Journalists are reliably fond of two things: 1) Arbitrary ways to grade politicians, like the "100 days in office" meme; and 2) scooping the competition.
Well, here's my scoop on President Biden's first 100 days when it comes to the environment.
Executive orders
On the campaign trail, Biden promised a Gatling gun's worth of Executive Orders. His Inauguration Day executive order on climate change is a veritable Russian nesting doll of presidential decrees, calling for everything from respect for science to cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline.
In a separate letter, he re-enlisted the U.S. in the Paris Climate Accord. A week later, another multi-faceted executive order established a goal of 30 percent protection of U.S. land and waters and blocked new oil and gas leases on federal land.
House
Got omens, anyone? If climate change should be a powerful election issue anywhere, it would be Miami and the Florida Keys. Florida's 26th and 27th districts cover that turf. Scientists predict that rising seas will turn virtually all of both districts into surf by century's end. In 2018, the Republican co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Climate Caucus, Carlos Curbelo, lost his seat in the 26th to Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
In the 27th, another Climate Caucus Republican, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, retired, clearing the way for Democrat Donna Shalala.
Both Democrats lasted only one term. While their GOP replacements have also embraced climate action, there's little overall movement in the GOP nationally. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has gently nudged the party toward taking climate change seriously, he's also helped lead the loud Republican attack against Progressive Dems' Green New Deal.
FEMA wants rates that would better reflect the greatly increased risks to beachfront homes, including some of the priciest properties in the country on Long Island's coastline.
Deb Haaland was sworn in this week as the first Native American cabinet member in any Administration. Her domain at the Interior Department will include the Fish & Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Park Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Her Environmental Protection Agency counterpart, Michael Regan, inherits understaffing, staff morale problems, and never-ending problems with Superfund and other cleanup programs.
At the Department of Energy, new Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has designs on a massive clean energy turnaround with a department whose budget is still two-thirds devoted to maintaining nuclear weapons or cleaning up the mess left behind by them.
States
State governorships, cabinets and legislatures have taken an abrupt turn into complete control of statehouses. According to the website Ballotpedia, 38 states are dominated by "trifectas" where both legislative houses and the governor's office are controlled by the same party" -- 23 by Republicans and 15 by Democrats.
In the 1990's, the "Wise Use Movement" became a particularly fierce player in western U.S. politics, motivated by what they saw as federal overreach on control of western grazing, water, and mining rights. During the Obama Administration, similar protests led by the family of Cliven Bundy, drew a more strident, sometimes violent, pose.
Following the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, fears over a backlash to Biden's potential actions are growing.
Climate, environment and energy issues rarely dominate the headlines. In the age of COVID, there's little chance that they will.
But there's a lot happening in those "secondary" stories that can impact our lives for years to come.
President Joe Biden has announced he will not seek re-election, endorsing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.
Harris has been a key player in Biden’s climate initiatives, including the Inflation Reduction Act and international climate commitments.
As California's Attorney General, Harris prosecuted major environmental cases and created an environmental justice unit.
Key quote:
“We must do more. Our action collectively, or worse, our inaction will impact billions of people for decades to come.”
— Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States
Why this matters:
In Kamala Harris, advocates and environmentalists would certainly have a strong ally in the White House, one who's not afraid to make bold moves.The big question is: Can she rally Congress to back her vision? Because while the presidency has its powers, transforming climate policy requires serious legislative muscle.
CAMERON PARISH, La. — Late into the night, John Allaire watches the facility next to his home shoot 300-foot flares from stacks.
He lives within eyesight of southwest Louisiana’s salty shores, where, for decades, he’s witnessed nearly 200 feet of land between it and his property line disappear into the sea. Two-thirds of the land was rebuilt to aid the oil and gas industry’s LNG expansion. LNG — shorthand for liquified natural gas – is natural gas that's cooled to liquid form for easier storage or transport; it equates to 1/600th the volume of natural gas in a gaseous state. It’s used to generate electricity, or fuel stove tops and home heaters, and in industrial processes like manufacturing fertilizer.
In the U.S., at least 30 new LNG terminal facilities have been constructed or proposed since 2016, according to the
Oil and Gas Watch project. Louisiana and Texas’ Gulf Coast, where five facilities are already operating, will host roughly two-thirds of the new LNG terminals – meaning at least 22 Gulf Coast LNG facilities are currently under construction, were recently approved to break ground or are under further regulatory review.
Although the U.S. didn’t ship LNG until 2016, when a freight tanker left, a few miles from where Cameron Parish’s LNG plants are today, last year the country became the global leader in LNG production and export volume, leapfrogging exporters like Qatar and Australia. The
EIA’s most recent annual outlook estimated that between the current year and 2050, U.S. LNG exports will increase by 152%.
