Grand Teton National Park deal adds protections for 640 acres of Wyo. land
The federal government is buying a one-square-mile parcel of land from the state of Wyoming. It means that the land will receive permanent protection in Grand Teton National Park.
The federal government is buying the Kelly parcel. It’s a 640-acre plot of land that Wyoming held in its state school trust.
The parcel has been a target for conservationists but was nearly auctioned off for potential home development.
The land is in the middle of a migration corridor for elk, pronghorn and mule deer and includes striking views of the Teton Range.
The $100 million comes from a mix of private donations and the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said, “Today marks an incredible milestone, decades in the making, to permanently protect an essential wildlife migration corridor and treasured landscape within Grand Teton National Park.”
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon certified the project days before the start of the new legislature when a conservative bloc takes power. The legislators suggested they might try to prevent the deal from going through during their new session in January.
Gordon says he plans to buy other land back from the federal government, saying, “along with the protection of an iconic parcel of land, we now begin working to ensure that there is no net-gain in federal lands in Wyoming.”
The land investment is part of Wyoming’s efforts to make the $100 million benefit the state’s public education system.
President-elect Trump wants to rename tallest US mountain
What’s the tallest mountain in the U.S. and North America? It’s one mountain in Alaska, rising over 20,000 feet above sea level.
Since 2015, its official U.S. government name has been Denali. But President-elect Donald Trump wants to change it back to its official name, given in 1917: Mount McKinley.
“William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States, was because of the vast sums of money that he brought into our country, the person really who got us the money that President Theodore Roosevelt used to build the Panama Canal and a lot of other things,” Trump told an audience in Phoenix on Sunday, December 22nd.
“McKinley was a very good, maybe a great president,” Trump added. “They took his name off Mount McKinley, right? That’s what they do to people.”
The mountain received the Mount McKinley name for the first time in 1896. A gold prospector spotted the mountain and named it in support of the future president, who was a candidate in that year’s general election.
It took more than two decades for the U.S. government to officially adopt the Mount McKinley name. Still, the name Denali goes back a lot longer.
For centuries, people who lived in the area called it Denali. They base it either on the word in the local Koyukon people’s language meaning “high” or “tall” or a phrase meaning “the great one.”
The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the mountain’s name to Denali in 1975. In the same year, a congressman from McKinley’s home state of Ohio blocked an effort to change it at the federal level.
When it made the change in 2015, the Interior Department did not raise any issues with McKinley’s politics or viewpoints. Instead, they note that “President McKinley never visited, nor did he have any significant historical connection to, the mountain or to Alaska.”
While President-elect Trump has described removing the Mount McKinley name as an insult to Ohio, his Republican colleagues from Alaska oppose the efforts to remove the Denali name and say they have for years.
“Awful, awful idea,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told local news station KTUU in an interview released on Tuesday, December 24th. “We already went through this with President Trump back in the very, very beginning of his first term, when Senator [Dan] Sullivan and I went to his office and we were talking about a whole range of things, and he raised that issue then,” Murkowski said.
“Both [Sen. Sullivan] and I leaned into it and said, ‘no, bad idea,’ Murkowski added. “This is not only something Alaskans heartily endorse and support. It is a name that is, has been around for thousands of years.”
Trump calls RFK Jr. a ‘great mind’ after health secretary nomination
President-elect Trump has named RFK Jr. as his Health and Human Services Secretary. And fight fans are ready for a streaming spectacle: former champ Mike Tyson will return to the ring to take on social media star Jake Paul. These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Friday, Nov. 15, 2024.
Trump calls RFK Jr. a ‘great mind’ after health secretary nomination
“[Kennedy is] another one, who’s a great guy and great mind and so popular, and I think he’s right, he wants to make people healthy,” Trump said. “It’s driven him pretty wild over the last number of years, and the Democrats didn’t treat him well. He was doing fantastically well.”
