Today, State Senator Mike Woodard (D-22) and State Representative Brian Turner (D-116) joined Dr. Robert A. Parr, DO, a Medical Advocate for Healthy Air for Clean Air Carolina, and Drew Ball, State Director for Environment North Carolina, to speak out against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rollback of U.S. clean car standards in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual press conference was hosted by Environment North Carolina.
This past Tuesday in a major reversal, President Trump announced he is extending the moratorium, which former-President Obama used to protect parts of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans from drilling and which the Trump Administration has sought to overturn, to protect the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, but not North Carolina.
A roundtable hosted by Congressman Richard Hudson (NC-08) was held this past tuesday in Fayetteville to discuss the ongoing PFAS crisis in North Carolina. The roundtable was attended by mostly Republican elected officials and Trump appointees including the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) administrator, Andrew Wheeler, and the press and public were not invited, severely hampering any public participation. Wheeler discussed the actions that the agency has been taking under the PFAS Action Plan to address these emerging chemicals.
The Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis released a long-awaited report Tuesday, making the case for comprehensive climate solutions that would meet the goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. This scientific target, set in 2018 by the International Panel on Climate Change, would keep the Earth from warming more than 1.5 degrees, avoiding the worst impacts of global warming.
The Department of the Interior said Monday that it will begin an oil leasing program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to multiple media reports. The 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the refuge has been in the crosshairs of oil and gas companies for decades. With this decision, oil lease auctions are expected to begin before the end of the year.
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