Allaire, 68, watches how saltwater collects where rainwater once fed the area’s diminishing coastal wetlands. “We still come down here with the kids and set out the fishing rods. It's not as nice as it used to be,” he told
Environmental Health News (EHN).
That intimacy with nature drew Allaire to the area when he purchased 311 acres in 1998. An environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran, he helped lead environmental assessments and manage clean-ups, and although retired, he still works part-time as an environmental consultant with major petroleum companies. With a lifetime of oil and gas industry expertise, he’s watched the industry's footprint spread across Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile shores and beyond. Now that the footprints are at the edge of his backyard, Allaire is among a cohort of organizers, residents and fisher-folk in the region mobilizing to stop LNG facility construction. For him, the industry’s expansion usurps the right-or-wrong ethics he carried across his consulting career. For anglers, oil and gas infrastructure has destroyed fishing grounds and prevented smaller vessels from accessing the seafood-rich waters of the Calcasieu River.
From the view of Allaire’s white pickup truck as he drives across his property to the ocean’s shore, he points to where a new LNG facility will replace marshlands. Commonwealth LNG intends to clear the land of trees and then backfill the remaining low-lying field.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.”
Community bands together
John Allaire, left, purchased 311 acres in Cameron Parish in 1998, and has watched the oil and gas industry's footprint spread to his property.
Credit: John Allaire
During an Earth Day rally in April, community members gathered in the urban center of Lake Charles to demand local oil and gas industries help deliver a safer, healthier future for all. In between live acts by artists performing south Louisiana’s quintessential zydeco musical style, speakers like James Hiatt, a Calcasieu Parish native with ties to Cameron Parish and a Healthy Gulf organizer, and RISE St. James organizer Sharon Lavigne, who’s fighting against LNG development in rural Plaquemines Parish near the city of New Orleans, asked the nearly 100 in attendance to imagine a day in which the skyline isn’t dotted by oil and gas infrastructure.
Not long ago, it was hard to imagine an Earth Day rally in southwest Louisiana at all. For decades, the area has been decorated with fossil fuel infrastructure. Sunsets on some days are highlighted by the chemicals in the air; at night, thousands of facilities’ lights dot the dark sky.
“It takes a lot of balls for people to start speaking up,” Shreyas Vasudevan, a campaign researcher with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told EHN in the days after the rally. In a region with its history and economy intertwined with oil and gas production, “you can get a lot of social criticism – or ostracization, as well – even threats to your life.”
Many are involved in local, regional and national advocacy groups, including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and the National Audubon Society.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.” - John Allaire, environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran
But environmental organizers are fighting a multi-billion-dollar industry with federal and state winds at its back. And LNG’s federal support is coupled with existing state initiatives.
Under outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a term-limited Democrat — the state pledged a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Natural gas, which the LNG industry markets as a cleaner-burning alternative, is cited as one of the state’s solutions. Louisiana is the only state that produces a majority of its carbon emissions through fossil fuels refining industries, like LNG, rather than energy production or transportation. Governor Edwards’ office did not return EHN’s request for comment.
This accommodating attitude towards oil and gas industries has resulted in a workforce that’s trained to work in LNG refining facilities across much of the rural Gulf region, said Steven Miles, a lawyer at Baker Botts LLP and a fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center on Energy Studies. Simultaneously, anti-industrialization pushback is lacking. It’s good news for industries like LNG.
“The bad news,” Miles added. “[LNG facilities] are all being jammed in the same areas.”
One rallying cry for opponents is local health. The Environmental Integrity Project found that LNG export terminals emit chemicals like carbon monoxide –potentially deadly– and sulfur dioxide, of which the American Lung Association says long-term exposure can lead to heart disease, cancer, and damage to internal or female reproductive organs.
An analysis of emissions monitoring reports by the advocacy group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade found that Venture Global’s existing Calcasieu Pass facility had more than 2,000 permit violations.That includes exceeding the permit’s authorized air emissions limit to release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds 286 out of its first 343 days of operation.
The Marvel Crane, the first liquid natural gas carrier to transport natural gas from the Southwest Louisiana LNG facility, transits a channel in Hackberry, Louisiana, May 28, 2019.
“This is just one facility,” at a time when three more facilities have been proposed in the region and state, Vasudevan said. Venture Global’s operational LNG facility — also known as Calcasieu Pass — “is much smaller than the other facility they’ve proposed.”