“Today I nominated him for, I guess if you like health and you like people that live a long time, it’s the most important position RFK Jr.,” Trump said.
Kennedy responded to the nomination earlier in the day, posting on X in part, “We have a generational opportunity to bring together the greatest minds in science, medicine, industry, and government to put an end to the chronic disease epidemic.”
The 70-year-old Kennedy is a former Democrat, who endorsed Trump after dropping out of the race. He would oversee a group of health agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) called Kennedy “a brilliant, courageous truth-teller whose unwavering commitment to transparency will make America a healthier nation.”
Meanwhile, critics of Kennedy pointed to his previous comments questioning vaccinations. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden (D) said in a statement, “Mr. Kennedy’s outlandish views on basic scientific facts are disturbing and should worry all parents who expect schools and other public spaces to be safe for their children.”
Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey (D) just posted three words: “Dangerous. Unqualified. Unserious.”
Kennedy is also the founder of the Children’s Health Defense, which is described by media outlets as the leading anti-vaccine group in the nation.
When pressed on the subject of vaccinations by both NBC News and NPR in interviews earlier this month, Kennedy said if put into this type of role he is “not going to take away anybody’s vaccinations.”
President-elect Trump adds more names to his cabinet
Also on Thursday, Trump nominated Doug Collins as Veterans Affairs secretary. The former Republican congressman from Georgia and Iraq war veteran was a supporter of Trump during his first impeachment trial in 2019.
Trump also named three of his lawyers to positions in the Justice Department.
Finally, John Sauer, who won the presidential immunity case at the U.S. Supreme Court, is Trump’s pick for solicitor general.
House Ethics Committee cancels meeting on Matt Gaetz investigation
The Republican-led House Ethics Committee canceled its meeting over the investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, according to multiple outlets citing sources. Gaetz resigned from Congress earlier this week after President-elect Trump announced he’s nominating Gaetz for attorney general.
The meeting, which was scheduled for Friday morning, Nov. 15, before Gaetz resigned, was supposed to focus on the investigation into multiple allegations against Gaetz, including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, accepting improper gifts, and obstruction.
Tropical Storm Sara brings dangerous torrential rain to Honduras
Tropical Storm Sara made landfall late Thursday in northern Honduras, bringing torrential rain as it skirts the country’s coast. Authorities there have warned of the potential for dangerous flash flooding and landslides, with the country’s president saying it could “become a catastrophic event.”
Honduran officials have issued the highest-level warning along the country’s northern coast and activated the national police and military for rescue and relief efforts. Sara is expected to move inland, making landfall over Belize on Sunday, Nov. 17, before dissipating over the Yucatán Peninsula, according to the National Hurricane Center.
This marks the 18th named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30.
Annual UFO report finds 21 cases that can’t be explained
Pentagon officials maintain they’ve found no evidence of alien activity, but the government’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) said it takes every report seriously and investigates each one.
If none of this UAP stuff exists, if it’s all false, why at every turn are people trying to stop transparency? You can’t talk about fight club if there’s no fight club. pic.twitter.com/otPGNbwu71
Of the new reports the AARO has received, nearly 50 have already been closed as everyday items, such as balloons, birds or drones. The government agency expects to resolve another 243 cases by identifying them as one of those objects.
More than 400 of the new reports were put into an active archive because there was not enough data or evidence to keep investigating.
Tyson vs. Paul in Netflix’s first live streaming boxing event
The two faced off during a final weigh-in on Thursday, with Tyson slapping Paul. The eight-round match at AT&T Stadium in Texas was postponed from July after Tyson suffered an inflamed ulcer weeks before the bout.
Reports indicate both competitors are expected to have a big payday. Tyson, who has a record of 50-6, will reportedly make $20 million and the 27-year-old Paul, who has a record of 10-1, will make $40 million.
Paul’s startup, Most Valuable Promotions, teamed up with Netflix to bring the fight together.
