In the News
Energy, enviro spending bills ready for Senate action
by Andres Picon
The House passed a three-bill spending package Thursday, an important step toward funding the Department of Energy, the Interior Department, EPA and other agencies after months of tumultuous negotiations. Lawmakers cleared the compromise appropriations bills on a 397-28 vote, sending them over to the Senate, where outstanding disagreements over earmarks and a beleaguered Colorado climate lab could still complicate final passage. The House’s approval of the three bills — … Continue Reading
January 09, 2026
House GOP hits Senate on wildfire bill delay
by Marc Heller
House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman is knocking the Senate for dropping electric utility line protections from a forest management bill that he’s worked to negotiate with colleagues across the Capitol. At a subcommittee hearing Thursday on preventing wildfire damage to the power grid and water supplies, the Arkansas Republican lamented that Senate sponsors of the “Fix Our Forests Act” didn’t include a provision from his previously introduced bill that would have streamlined forest … Continue Reading
January 08, 2026
Trump's UN climate exit will set back progress, advocates warn
by Amy Harder, Chuck McCutcheon
President Trump's decision to yank the U.S. from UN climate change agencies will set back international progress on addressing the climate, observers say. Why it matters: The U.S. is the world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and provides much of the scientific heft addressing the problem. Climate scientists and activists predicted it will furher isolate the U.S. on the global stage. ... For full article, click … Continue Reading
January 08, 2026
Congress Tries, but Fails, to Take a Stand for Its Own Powers
by Annie Karni
Republicans on Capitol Hill on Thursday did something they have done little of in recent years: They tried pushing back against President Trump and standing up for their own, coequal branch of government. In the House, dozens of Republicans voted with Democrats on Thursday afternoon in an attempt to override Mr. Trump’s first two vetoes of his second term. But with most of the G.O.P. siding with the president, they ultimately did not have enough votes to clear the two-thirds threshold … Continue Reading
January 07, 2026
California's congressional delegation renews call for federal aid on anniversary of wildfires
by Linh Tat
On the one-year anniversary of the Southern California wildfires, elected officials from Los Angeles County and across the state renewed their calls for additional federal disaster aid to help communities impacted by the Palisades and Eaton fires continue to recover, U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, along with every U.S. House representative from California, sent a letter to President Donald Trump on Wednesday, Jan. 7, urging him to request Congress to pass additional supplemental … Continue Reading
January 07, 2026
Storm runoff and tidal surge bring glimpse into forecast future for Marin's waterfront
by Noah Abrams, Ruth Dussealt
Marin County got a taste of its forecast climate future this past weekend. A combination of king tides, winter storms and high winds closed parts of U.S. Highway 101 in the area, flooded homes and vehicles, and left whole neighborhoods stranded islands. On Monday morning Congressman Jared Huffman and Marin County officials visited some of the hardest-hit areas around Larkspur and Corte Madera. "It wasn't perfect, but you know, we kept it at bay for the most part," Ryan Davis, general … Continue Reading
January 06, 2026
Marin tidal flooding prompts renewed push for fortification
by Steven Rosenfeld
As another wave of rain hit Marin County on Monday morning, U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman and top county officials toured sites hit hardest by the weekend flooding and pledged to continue their efforts to shore up vulnerable infrastructure. “This area has been worried about events like this for a long time,” said Huffman, standing on a raised road to Santa Margarita Island in the Santa Venetia neighborhood of San Rafael. Behind Huffman was a muddy creek bordered by an earthen levee that abutted the … Continue Reading
January 05, 2026
Rep. Huffman tours flooded Marin, says county was ‘caught off guard’ by storm surge
by Ruth Dusseault
Marin County got a taste of its climate future this weekend: a combination of king tides, winter storms and high winds closed parts of U.S. Highway 101, flooded homes and vehicles, and left whole neighborhoods islanded. Congressman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, visited some of the hardest-hit areas with county officials on Monday at a series of rain-soaked press briefings. “One of the things that strikes me about the last 48 to 72 hours is we seem to have been caught off guard by the scale of … Continue Reading
January 05, 2026
Humboldt rallies around community members affected by Friday’s fire
by Sage Alexander
A fire Friday in Arcata caused an estimated $18 million in damages, and resulted in people losing their homes, businesses and art studios located in Arcata’s downtown. The Arcata Fire chief described the blaze as a “once in a career type of a fire.” Arcata Fire believes 4 buildings hosting 7 businesses and a number of above-ground apartments were completely destroyed, with a few nearby seeing smoke, heat and flooding damage. The number of people displaced from apartments inside was not … Continue Reading
December 23, 2025
Trump administration intervenes in dispute over fate of PG&E’s Potter Valley Project
by Phil Barber
Opponents of a plan to remove two Pacific Gas & Electric-owned dams from the Eel River in Lake and Mendocino counties have officially won a huge ally: the Trump administration. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Friday filed a notice to intervene in the utility giant’s bid to decommission its waterworks in the rural area, which also include a century-old power plant that helps to shunt Eel River water into irrigation canals that support Mendocino County’s Potter Valley and dump into … Continue Reading