In an area that experienced 18 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Laura in 2020 — and just weeks later, struck by Hurricane Delta — Venture Global is planning to build a second export terminal Known as “CP2,” it’s the largest of the roughly two dozen proposed Gulf LNG export terminals, and a key focal point for the region’s local organizing effort.
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” Hiatt told EHN of locals’ nostalgia for a community before storms like Rita in 2005 brought up to 15 feet of storm surge, only for Laura to repeat the damage in 2020. Throughout that time, the parish’s population dipped from roughly 10,000 to 5,000. “But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG. Folks in Cameron think that's going to bring back community, bring back the schools, bring back this time before we had all these storms — when Cameron was pretty prosperous.”
“Clearly,” for the oil and gas industry, “the idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports,” Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana, told EHN.
Helping fishers’ impacted by LNG is about “actual survival of this unique culture,” Cooke said.
In a measure of organizers’ success, she pointed to a recent permit hearing for Venture Global’s CP2 proposal. Regionally, it’s the only project that’s received an environmental permit, but not its export permit, which remains under federal review. At the meeting, some spoke on the company’s behalf. As an organizer, it was a moment of clarity, Cooke explained. Venture Global officials “had obviously done a lot of coaching and organizing and getting people together in Cameron to speak out on their behalf,” Cooke said. “So, in a way, that was bad. But in another way, it shows that we really had an impact.”
“It also shows that we have a lot to do,” Cooke added.
Environmental organizers like Alyssa Portaro describe a sense of fortitude among activists — she and her husband to the region’s nearby town of Vinton near the Texas-Louisiana border. Since the families’ relocation to their farm, Portaro has worked with Cameron Parish fisher-folk.
“I’ve not witnessed ‘community’ anywhere like there is in Louisiana,” Portaro told EHN. But a New Jersey native, she understands the toll environmental pollution has on low-income communities. “This environment, it’s so at risk — and it’s currently getting sacrificed to big industries.”
“People don’t know what we’d do without oil and gas. It comes at a big price,” she added.
Southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish is one of the state’s most rural localities. Marine economies were the area’s economic drivers until natural disasters and LNG facilities began pushing locals out, commercial fishers claim.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” James Hiatt , a Healthy Gulf organizer, told EHN. "But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG."
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
For the most part, Cameron Parish’s life and economy has historically taken place at sea. As new LNG facilities are operational or in planning locally, locals claim the community they once knew is nearly unrecognizable.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
A disappearing parish
The stakes are seemingly higher for a region like southwest Louisiana, which is the epicenter of climate change impacts.
In nearly a century, the state has lost roughly 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion. In part driving the state’s erosion crisis is the compounding impacts of Mississippi River infrastructure and oil and gas industry activity, such as dredging canals for shipping purposes, according to a March study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said Cameron Parish could lose more land than other coastal parishes over the next 50 years. A recent Climate Central report says the parish will be underwater within that time frame.
On top of erosion and sea level rise impacts, in August, 2023, marshland across southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish burned. The fires were among at least 600 across the Bayou State this year. Statewide, roughly 60,000 acres burned — a more than six-fold increase of the state’s average acres burned per year in the past decade alone.
But while the blaze avoided coastal Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish, the fires represented a warning coming from a growing chorus of locals across the region — one that’s echoes by the local commercial fishing population, who claimed to have experienced unusually low yields during the same time, according to a statement from a local environmental group. At the site of the Cameron Parish fires are locations for two proposed LNG expansion projects.
"The idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports.” - Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana
It was an unusual occurrence for an area that’s more often itself underwater this time of year due to a storm surge from powerful storms. For LNG expansion’s local opposition, it was a red flag.
As the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has noted prior, the confluence of climate change’s raising of sea levels and the construction of LNG export terminals — some are proposed at the size of nearly 700 football fields — are wiping away the marshland folks like Allaire watched wither. Among their fears is that the future facilities won’t be able to withstand the power of another storm like Laura and its storm surge, which wiped away entire communities in 2020.
Amidst these regional climate impacts, LNG infrastructure has shown potential to exacerbate the accumulation of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. For the most part, LNG is made up of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Among the 22 current LNG facility proposals, the advocacy group Sierra Club described a combined climate pollution output that would roughly equal to that of about 440 coal plants.
The climate impacts prompt some of the LNG industry’s uncertainty going forward. It isn’t clear if Asian countries, key importers of U.S. LNG, will “embrace these energy transition issues,” said David Dismuke, an energy consultant and the former executive director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. Likewise, European nations remain skeptical of embracing LNG as a future staple fuel source.
