News from a Changing Planet -- This Week on Earth #43
I accidentally reverted to fewer, longer news items, but I think they're good ones: Joe Biden, climate hero; saving the Great Salt Lake, and navigating the clean energy transition.
JOE BIDEN, CLIMATE HERO: The Biden administration keeps on delivering climate change and environmental health wins, for the people! (New York Times, Washington Post)
This week, the Biden administration announced two “big f—-ing deals" for climate change and the environment, as well as a few smaller deals that are also critically important for safeguarding our public lands, preventing more runaway greenhouse gas emissions, and protecting public health and safety. And all of this on top of the biggest ever climate legislation in the world (the Inflation Reduction Act), the bipartisan infrastructure bill, expansion of national monuments, a commitment to environmental justice and more. The administration isn’t perfect, there are areas where they are falling short, and there’s still so much more to be done, but these are still exciting and important developments that make me proud to support Joe Biden for President!
Public lands:
On Friday, the Department of the Interior announced that the administration would block the construction of a proposed industrial road to a copper mine through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. It also announced a ban on drilling in more than half of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an ecologically important and sensitive area north of the Arctic Circle.
“Together, the two moves amount to one of biggest efforts in history to shield Alaskan land from drilling and mining,” according to the New York Times, though they will likely meet opposition from industry and from Alaskan politicians, given the outsize importance of extraction to the Alaskan economy and state budget.
And, for the first time ever, the government has put renewable energy development, and conservation and restoration of public lands on equal footing with fuel extraction and mining through a new federal regulation. The regulation, among other things, is designed to ensure that these public lands can continue to provide the services that much of the public depends on — whether that’s grazing, recreation, or energy development, in a warming climate.
Public health and safety:
The chemical industry has known about the dangers of PFAS (“forever chemicals”) since the 1960s: they have been shown to be either carcinogenic or possibly carcinogenic; linked to low birth weights, cardiovascular issues and other health problems. But the Biden administration, through two new rules, will require that industry pay to clean up these chemicals, which have been found in almost half of the country’s tap water and in measurable amounts in the blood of almost all Americans.
Under the “Superfund” law, regulators will be able to require manufacturers to clean up (or pay to clean up) any leaks or spills of these chemicals. Together with another rule that finalized the country’s first drinking water standard for PFAS, this new rule marks significant, though long overdue, progress on cleaning up these toxic chemicals and holding industry accountable.
“The PFAS Superfund listing and the drinking water standard are kind of a one-two punch to address the PFAS problem, and they are two of the most significant public health steps that the Biden administration has taken,” Erik Olson, a senior strategic director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the Washington Post.
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