• Climate Change

20-Year Texas Oil Subsidy Quietly Dies as Legislative Session Ends

• jobs
• oil and gas
• property taxes
• subsidies
• tax breaks
• Texas

A 20-year-old tax break for oil and gas companies in Texas quietly met its end last Thursday. In the previous two decades, a provision of the Texas code known as “Chapter 313” has provided $10 billion in property tax relief to corporations in Texas, primarily petrochemical firms.

Why This Matters: Texas has long been a “safe space” for the oil industry. Experts say that the fact that the program quietly died is a sign of changing attitudes around fossil fuels and climate change.

• Land

Listen To This: Reaching Back to the New Deal for the American Jobs Plan’s Climate Corps

• American Jobs Plan
• Civilian Climate Corps
• climate change
• disasters
• jobs
• wildfires

National Public Radio (NPR) did a terrific story on the climate corps to provide jobs for young people that the administration proposed in the American Jobs Plan.  The proposal provides for $10 billion to launch “The Civilian Climate Corps,” to address the threat of climate change by strengthening protections on public lands.

• Climate Change

White House Economic Advisors Warn China Could Outdo the U.S. on Clean Energy

• American Jobs Plan
• carbon emissions
• China
• clean energy
• Council of Economic Advisors
• jobs
• renewable energy

The Biden administration published a report on Friday that argued that failing to make headway on adopting clean energy technologies and lowering carbon emissions will dramatically affect the nation’s economy — potentially putting us behind other global superpowers, particularly China. 

Why this Matters:  President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors, who provided the report, emphasized that economic development and addressing climate change are not mutually exclusive — an argument so often deployed by opponents.

• Politics

Biden Administration Full Court Press on Climate for Earth Week

• American Jobs Plan
• Chesapeake Bay
• climate change
• electric buses
• Global Climate Summit
• jobs
• LEEDs certified

Today I stopped by Thomas Built Buses in High Point, North Carolina. The union workers there make electric school buses. These are the kinds of jobs we will create through the American Jobs Plan. pic.twitter.com/CuTffJm5Zu — Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) April 19, 2021 The Biden Administration is not waiting for Earth Day, it is […]

• Health

Now Is the Time for the Best Preventative Medicine: Biodiversity

• bats
• biodiversity
• COVID-19
• Infrastructure
• jobs
• pandemic
• zoonotic disease

By Azzedine Downes As we emerge from a year of lockdowns and begin to “build back better,” it is more important than ever to remember what we’ve learned. The pandemic has shown us the fragility of our economy and how reliant it is on our health. For without health, we potentially have nothing.  COVID 19 […]

• People

Workforce Policies Are Crucial to Transitioning Fossil Fuel Communities

• fossil fuel
• job programs
• jobs
• labor
• renewable energy
• retraining
• Solar
• wind

The fourth report in a joint research series by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Resources for the Future found that very few fossil fuel power plant closures have had plans in mind for former employees, and many communities feel left behind by both old and new energy development. 

 Why This Matters: The Biden administration has announced plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, phasing out fossil fuels entirely.