Netflix currently has more than 282 million paid subscribers worldwide and Paul predicts at least 25 million of them will tune in. If that comes to pass, it’ll make this the most watched boxing match of all time.
Nation’s largest offshore wind project under federal investigation
The nation’s largest offshore wind farm, located 14 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, is now under federal investigation. The Vineyard Wind project, comprised of 62 turbines and designed to power over 400,000 homes once fully operational, suffered a setback during the week of July 14.
The incident occurred when a blade over 350 feet long from one of the turbines broke, scattering debris into the Atlantic Ocean and necessitating the closure of nearby beaches. Shards of fiberglass from the structure, which stands over 800 feet tall, were found washing up on shore.
“Vineyard Wind is fully committed to a swift and safe recovery of all debris, with an unwavering focus on community safety and environmental protection,” Vineyard Wind said in a statement. “As part of its immediate action plan, Vineyard Wind communicated with officials on Nantucket to inform them of the presence of debris and recovery efforts on the southern-facing beaches of the island.”
In response to the malfunction, General Electric, the manufacturer of the turbine, has dispatched a team to investigate the cause of the breakage. Additionally, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), a federal agency under the Department of the Interior, is conducting its own investigation. BSEE has announced that operations at the wind farm will be halted until further notice.
“There were no injuries reported, but operations are shut down until further notice,” a spokesperson for BSEE said. “BSEE is coordinating with the United States Coast Guard and state officials to ensure information sharing. A team of BSEE experts is onsite to work closely with Vineyard Wind on an analysis of the cause of the incident and next steps.”
Vineyard Wind has been working with the U.S. Coast Guard to establish a safety perimeter around the site and to alert passing vessels of the potential hazard. The damaged turbine was still undergoing testing and had not yet been brought online at the time of the breakage.
“We’re making progress in the debris recovery efforts and mobilizing even more resources on the island to hasten the cleanup as quickly as possible,” Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moeller said. “The public can have confidence that we will be here as long as it takes to get the job done and make sure the beaches are cleaned up.”
Officials are currently trying to determine the exact cause of the incident and how to prevent similar occurrences in the future. In the meantime, the Coast Guard has reported that most of the debris has been removed, but boaters are advised to proceed with caution around the area as the cleanup process continues.
One person is dead after a shootout with park rangers at Yellowstone National Park on Thursday, July 4. The incident occurred in the Canyon Village area, where the individual was reportedly making threats. When park rangers approached the suspect, there was an “exchange of gunfire” between the individual and law enforcement, park officials stated.
The suspect died during the incident. The identity of the person has not been released by authorities.
A ranger involved in the incident was injured and is in stable condition at a regional hospital. The area around Canyon Lodge has been sealed off as the FBI, in collaboration with National Park Service special agents, leads the investigation.
Park officials confirm there are no ongoing threats to the public.
Anticipated offshore wind rebound faces first test after Biden admin’s proposal
A pair of recently proposed offshore wind sales by the Biden administration hope to revitalize an industry which took some major hits a year ago. The proposals come after a tumultuous period for offshore wind in 2023. It saw millions of dollars in canceled contracts, delayed projects and utility providers trying to hike rates. However, experts across the industry now predict a turnaround for offshore wind developments in 2024.
To jumpstart further offshore wind development, the Department of the Interior announced two potential lease auctions. One is off the coast of Oregon and the other is in the Gulf of Maine. These sales will encompass over 1 million acres of ocean. They have the combined potential to power over 6 million homes with clean energy.
In conjunction with the proposed development sites for offshore wind, the federal government also unveiled updated regulations surrounding the leasing process. The goal is to enhance certainty and reduce costs associated with offshore wind projects. Therefore, future developers would be less likely to abandon projects.
The offshore lease offering in the Gulf of Maine marks the first of its kind in the region. This comes months after a similar auction took place in the Gulf of Mexico. The Biden administration expressed disappointment after low interest.
