inventory.

Earlier this year, NOAA released findings indicating that the rate of sea level rise has doubled over the last century and, even if global emissions reduction targets are met, sea level could increase 12 inches by 2100.

U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., ranking member and chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, along with Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, yesterday reintroduced the National Ocean Exploration Act.

The Navy's most recent 30-year ship-building plan calls for building 404 new vessels and retiring 304 current ones by 2051. One of the vessels to be retired is USS Ohio, a ballistic-missile sub that was refitted as the Navy's first cruise-missile submarine.