“They really don't want to have to pull the trigger,” Dismukes added, referring to Europe’s hesitation to commit more resources to exporting LNG from the American market. “They don't want to go down that road.”
While there will be a tapering down of natural gas supply, Miles explained, “we’re going to need natural gas for a long time,” as larger battery storage for renewables is still unavailable.
“I'm not one of these futurists that can tell you where we're going to be, but I just don't see everything being extreme,” Dismukes said. “I don't see what we've already built getting stranded and going away, either.”
For now, LNG seems here to stay. From 2012 to 2022,U.S. natural gas demand — the sum of both domestic consumption and gross exports — rose by a whopping 43%, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Meanwhile, in oil and gas hotbeds like Louisiana and Texas, natural gas demand grew by 116%.
Throughout 25 years, Allaire has witnessed southwest Louisiana’s land slowly fade, in part driven by the same industrial spread regionally. Near where the front door of his travel trailer sits underneath the aluminum awning, he points to a chenier ridge located near the end of the property. It’s disappearing, he said.
“See the sand washing over, in here?” Allaire says, as he points towards the stretches of his property. “This pond used to go down for a half mile. This is all that's left of it on this side.”
Federal workers worry about job security and policy reversals under a potential second Trump administration.
Trump’s new running mate, JD Vance, supports firing mid-level bureaucrats to reshape the federal workforce.
Democrats are divided over President Biden’s re-election campaign amid his recent COVID-19 diagnosis.
Key quote:
“I think he’s learned more about what he needs to do with his incoming administration if he were to be elected.”
— National Park Service employee
Why this matters:
Federal employees are anxious about losing their jobs and seeing their work undone if Trump wins. This instability could impact the effectiveness and morale of the civil service.
Alberta's Canadian Energy Centre, created to counter green energy narratives, has shut down due to impending federal regulations on oil industry advertising.
The Canadian Energy Centre, launched in 2019, aimed to rebut criticisms of Alberta's oil industry but faced multiple public embarrassments and credibility issues.
Funded by oil and gas companies through Alberta's carbon pricing program, the Centre was required to register as a foreign agent in the U.S.
New federal requirements for accuracy in oil advertising led to the Centre's abrupt closure before the regulations took effect.
Key quote:
“You’d have been forgiven for wondering if the sole mission of the [the war room] was to make every other government expenditure seem like a bargain.”
— Andrew Leach, Alberta Energy economist
Why this matters:
The closure highlights the growing impact of regulatory measures on misleading advertising and underscores the challenges Alberta faces in transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources.
The Rio Grande's water levels are critically low, pushing South Texas cities to find alternative water sources.
Edinburg plans a new water treatment facility to extract water from underground aquifers and reuse wastewater.
Reverse osmosis is gaining popularity in the region despite high costs and environmental concerns.
Key quote:
"We see the future and we've got to find different water alternatives, sources. You know how they used to say water is gold? Now it's platinum."
— Tom Reyna, Edinburg assistant city manager
Why this matters:
With the Rio Grande no longer reliable, South Texas faces water scarcity that threatens both residential and agricultural needs. Innovative solutions are essential but may be financially unattainable for smaller communities without state support.
Root Hill Cafe in Brooklyn faces frequent flood damage, losing about $3,500 in sales and employee pay for each day closed.
Small businesses nationwide struggle with high flood insurance costs and insufficient coverage, as seen in Vermont's $300 million flood damage last summer.
Experts urge infrastructure upgrades and better flood risk transparency to support small businesses.
Key quote:
“We are constantly checking the weather... If we see that there’s a hurricane in Florida, it’s like, oh my God, please let it not come here.”
— Alejandra Palma, co-owner of Root Hill Cafe
Why this matters:
Flooding threatens the survival of small businesses, which employ nearly half of US workers and contribute significantly to the economy. Communities are calling for greater support from both state and federal governments, emphasizing the need for improved flood defenses, better urban planning, and more accessible disaster relief funds. Advocates argue that proactive measures, such as investing in green infrastructure and restoring natural floodplains, could mitigate future risks.
The Center for American Progress found 123 House and Senate Republicans deny the scientific consensus on climate change.
This group includes prominent leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Despite the reduction in numbers, these members have collectively received $52 million from the fossil fuel industry.
Key quote:
“It's also concerning because it’s so obvious what the facts are, and to watch so many members of Congress pretend that the science is not settled, it just reveals a willingness to disregard truth.”
— Trevor Higgins, senior vice president for energy and environment, Center for American Progress
Power shutoffs or wildfire evacuations can be deadly for disabled people, especially nondrivers who may not have a way to get to a cooling center or evacuation point.
