| Obama May Block Offshore Drilling: President Obama may announce as soon as today that he intends to block future offshore lease sales in the Arctic and some of the Atlantic before leaving office. According to sources, the president may use portions of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to withdraw the areas from future oil and gas leasing, making it more difficult for an incoming Trump administration to undo than an executive action. Oil companies’ interest in the Arctic has waned in recent years, as high development costs and slumping oil prices have led the industry to abandon $2.5 billion in drilling rights in the region. (New York Times $, Bloomberg.)
DOI Adopts Coal Mining Rule – For Now: On Monday, the Department of the Interior finalized the Stream Protection Rule, which aims to limit coal mining practices near streams and forests to protect these resources and limit health problems linked to mining. The new standards update 33-year-old regulations and will protect 6,000 miles of streams and 52,000 acres of forests over the next twenty years, according to the DOI. The rule, one of the Obama administration’s last major environmental pushes, has already met heavy opposition from the GOP and the coal lobby and is expected to be axed under the new Trump administration. (Rule: Washington Post $, WSJ $, Reuters, AP, The Hill, ClimateWire $. Opposition: Politico, Bloomberg, The Hill, Greenwire $, ThinkProgress.)
Zika Fueled by El Niño: The spread of the Zika virus in Brazil was likely fueled by the 2015 El Niño, which itself was amplified by climate change, according to a new study published Monday in the journal PNAS. Researchers used historical climate data to build an epidemiological model of the virus, allowing them to examine transmission patterns for the 2015 season and predict ideal climate conditions for future outbreaks. The research also demonstrates how the two main mosquito species known to carry the virus are affected by temperature variations. Last week, a travel advisory was issued for Brownsville, Texas, due to multiple cases of Zika in the area in recent weeks. (Study: Washington Post $, HealthDay News, Carbon Brief. Travel advisory: New York Times$, FiveThirtyEight.) |
