Conservation
Earlier this month, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from forcing hundreds of bison from BLM grazing allotments in Montana. The ruling came months after BLM finalized the decision to revoke the conservation group American Prairie’s grazing permits and clear its bison off federal land by the end of September.
Energy
The Protecting Domestic Mining Act (H.R. 1501) just passed the House by a 218–201 vote, with seven Democrats crossing the aisle. The bill, which now heads to the Senate, makes mining and mineral processing eligible for expedited permitting under Title 41 of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (known as FAST-41) and blocks a Biden-era proposal that would have limited that eligibility to "critical" minerals.
Transportation
The United States is the world’s largest oil and gas producer, but energy abundance means little if that energy cannot reach the people who need it.
Energy
The risks posed by this concentration are worth taking seriously. The problem is that these tools may force taxpayers to take on unnecessary risk—leaving them stuck with the bill if the companies fail—without addressing the underlying problem.
Energy
The Department of Energy’s recent National Transmission Needs Study identifies several of these cases, where regions’ electricity costs would decline substantially if they were connected by a high-capacity transmission line. Providing these benefits to consumers, however, requires confronting not just the incentives that discourage utilities from building interregional lines, but the state laws that let incumbent monopolies control who builds them.
Conservation
By rescinding the expansive regulatory definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act and returning to Justice Scalia’s narrower textual reading that limits “take” to direct actions against individual animals, federal agencies have struck a blow for property rights, reduced unnecessary land-use controls, and restored freer market incentives.
Energy
Lawmakers in both parties are scrambling to address the issues revealed by data centers. President Donald Trump, his administration officials, and several governors (including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro) signed on to a statement of principles that encourage data centers to bring their own power or pay for the power they need.
Infrastructure
Congress is running short on time to pass a comprehensive permitting reform package before the lame duck this fall. On the table awaiting votes are bills reforming the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and Clean Air Act. The National Historic Preservation Act, which has recently gained traction as a permitting barrier to projects, has received comparatively little attention in Congress.
Energy
As Americans crank up their air conditioning bills in the summer months, the importance of affordable, dependable power is critical but often taken for granted. Especially today, families are more acutely aware of how much they’re paying as electricity rates have risen at a pace more than double the rate of inflation over the past year.
Conservation
The 50-year era of “don’t-touch” conservation may have ended three weeks ago, after the Trump administration narrowed the definition of harm under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Harming an endangered species used to encompass damage to the land the species lives on. Landowners with endangered species were limited in how they could steward their plots of land. After all, endangered species’ recoveries relied on proactive efforts by landowners, which will remain intact regardless of the changing incentive structure of the ESA. The unnecessary penalties landowners had to incur were lifted, and conservation efforts will be able to fit the needs of the land and life rather than keeping the overburdening punishments of the ESA.
