Focus
California approves ambitious new plan to deal with climate change and sea-level rise
San Francisco Chronicle – February 26
The state's Ocean Protection Council, the cabinet-level policy body within the California Natural Resources Agency, last Wednesday adopted a bold new plan to protect California’s ocean ecosystem from climate change. The “Strategic Plan to Protect California’s Coast and Ocean: 2020-2025,” calling for rule-making involving numerous state agencies, sets ambitious goals to restore coastal wetlands, prepare for sea-level rise, create intertidal beach habitat, rebuild devastated kelp forests, monitor algal blooms, remove microplastics, and protect whales and sea turtles along the coast and in the ocean. The plan sets strict targets for each of its recommendations, including that coastal communities should make their shorelines resilient enough to handle 3.5 feet of sea-level rise by 2050.
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News
Youth climate plaintiffs urge full federal appeals court to review and revive their lawsuit
The Oregonian – March 3
Twenty-one young plaintiffs who sued the U.S. government in the Juliana v. United States climate lawsuit petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to review and revive the case. They argue that the full court should review the January dismissal, citing the "unparalleled gravity of the case," and contend the divided panel ruling undermines the role of the judiciary. Earlier this year, a three-member panel of the court found 2-1 that the high-profile youth climate change lawsuit was beyond the power of a federal court judge to order or design a remedial plan for a problem that requires complex policy decisions and instead is a case that must be made to politicians or voters. The plaintiffs sued the government five years ago, asserting a constitutional right to a sustainable climate and wanted the federal court to order the United States to prepare an energy plan that transitions the nation away from fossil fuels.
Federal government facing possible lawsuit over ‘ship strikes’ killing endangered whales off California coast
NBC Bay Area – March 3
The Center for Biological Diversity on Monday filed a "notice of intent to sue" letter, contending that the U.S. Coast Guard and National Marine Fisheries Service's five-year initiative implementing voluntary speed limits along shipping lanes that feed into the San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles, and Long Beach violates the Endangered Species Act for failing to adequately protect endangered whales and sea turtles off the California coast. The filing comes just one week after NBC Bay Area revealed that 77 percent of shipping companies that send vessels into the Bay are failing to adhere to the federal government's suggested 10 knot speed limit, and whales are being hit and killed off the California coast at some of the highest rates in more than a decade. According to the Center's letter, which demands the administration adopt mandatory speed limits, the National Marine Fisheries Service has systematically disregarded or failed to properly utilize the best available scientific data showing that voluntary ship speed reduction efforts are ineffectual.
U.S. considers more water recycling, including from oilfields
U.S. News & World Report – February 27
The heads of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of the Interior, last Thursday announced the release of a water-recycling plan for the wastewater that industries, cities, and farms release, including the billions of barrels of watery waste generated by oil and gas fields each year. Some environmental groups fear the federal government will use the project to allow businesses to offload hazardous wastewater in ways that threaten drinking water sources and otherwise risk public health while businesses have urged the federal government to allow them more ways to get rid of their increasing volumes of wastewater. The plan includes finishing a study that will support consideration of “potential regulatory and nonregulatory approaches” to reusing oilfield wastewater by April, the EPA said. In California, initial projects have included watering orchards and some other crops with water that includes oilfield wastewater.
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