Interior chief says offshore drilling plan not ‘indefinitely sidelined’
Rebecca Beitsch, The Hill, May 7, 2019
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said Tuesday the department will complete development of a five-year offshore drilling plan, despite earlier comments that plan had been put on hold. Responding to questions from Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) in reference to a Wall Street Journal interview in which he said the the plan had been indefinitely sidelined, Bernhardt said the department still has a few more years to complete its plan before a new one is required in 2022. Pingree, who referred to offshore drilling as universally opposed in Maine, pushed Bernhardt to take it completely off the table. The Interior chief assured her that state concerns would be paramount in making a determination. “I’m not aware of a single lease that was ever developed over the opposition of a state,” he said.
The college perspective on climate change
Amy Harder, Axios, May 6, 2019
America’s youngest voters are more worried about climate change, more supportive of big government and more likely to identify as Democrats than older generations. Why it matters: By Election Day 2020, millennials and those in the younger generation known as Gen Z will represent more than a third of eligible voters, according to a recent survey by Harvard University. The poll found that more than 50% of likely voters between 18 and 29 say the government should do more to curb climate change, even at the expense of economic growth.
Related:
For the first time ever, an Arctic Council ministerial meeting has ended without a joint declaration
Martin Breum, Arctic Today, May 7, 2019
A meeting of all eight Arctic foreign ministers, including U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov, ended on Tuesday in Rovaniemi, Finland without a joint declaration to signal common ambitions and direction for the work of the Arctic Council for the coming two years. This is the first Arctic Council ministerial meeting to end without such a declaration. Two months of intense negotiations, including last-minute efforts in advance of the Rovaniemi meeting, was not enough to forge consensus between U.S. delegates, Indigenous people’s representatives and delegates from the other seven Arctic states on wording and ambitions on climate change. The presence of the ministers themselves was not enough to soften U.S. opposition to any mention of climate change in the declaration.