That offshore sale saw the purchase of just one of the three zones it offered up for development. The area is now expected to produce less than half the anticipated energy output than if all three sold. The one purchased zone went for the lowest successful bid for a federal offshore wind lease sale since the Obama administration.
Renewable energy plan in Alaska could disturb thousands of acres of nature
Alaska’s wilderness is teeming with wildlife, as bears, moose, elk, and many more species all call this region home. However, beneath this vibrant ecosystem lies an extensive supply of metals, one that will require disturbing thousands of acres of nature to access.
The White House is expected to step in and put an end to the current plans of going after this metal deposit, despite the importance of these resources to the renewable energy transition.
The supply in question is located in a remote region of the state, where a 211-mile-long industrial road must first be built in order to make extracting any of it a possibility.
The proposed road, dubbed the Ambler Access Project, would cross hundreds of rivers and streams, as well as the tribal lands of several Alaska Native communities. Indigenous groups argue doing so would negatively impact the surrounding wildlife their people rely on. The groups said caribou migration patterns would be thrown off and important salmon spawning streams affected.
A 50-year right-of-way permit to move forward and build the road was issued by the federal government during former President Donald Trump’s final days in office. However, the current administration is now changing course. An upcoming environmental analysis of the project from President Joe Biden’s Interior Department will reportedly kill the proposed construction.
Meanwhile, investors in the project maintain these resources may actually need to be extracted anyways for the good of the environment. This is because the metals found here are vital for building renewable energy infrastructure.
According to a 2018 feasibility study, 159 million pounds a copper and 199 million pounds of zinc sit within the site.
Copper is among the most fundamental parts of constructing green energy technology, used to make things like solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and power grids. Zinc is similarly essential to building these things, as the World Economic Forum calls the mineral “critical for a low-carbon economy.”
Together, copper and zinc are two of the planet’s top five most used metals, which is why their deposits in Alaska have already seen tens of millions of dollars spent in the effort to reach them. Should the Biden administration ultimately kill the project, a legal battle from companies trying to recoup some of those expenses may follow.
US to auction public land for oil, gas drilling as COP28 is set to begin
Another 26 parcels on 9,000 acres in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nevada, North Dakota, and Utah will come up for bids on Nov. 30, Dec. 5, and Dec. 12, the same time that international leaders will be meeting at COP28 in Dubai to discuss phasing out fossil fuels.
“We’re disappointed the Biden Administration did not follow through on a promise of no new leasing, and instead, the residents of the Gulf of Mexico are having their resources sold off for bargain prices once again,” said Christian Wagley, coastal organizer at Healthy Gulf.
News of this week’s auction has already drawn criticism from environmental groups, who accuse the president of violating a 2020 campaign pledge.
Once in office, Biden’s attempts to end new leasing of public lands for drilling were blocked by the courts, and the president’s Inflation Reduction Act required oil and gas leases before the federal government could lease land for renewable energy.
The U.S. and dozens of other nations attending COP28 in Dubai hope to solidify the world’s first deal to end fossil fuel use altogether, a deal the nations failed to nail down in July. According to White House officials, President Biden will not attend the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
Biden proposes limited offshore oil and gas leases to support wind energy
The Biden administration has announced a proposal for three offshore oil and gas lease sales over the next five years, all of which will be situated in the Gulf of Mexico. Notably, no lease sales are planned for the Pacific, Atlantic or Alaskan waters.
The rationale behind the administration’s decision to allocate water for oil and gas leasing — despite President Biden’s campaign pledge to transition away from fossil fuels — lies in the crucial role these three leases play in advancing offshore wind development. This connection is established through the Inflation Reduction Act, which links the allocation of water resources for oil and gas with the offshore wind development.
The legislation stipulates that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management can only grant leases for offshore wind if it has already allocated 60 million acres for oil and gas in the previous year.
The Interior Department has stated that these three lease sales are the minimum required to support the administration’s goal of achieving 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.
