The long-planned Vineyard Wind 1 Project, to be located south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket islands off the shore of Massachusetts, has hit turbulence again. In December, an arm of the Texas Public Policy Foundation sued the federal government on grounds that it was wrong to approve the project. The foundation is representing six fishing…
Search Results for: wildlife
Should Yellowstone Grizzlies Get Off the Endangered List?
Five Republican senators are asking Democratic committee heads to hold hearings on a bill that has been tied up in committees since April. The bill would remove one group of grizzly bears from listing under the Endangered Species Act. That group is the population in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the area that includes and surrounds…
Watch Out for the Feds, Even If It’s Your Property and Even If It is a Church Camp for Troubled Youth
The U.S. Federal Claims Court decided on October 25 that the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) does not need to compensate a Nevada property owner for damages when it diverted a Nevada stream that had flowed onto the property. Flooding followed four times, but the court concluded that the diversion and the floods were not…
China, Facing Blackouts, Goes ‘All-In’ for Oil, Gas, and Coal
China’s energy production is in turmoil—but probably not because it is cutting back on fossil fuels. Although President Xi has claimed the country will cut back, it hasn’t so far. The causes of the current energy crisis are multiple. Reuters lists some: “China is in the grip of a power crunch as a shortage of…
Interior Department Reverses Trump’s ‘Incidental Take’ Deregulation
Should private companies that accidentally kill migratory birds be held criminally responsible? The Trump administration didn’t think so and changed an interpretation of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty that made an unintentional killing of migratory birds a crime. Now the Fish and Wildlife Service is reversing the Trump administration’s decision. The Migratory Bird Treaty was…
The Snail Darter Is Back
Remember the snail darter (or, more likely, hearing about it)? In 1975, the Endangered Species Act temporarily halted construction of the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River because it would endanger the habitat of the snail darter, a three-inch fish (shown above). The snail darter will be taken off the list, reports Dino Grandoni…