Inside Climate News

In the 02/05/2018 edition: Fossil Fuels Evangelist Drops Bid for Top Trump Environment Post Troubled by Trump's Climate Denial, Scientists Aim to Set the Record Straight Trump's Arctic Oil, Gas Lease Sale Violated Environmental Rules, Lawsuits Claim Fossil Fuels Evangelist Drops Bid for Top Trump Environment Post Kathleen Hartnett White, who said coal helped end slavery and CO2 was not a pollutant but 'the gas of life', had struggled with basic science in her Senate hearing.  BY MARIANNE LAVELLE  The White House has given up its attempt to make fossil fuel advocate and climate policy opponent Kathleen Hartnett White the president's top environmental adviser. Her nomination apparently failed to garner enough support among Senate Republicans after a confirmation process her critics called "excruciating." SEE ALSO:  Trump’s Top Environment Pick, a Fossil Fuels Evangelist, May Be in Trouble How Big Oil Lost Control of Its Climate Misinformation Machine Troubled by Trump's Climate Denial, Scientists Aim to Set the Record Straight Climate Denial Pervades the Trump White House, But It's Hitting Some Limits read more   Troubled by Trump's Climate Denial, Scientists Aim to Set the Record Straight The president's lack of understanding of climate science has led top science groups, including the UN's climate panel, to offer their expertise in simpler ways.  BY GEORGINA GUSTIN Even for the adamantly apolitical American Meteorological Society, President Donald Trump's fumbling disputations of climate change in a recent television interview were too much. SEE ALSO:  How Big Oil Lost Control of Its Climate Misinformation Machine Whistleblower Case Shows How Trump Tries to Silence Science 5 Shades of Climate Denial, All on Display in the Trump White House As Climate Talks Open, Federal Report Exposes U.S. Credibility Gap read more   Trump's Arctic Oil, Gas Lease Sale Violated Environmental Rules, Lawsuits Claim Earthjustice and other groups say the National Petroleum Reserve lease sale failed to consider how burning the fossil fuels might impact climate change.  BY SABRINA SHANKMAN An expanding legal campaign to force federal agencies to take climate change into account when making big energy decisions has a new frontier: Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve. Environmentalists on Friday challenged a record-breaking oil and gas lease sale there by the Trump administration, which offered up 10 million acres for drilling in December. In a pair of lawsuits, environmental groups argued that the lease sale broke a key law by ignoring climate and other environmental impacts. SEE ALSO:  Congress Opens Arctic Wildlife Refuge to Drilling, But Do Companies Want In? As Hilcorp Plans to Drill in Arctic Waters, a Troubling Trail of Violations Surfaces Trump's Promise to Pay for Infrastructure With Fossil Fuel Revenue Rings Hollow read more