“Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, celebrated the 20-year anniversary of landmark climate legislation he signed while in office alongside Democrats including Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
Said Schwarzenegger: “California is the perfect example of what can be done when people work together and when we don’t look at this as a Republican or as a Democratic issue.”
“A federal judge ordered the Trump administration Monday morning to stop cutting down trees at East Potomac Golf Links after preservationists asserted that more than 500 were felled Saturday and ‘hundreds more’ were slated for removal,” the Washington Post reports.
“The National Park Service will begin cutting down more than 500 trees on Saturday at a public golf course in Washington, D.C. that President Trump is planning to replace with a ‘championship-level’ course,” the New York Times reports.
“The Supreme Court justices sounded wary Monday of state-by-state lawsuits that could impose huge damage verdicts on energy producers for the impact of global climate change,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Instead, several of them suggested these local and state claims may be blocked by the federal Clean Air Act.”
Washington Sun: Supreme Court wrestles with future of climate change cases.
“As one of the Supreme Court’s most stalwart conservative and prolific justices, Clarence Thomas’ views on the biggest cases of the day — from guns to race to religion — are rarely in doubt,” CNN reports.
“Yet when it comes to perhaps the most significant climate change-related case to reach the high court in nearly two decades, environmentalists aren’t yet writing Thomas off, even though he has consistently sided against them.”
“That’s because Thomas has in recent years staked out positions that align with a Colorado city that is suing Exxon and a Canadian energy company Suncor for damages caused by climate change.”
“The Trump administration unveiled new rules Monday rolling back the nation’s fuel economy standards, touting the move as a money-saving measure for American auto buyers struggling with affordability,” the Washington Post reports.
“Analysts were doubtful that car shoppers should expect $1,300 price cuts from the new regulations — and any savings would be hard to notice, with average new vehicle prices currently hovering around $50,000.”
“President Donald Trump on Saturday said he approved new fuel economy standards, reversing former President Joe Biden’s stricter policies meant to fuel electric vehicle adoption,” CNBC reports.
“It is unclear what the final fuel economy standards will be, although Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy previously said that they would be sharply lower than the Biden-era policies.”
“Data centers and artificial intelligence may not rank among voters’ top concerns heading into the midterms, but growing anxiety over their effect on electricity bills and local communities is giving Democrats and allied groups an opening to connect the industry’s rapid expansion to the issue that has consistently dominated the campaign: the cost of living,” MS NOW reports.
“Ever since Theodore Roosevelt ventured into the wilderness of California’s Yosemite Valley in 1903 and emerged with a sweeping conservation policy, presidents in both parties have valued the country’s national parks,” the New York Times reports.
“The public has, too. Polling shows that Americans of all stripes and political persuasions overwhelmingly love their parks.”
“But President Trump’s administration has thrown the 433 sites managed by the National Park Service into turmoil, shifting funding and workers to pet projects in Washington, slashing staff across the country and scrubbing exhibits that it says ‘inappropriately disparage Americans.'”
“The Trump administration is considering proposals for at least 12 data centers and data center-related infrastructure projects to be built on federal public lands — far more than previously known,” the Washington Sun reports.
“The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing data center-related proposals covering at least 17,600 acres of public land across six states — Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming, according to public records of right-of-way proposals reviewed by The Washington Sun.”
“In what would be a seismic shift, the Trump administration is quietly moving to strip a core protection of the Endangered Species Act,” the New York Times reports.
“Under a new interpretation of the law’s language outlined in the memo, the accidental killing or injury of an animal would no longer be considered illegal; only actions specifically intending to target an animal would.”
“The Trump administration plans to announce Monday that the United States will no longer limit the planet-warming pollution that power plants pump into the air while burning coal and gas,” the New York Times reports.
“The shift by the Environmental Protection Agency would complete the administration’s erasure of the most consequential climate policies of Presidents Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Barack Obama. If the move survives expected legal challenges, it could also prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.”
Wired: “August was the planet’s hottest month ever recorded, capping a remarkably grim summer of heat records. With El Niño strengthening—and climate change continuing to heat things up—more records are likely in store well into next year.”
“The Diablo Canyon Power Plant, which sits on a cliff on California’s Central Coast, has been the subject of ceaseless protests and political battles since it was proposed in 1963,” the New York Times reports.
“Now, the plant is at the center of yet another major debate. After shuttering all the state’s other nuclear power plants in recent decades, California is considering extending Diablo’s life and lifting a moratorium on new reactors.”
“That these decisions are even on the table in California is a testament to the substantial change in public views of nuclear energy, which for decades has been reviled by the liberal lawmakers and environmental groups that wield tremendous power and influence in the state.”
“The Trump administration is planning to significantly reorganize the National Park Service and other bureaus of the Interior Department, the second major shake-up of the nation’s public lands infrastructure in less than two years,” NOTUS reports.
The Atlantic: “In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, along the equator, scientists have drawn a box. It’s a big box, two-thirds the size of China, yet hardly anyone lives inside it. This rectangular swath of open ocean is monitored by satellites and a network of moored buoys that measure minute changes in the temperature of the water, with an eye toward anomalies.”
“Every few years or so, driven by changing winds and currents, the water temperature in this part of the ocean starts to rise; even a half degree Celsius above normal over months warrants a designation that an El Niño phase has begun. That’s enough warming to unleash floods and fires, drought and famine, around the world. The box is called Niño 3.4. Right now, it’s hot in the box.”
“In the latest salvo in California’s ongoing environmental battle with the White House, the state on Friday sued the Trump administration over its attempt to kill offshore wind farms,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump has long despised offshore wind power, falsely saying that it does not work and kills whales. This spring, his administration struck deals with energy companies. In exchange for refunds for what they paid for offshore wind leases, the companies agreed to use the money on oil and gas projects.”
“For more than a year, the National Park Service has been quietly working to fulfill an unprecedented directive from Trump officials: Parcel off a corner of Yosemite National Park to give to a private developer,” NOTUS reports.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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