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Companies Conocophillips FollowWASHINGTON, March 14 (Reuters) - Six environmental groups filed a lawsuit on Tuesday over the Biden administration's approval of ConocoPhillips' (COP.N) Willow oil and gas project in Alaska, which they claimed could be a stepping stone to more development in an ecologically sensitive region. Trustees for Alaska, the Alaska Wilderness League, the Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society and other groups said the U.S. Interior Department approved Willow on public lands on the north coast of the state despite acknowledging and failing to mitigate "known harms" to Arctic communities, public health, wildlife and climate. The Interior Department on Monday approved three drill pads for Willow after saying last month it was concerned about the greenhouse gas emissions. The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suits.

Companies Conocophillips FollowWASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - The oil industry on Monday cheered the U.S. government's greenlighting of ConocoPhillips' multibillion-dollar oil drilling project in Alaska's Arctic, but court challenges could mire the plans in further delays. President Joe Biden's administration approved a trimmed-down version of the $7 billion Willow project on federal lands in a pristine area on Alaska's north coast. Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, another group involved in the previous suits, said Monday's approval for the Willow project is "still inadequate in numerous respects." Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, told reporters the state's lawmakers are prepared to defend the decision against "frivolous" legal challenges. Even if Interior could beat back the oil company's challenge, it would probably only mean another delay for Willow, he said.

☆ Factbox: Biden budget to target U.S. fossil fuel subsidies
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Here are some details about U.S. fossil fuel subsidies:HOW MUCH ARE THEY WORTH? Calculating the cost of U.S. subsidies for the fossil fuel industry is complex because the incentives stretch across the U.S. tax code, but estimates range from $10 to $50 billion per year. Before taking office, Biden promised to get rid of fossil fuel subsidies as part of a multi-pronged effort to fight climate change that also included ending new drilling on public lands. For one, they require an act of Congress, and Republicans and some Democrats oppose the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. The International Energy Agency estimated that so-called consumption subsidies for fossil fuels doubled in 2022 to $1 trillion globally.

☆ Factbox: Biden budget targets U.S. fossil fuel subsidies
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Here are some details about U.S. fossil fuel subsidies:HOW MUCH ARE THEY WORTH? Axing the subsidies would save the government nearly $31 billion over 10 years, Biden's fiscal year 2024 budget proposal says. Before taking office, Biden promised to get rid of fossil fuel subsidies as part of a multi-pronged effort to fight climate change that also included ending new drilling on public lands. For one, they require an act of Congress, and Republicans and some Democrats oppose the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. The International Energy Agency estimated that so-called consumption subsidies for fossil fuels doubled in 2022 to $1 trillion globally.

☆ Factbox: Willow oil and gas project in Alaska sparks green opposition
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

March 3 (Reuters) - Environmental and climate activists are rallying online against ConocoPhillips’ proposed Willow oil and gas drilling project in Alaska as the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden weighs whether to greenlight the controversial plan. Here are some details about the project:WHAT IS THE WILLOW PROJECT? The Willow project is a $6 billion proposal from ConocoPhillips' (COP.N) to drill oil and gas in Alaska. The Willow project area holds an estimated 600 million barrels of oil, or more than the amount currently held in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the country's emergency supply. The Biden administration has also been urging U.S. oil companies to invest in boosting production to help keep consumer energy prices in check.

☆ Dick's Sporting Goods to buy e-commerce outdoor retailer Moosejaw from Walmart
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Gabrielle Fonrouge | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Dick's Sporting Goods has agreed to buy outdoor retailer Moosejaw from Walmart in a bid to take share in the multibillion-dollar outdoor market. Walmart purchased Moosejaw for $51 million in February 2017 under then-e-commerce President Marc Lore. The acquisition, a rare move for Dick's, could help the retailer grow its presence in the outdoor market and develop its e-commerce footprint after its 2021 launch of Public Lands, which has a stronger brick-and-mortar focus. Dick's wants to turn those outdoor lovers into customers and sees huge opportunity in the market overall, which isn't crowded and is estimated to be worth about $40 billion. While Moosejaw operates about a dozen brick-and-mortar locations in the Midwest and near the Great Lakes, it's primarily an e-commerce company that's been around since 1992.

☆ Biden Interior proposes first offshore wind lease sale in Gulf of Mexico
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed the first-ever offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico as part of a larger plan to install offshore wind sites along the country's coasts. The proposed lease sale is part of the Interior Department's plan to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by the end of the decade, which would be enough to power 10 million homes. The announcement also follows the agency's approval of the first two commercial scale offshore wind projects in the U.S. The proposed lease areas could collectively power nearly 1.3 million homes with clean energy, the Interior said. Last year, the administration released a five-year offshore drilling plan allowing some lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico.

☆ U.S. House backs bill limiting drawdowns from oil reserve
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Friday limiting the ability of the energy secretary to tap the strategic oil reserve without developing plans to increase the amount of public lands available for oil and gas drilling. The bill is expected to face an uphill battle in the Senate, which unlike the House, is controlled by Biden's fellow Democrats. "The SPR should be used as a tool of ‘last resort,'" said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and co-sponsor of the bill. The Biden administration has said it sold the oil to counter gasoline prices that had risen to $5.00 a gallon that helped fuel inflation to the highest in decades. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at the White House this week that Biden "will not allow the American people to suffer because of the backwards agenda that House Republicans are advancing."