While the limited number of leases is not expected to have an immediate impact on gas prices at the pump, analysts say it sets the stage for potential challenges in the long term.
Critics of the move, such as the American Energy Alliance, express disapproval.
“While President Biden continues to blame oil and gas companies for sustained high energy prices, his Department of Interior has taken yet another step to curtail domestic production and increase reliance on foreign sources of energy,” Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, said.
First-ever offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico attracts just 2 bids
The recent fist-ever auction of offshore wind farm leases in the Gulf of Mexico has been hailed by the Department of the Interior as a “significant stride” in the Biden administration’s “efforts to create a clean energy future.” However, the response from investors has been less enthusiastic, potentially signaling challenges ahead for the offshore wind industry’s expansion in the region.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) completed auctions on Tuesday, Aug. 29, for three lease areas: one off the coast of Lake Charles, Louisiana, and two off the coast of Galveston, Texas. These combined leasing areas have the potential to generate electricity for nearly 1.3 million homes, presenting a substantial opportunity for clean energy production.
“By catalyzing the offshore wind energy potential of the Gulf of Mexico, we can tackle the climate crisis, lower energy costs for families and create good-paying jobs,” Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland said.
“The Gulf of Mexico is poised to play a key role in our nation’s transition to a clean energy future,” BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein added.
However, the auction saw a lackluster investor turnout. The government received only two bids in total, both of which were directed towards the Lake Charles lease area. The remaining two areas failed to garner any bids.
Renewable energy experts are now suggesting that any anticipated offshore wind boom in the Gulf of Mexico may face delays, with only the Lake Charles sale moving forward.
“This first-ever Gulf offshore wind auction was viewed as a big deal, a potential game changer,” said Mona Dajanj, global head of renewables, energy and infrastructure at the law firm Shearman and Sterling. “Those of us hoping to see a real offshore wind boom in the Gulf may have to wait.”
The subdued interest from investors aligns with ongoing challenges within the offshore wind industry.
Rising costs of turbine building materials have become a hurdle for developers. Since 2020, the average price of the seven most crucial critical minerals required for offshore wind farms has increased by 93%. This surge in costs has prompted some energy companies to opt for paying out substantial sums of millions of dollars to exit their leasing agreements on the East Coast rather than proceed with projects that have become progressively more expensive.
“Two substantial headwinds threaten to make [offshore wind] projects uneconomical,” wrote James E. Hanley, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan think tank Empire Center for Public Policy. “One is the recent high inflation, which raised the costs of materials and labor across all industries, and the other is bottlenecked supply chains that are causing a bidding-up of the prices of materials and components needed for building wind turbines.”
In the Gulf of Mexico, the tepid response to the inaugural wind lease sale was not entirely unexpected among industry leaders. Besides financial pressures faced by developers, the Gulf region presents its own set of challenges. Those challenges include lower wind speeds, the persistent threat of hurricanes and a lack of firm commitment from states in the area to purchasing clean energy.
“The business case in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore wind is very vague, and very uncertain,” said Chelsea Jean-Michel, a wind analyst at BloombergNEF. “It doesn’t really make a lot of sense.”
“It is striking just how bad the economics clearly must be in order for two of the three sites to remain unsold,” said Alon Carmel, a partner at PA Consulting who advises offshore wind companies.
Nonetheless, the Interior Department, responsible for overseeing the lease auctions, has highlighted the sole successful sale as a “vital milestone” in the push by the White House for increased clean energy infrastructure.
The German-based energy company RWE secured the lease for the Lake Charles area following a $5.6 million bid, as the company aims to “deliver a new energy resource into the region.”
The department projects that this lease has the potential to generate sufficient electricity to power about 435,400 homes and could potentially lead to the creation of hundreds of jobs.
“It always looks dire in the short term but the long-term foundation of this industry is still very strong and moving forward,” said Sam Salustro, a spokesperson for the Business Network for Offshore Wind.