Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund One of the nation’s largest utilities—Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E)—has begun the process of deploying approximately 7,500 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in northern and central California. Merced College, in the San Joaquin Valley, is working with the utility to install the first 12 charging ports in the […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Mojave Desert outside of Pahrump, Nevada Helen O’Shea Southern Nevada is a prime location for solar development—the sun shines well over 200 plus days a year here. It’s also home to some of the Mojave desert’s most iconic species including desert tortoise and bighorn sheep. Balancing the development […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund On January 19, His Holiness Pope Francis will touch down for a few hours in Madre de Dios, an area in the Peruvian Amazon. Displaying his usual compassion for the marginalized and the powerless, the Pope will spend his time meeting with indigenous people and children. While the […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund California state capitol building in Sacramento Jeff Turner, Flickr If Joe Biden is right when he says, “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value,” then California values children, education, climate action, mobility, and social and economic justice for […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Wind and solar projects in the western U.S. have reached price levels that few would have predicted even a few years ago. For those that have read our blogs before, you might be thinking that we’ve said that before, and, well, we have. But the prices keep falling, […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund In the face of threatened rollbacks and inaction on national appliance energy efficiency standards by the Trump administration, the states are stepping up to protect their citizens and climate. Driven by their desire for climate leadership as part of the U.S. Climate Alliance, states including California, New York, […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund iStock Well, this is awkward. After opening 90 percent of America’s coastlines to offshore drilling last week, U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke exempted Florida after its governor, Rick Scott, asked him to. That’s great news for Florida’s communities, coastal habitats, and local economies (and, ahem, Mar-a-Lago), […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund At McDonalds, even incremental progress towards achieving sustainability goals can be significant. Today, the restaurant giant announced a new commitment to up its recycling game. Under the new goals, McDonalds says it will encourage and enable recycling in every one of its 37,000 restaurants around the world, while […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Protesters against the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast Pipelines at the Virginia Capitol Square in Richmond Daniel Sangjib Min/Richmond Times-Dispatch/AP Images Like the Keystone XL and Dakota Access before it, a disputed pipeline recently got the green light from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which controls the […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund The Department of the Interior touches more lives in more ways than any other federal agency. Led by Secretary Ryan Zinke, the agency manages one-fifth of the land in the United States including our national parks, wildlife refuges, and the delivery of water and power in the West. […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Oil drilling in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Photo: NRDC Companies are pumping oil out of the ground every day in Los Angeles, exposing nearby residents to a toxic cocktail of health-threatening emissions. Safeguards for communities at the city, state, and federal levels have lagged […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund When EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed to repeal the Clean Power Plan – the largest step yet taken to curb America’s climate-changing carbon pollution – he scheduled a single public hearing, in Charleston, West Virginia, last November and allowed a short period for public comment that was intended […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund In a welcome move, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) yesterday rejected Constitution Pipeline’s petition to overturn a previous New York State rejection of the fracked gas pipeline. This is one more nail in the coffin of this flawed project. Pipeline construction near homes. David Jones Constitution claimed […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Welcome to our weekly Trump v. Earth column, in which onEarth reviews the environment-related shenanigans of President Trump and his allies. Rick Perry Gets Totally FERC’d The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission unanimously rejected U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s plan to delay the retirement of outdated coal and nuclear […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Philip Rozenski/iStock Deep in our hearts, we know that the global addiction to plastic is wholly unsustainable. It’s why so many of us make a real effort to significantly curtail our use of plastic bottles and bags, clamshell packaging, straws, disposable utensils, and the like. In addition, it’s […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund The historic proposal to retire and replace California’s last remaining nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, was mostly rejected today in a final decision unanimously adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which removed critical elements protecting the climate, plant workers, and surrounding communities. The commission voted to approve […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Proterra Electric Bus The California Public Utilities Commission has unanimously approved 15 utility pilot programs with a collective budget of $43 million to “accelerate widespread transportation electrification,” as required by a landmark clean energy bill adopted in 2015. And more will follow. The commission is still considering an […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund EPA’s latest annual assessment of new automobile fuel economy, the “Fuel Economy Trends” report, shows that automakers have made great progress building fuel-efficient vehicles from when standards were tightened in the 1970s and early 1980s and with the gains of the last five years. The report findings are […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Sachin Daluja/Flickr Last July, after Karen Feridun and Tracy Carluccio delivered a petition with more than 63,000 signatures in support of a fracking ban in the Delaware River watershed to the office of Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf, they popped down to the cafeteria in the building. To their […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund I just attended the 2018 American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that 2017 shattered all records for the most costly extreme weather year in United States history. If you thought 2017 seemed like a monstrous year for extreme weather events—from […]