☆ U.S. House passes bill limiting drawdowns from strategic oil reserve
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Timothy Gardner | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Friday limiting the ability of the energy secretary to tap the strategic oil reserve without developing plans to increase the amount of public lands available for oil and gas drilling. President Joe Biden would veto the legislation should it pass Congress, the White House said this week. The bill is expected to face an uphill battle in the Senate, which unlike the House, is controlled by Biden's fellow Democrats. The SPR should be used only to address true emergencies, said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican and chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at the White House this week that Biden "will not allow the American people to suffer because of the backwards agenda that House Republicans are advancing."

☆ U.S. renames 5 sites that used racist slur for a Native woman
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Thursday that it has given new names to five places that previously included a racist term for a Native American woman. The renamed sites are in California, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas, completing a yearlong process to remove the historically offensive word “squaw” from geographic names across the country. She called the word “harmful.”Haaland, who took office in 2021, is the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency. In September, the Interior Department announced its final vote on proposals to change the names of nearly 650 sites that contained the word. The Interior Department ordered the renaming of places with derogatory terms for Black and Japanese people in 1962 and 1974, respectively.

☆ U.S. sets up office to oversee abandoned oil well cleanup
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland on Tuesday issued an order to establish an office to ensure efficient use of the Biden administration's $4.7 billion investment in the cleanup of abandoned oil and gas wells. The Orphaned Wells Program Office will be led by Kimbra Davis, who has worked at the Interior Department since 2009. Orphaned oil and gas wells are those that generally have been abandoned and are no longer producing. "The Department is standing up a new office to support states, tribes and federal land managers as they close and remediate orphaned oil and gas wells that pose environmental hazards to communities across the country," Haaland said in a statement. The number of abandoned U.S. wells has grown over the last decade, and many experts believe it will keep growing as fossil fuels are replaced with cleaner energy.

The operator of the Keystone Pipeline System, which carries a form of crude oil from Canada to multiple states for refining, said over the weekend that its largest-yet breach has been contained for now. TC Energy, the Canadian parent of day-to-day pipeline operator TC Oil, said in a statement Saturday that the spill was no longer moving downstream. It mobilized 250 crews to handle cleanup and has deployed booms and vacuum trucks to stop the oil, the company said. The failure along a 96-mile segment in parts of Washington County, Kansas, Clay County, Kansas and Jefferson County, Nebraska, brings renewed concern over pipeline safety following the demise of the contentious Keystone XL pipeline project. Mayberry wants TC Oil to determine the root cause of the breach and name decision-makers who might have contributed to the spill, according to the letter dated Thursday.

☆ Border barrier of shipping containers snakes across Arizona wilderness
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Liliana Salgado | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz., Dec 8 (Reuters) - A long, thin line stretches across the dusty Arizona landscape. It is a border barrier - but not the customary wall or fence. This is made up entirely of shipping containers stacked on top of each other. Border communities had been overwhelmed, he argued, saying the double-stacked containers would reach 22 feet (6.7 m) high. What we're here to do is enjoy our public lands in a strategic way that hinders the placement of further shipping containers," said Eamon Harrity, wildlife project manager at Sky Island Alliance.

☆ U.S. will consider new priority areas for solar energy on public lands
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The Interior Department said in a statement that its Bureau of Land Management will update an Obama-era plan that established special zones for solar projects based on access to transmission, solar energy potential and protecting natural and cultural resources. The agency said the new plan would reflect advances in solar technology, new transmission and the administration's ambitious clean energy goals. It could also expand beyond the six states included in the 2012 plan, Interior said. Interior, specifically, has a congressional mandate to permit 25 gigawatts of renewable energy on federal lands by 2025. Under Biden, Interior has sought to address concerns by wind and solar companies that public lands are less friendly to development than private lands due to higher costs and more onerous permitting.

☆ Biden Interior rule would limit methane leaks, gas flaring from public lands drilling
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The primary component of natural gas is methane, which is odorless when it comes directly out of the gas well. In addition to methane, natural gas typically contains other hydrocarbons such as ethane, propane, butane, and pentanes. The BLM's proposed rule comes after the Environmental Protection Agency said it would expand its 2021 methane rule to require drillers to identify and plug leaks at every well site across the country. Western and national conservation groups said the proposal marks a critical first step but should be strengthened to eliminate gas flaring. The BLM is accepting comments on the proposed rule for 60 days and a final rule is anticipated next year.

Few causes have united the country like this summer’s multistate effort to kill spotted lanternflies, the colorful invasive insects that have wreaked havoc in at least 14 states. Now, as adult lanternflies begin to perish during the winter, experts say those efforts might have curbed the species’ spread to some degree. Anne Johnson, a doctoral student studying the spotted lanternfly in Hoover’s lab at Penn State, believes the viral trends can make a difference. Spotted lanternflies are native to China, where they don’t often become a pest. “We’ll always have to deal with spotted lanternfly,” Johnson said.

☆ Zinke, former Trump Interior secretary, wins U.S. House seat - Edison Research
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke testifies in front of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. March 13, 2018. REUTERS/Eric ThayerWASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Ryan Zinke, a former secretary of the U.S. Interior Department under then-President Donald Trump, who stepped down in 2018 amid ethics probes, won a U.S. House of Representatives seat in Montana, Edison Research projected on Thursday. "Truth matters, and now it's time to fight for freedom and protect our way of life in Montana," Zinke said in a release about the election. After resigning from the Interior Department, Zinke joined the board of mining exploration company U.S. Gold Corp.During his first House term, Zinke served on the chamber's Natural Resources and Armed Service committees.

☆ Biden Designates World War II Training Ground as a National Monument
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Joseph De Avila | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

President Biden has designated Camp Hale, a World War II-era military training ground in Colorado, as a national monument, the first of his presidency. Mr. Biden signed a proclamation Wednesday establishing the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument, the White House said. The monument resides on existing public lands within the White River National Forest.

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