December 18, 2025
Trump’s Energy Agenda Has Taken Over Congress’ Permitting Reform Ambitions
by Shifra Dayak
The House just passed one of its biggest permitting reform moves in years. A last-minute addition undermining wind projects cost the proposal much of its Democratic support. Most Republicans and 11 Democrats voted Thursday to pass the SPEED Act, which would reduce the level of environmental review required to build infrastructure under the National Environmental Policy Act. Both parties have pointed to the environmental statute as one of the biggest barriers to development in the … Continue Reading
December 18, 2025
Lawmakers criticize Trump’s bid to take over D.C. golf courses
by Rick Maese
With a takeover threat looming, Democratic lawmakers criticized the Trump administration’s apparent bid to wrest control of Washington’s public golf courses, with one congressman saying the default process that the government is using appears to break from the National Park Service’s lease requirements. The 50-year lease between the National Park Service and nonprofit National Links Trust requires the government to identify specific violations and give the operator time to fix them before … Continue Reading
December 18, 2025
House passes bill to cut red tape blocking energy and infrastructure projects
by Callie Patteson
The House of Representatives passed bipartisan legislation Thursday to accelerate federal approvals of infrastructure and energy projects, a reform that has long been considered a “white whale” in Congress. The Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act cleared the House in a 221-196 vote, with 11 Democrats voting in favor and one Republican voting against. The bill, introduced by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR), is the latest effort by … Continue Reading
December 15, 2025
Trump’s plan to pump more water in California is ill-conceived and harmful, lawmakers say
by Ian James
A Trump administration plan to pump more water to Central Valley farmlands is facing vehement opposition from Democratic members of Congress who represent the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and the Bay Area. A group of seven legislators led by Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) said pumping more water will threaten the availability of water for many Californians, disrupt longstanding state-federal cooperation and put the Delta’s native fish at risk. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s … Continue Reading
December 12, 2025
Park Service orders changes to staff ratings, a move experts call illegal
by Jake Spring
A top National Park Service official has instructed park superintendents to limit the number of staff who get top marks in performance reviews, according to three people familiar with the matter, a move that experts say violates federal code and could make it easier to lay off staff. Parks leadership generally evaluate individual employees annually on a five-point scale, with a three rating given to those who are successful in achieving their goals, with those exceeding expectations … Continue Reading
December 12, 2025
A new federal report scrutinizes Puerto Rico’s tax incentives luring wealthy Americans
by Dánica Coto
Puerto Rico tax incentives that have lured thousands of rich Americans to the U.S. territory for over a decade are under scrutiny after federal legislators released a new report on Friday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The report found that the island’s exemptions could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and it urged the International Revenue Service to improve its oversight, warning that some recipients “may not be meeting their federal tax obligations.” The … Continue Reading
December 11, 2025
House passes permitting bill to ease Clean Water Act and boost pipelines
by Josh Siegel
The GOP-led House passed a trio of bills Thursday aimed at speeding up permitting for energy projects and bolstering power grid reliability. The bills, passed largely on partisan lines, are unlikely to be taken up by the Senate. But GOP lawmakers are looking to put their stamp on a bipartisan priority of lowering regulatory hurdles that several industries blame for hampering energy project development as power demand surges and electricity prices rise. Most notably, the House voted 221-205 … Continue Reading
December 09, 2025
Court invalidates Trump suspension of offshore wind permits
by Robert Schaulis
A U.S. District Court decision has vacated the Trump administration’s “Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf From Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects” executive memorandum this week, declaring the January order “arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law.” The memo directed the Interior Department to indefinitely withdraw all offshore wind leases and “conduct a comprehensive review of the … Continue Reading
December 09, 2025
Federal Court Strikes Down Trump’s Offshore Wind Ban
by Isabella Vanderheiden
President Donald Trump’s offshore wind ban has been overturned. On Monday, Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts ruled that President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order halting permits and leasing for new wind energy projects is “unlawful,” vacating the order and ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, which include 17 states and Washington, D.C. A group of environmental advocacy groups, including the Arcata-based Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), filed an … Continue Reading
December 07, 2025
Looming SNAP cuts spark concern for food-access advocates
by Natalia Gurevich
Food-access advocates in San Francisco are beginning to brace for the consequences of federal funding cuts that will take effect in the new year. Their consternation follows the chaos created within the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the recent 43-day federal-government shutdown. “One of the misconceptions ... is that SNAP benefits were at risk during the government shutdown, and then when the shutdown concluded, that everything was back to normal,” said Dr. Hilary … Continue Reading