• People

Energy Secretary Takes a Swipe at Big Banks That Won’t Invest In Arctic Drilling

• #climatecrisis
• Arctic drilling
• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• banks
• conservation
• environment
• oil and gas
• science

The Secretary of Energy stunningly accused the major financial institutions that refuse to now invest in Arctic oil and gas exploration of discrimination against the oil and gas industry and likened the decision to the banks’ refusal in the past to make loans to minorities.

Why This Matters:  Arctic drilling has been fought due to its environmental toll since the 1960s,  In 1980, Congress decreed that no exploratory drilling or production could occur without further congressional action — and it stayed that way until President Trump demanded authority to lease the land for drilling, despite the ample domestic supply of oil and gas.

• Politics

Our Hero of the Week: Bernadette Demientieff, ED of the Gwich’in Steering Committee

• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• Goldman Sachs
• Gwich'in Tribe

This week there was a momentous piece of good news for conservation — one of the largest and most powerful and influential U.S. banks, Goldman Sachs, said it will not fund projects that drill for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  This is huge — between 2016 and 2018, Goldman Sachs invested […]

• Climate Change

Goldman Sachs Will Not Fund Arctic Drilling, Pledges $750B to Fight Climate Change

• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• climate change
• Goldman Sachs

In a move that drew praise from leading environmental organizations, the investment bank Goldman Sachs announced a sweeping new “environmental policy framework” on Sunday, with major commitments to fund climate change resilience and adaptation projects, clean energy development, and to more thoroughly analyze fracking projects before funding them (though it does not rule them out entirely).

Why This Matters:  This puts Goldman Sachs well in the lead among U.S. banks for making a commitment to both climate change and environmental protection generally.

• Climate Change

Trump Administration Claims In Arctic Drilling Assessment That There Is No Climate Crisis

• Arctic
• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• environmental impact statement
• oil and gas drilling

E&E News reported on Monday that the Trump administration states it its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in favor of oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) – the agency responsible for EIS – “does not agree that the proposed development is inconsistent with maintaining a livable planet (i.e., there is not a climate crisis).”

Why This Matters:  This is yet another sign that the Trump Administration is ignoring the overwhelming opinion of expert scientists — the U.N. IPCC Oceans and Cryosphere report from last week is full of examples of how the Arctic region is being severely impacted by climate change caused by fossil fuel use.

• It is also highly likely that the BLM silenced its own scientists in the process of drafting the ANWR EIS.

• Land

Hipsters fueling illicit cactus trade

• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• cactus
• National Park Service
• NPS
• plants
• poaching

Cacti and succulents have rapidly grown in popularity in the past few years and it turns out that the insatiable demand to have the trendy plants adorn homes is driving poachers to dig them up from the wild and increasingly on public lands. The Guardian recently reported in its in-depth piece that “in the US […]

• Energy

Shutdown Not Slowing Down Trump Administration Energy Priorities

• Alaska
• Andrew Wheeler
• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• Bureau of Land Management
• confirmation
• Department of Interior
• EPA
• hearing
• oil and gas
• Senate
• shutdown
• wind power

While most of the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency are in a seemingly endless shutdown limbo, the priorities of the Trump Administration go on without a hitch.  Two high profile examples came to light over the weekend — the preparation for newly nominated Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s confirmation hearing and the busiest […]