"For the past 25 years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has helped develop building codes, the construction standards that help houses survive hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes. Now, the Trump Administration has ordered that to stop, according to people involved with the work."
"Ten new electric vehicle battery factories are on track to go online this year in the United States."
"The National Science Foundation fired 168 employees on Tuesday. According to an NSF spokesperson, the firings are to ensure compliance with President Trump's executive order aimed at reducing the federal workforce in the name of efficiency."
"The Energy Department on Friday afternoon announced it would “postpone” Biden’s efficiency rules for lightbulbs, clothes washers and dryers, air conditioners, air compressors and gas-powered water heaters."
A coming lithium rush in Arkansas drew the notice of journalist Katie Myers, who used a grant from the Fund for Environmental Journalism to explore whether extraction activities near once-booming energy communities could avoid the economic and environmental impacts of another boom-and-bust cycle for a largely Black region with histories of land dispossession, plantation slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Lessons learned in the latest FEJ StoryLog.
"On February 5th, EPA removed from its website the environmental justice mapping and screening tool, EJScreen, as well as several related web pages. ... Public Environmental Data Partners (PEDP) released a reconstruction of Version 2.3 of EPA’s EJScreen."
"The Dungeness crab fishery is under increasing regulation as California tries to prevent whales from getting entangled in fishing gear. Facing a truncated season and sharp limits on how many pots they can throw, crabbers wonder whether the industry can survive. Experiments with a new form of pop-up crabbing gear show promise and could offer a solution."
"President Donald Trump is moving to reverse a federal push away from plastic straws, declaring that paper straws “don’t work” and don’t last very long."
In Part 2 of a two-part EJ Academy, SEJournal’s Emilia Askari examines changes artificial intelligence is bringing to journalism — among them possibilities for the analysis of data, including on climate and the environment. Plus, ways to use AI tools more effectively and how to track news organizations’ response to and use of AI. Also: Part 1, AI in the classroom.
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