Current conditions: Extreme heat in southeastern Australia triggered fire bans • More than 260 flood alerts are in place across England and Wales • A snow emergency is in effect in Washington, D.C., where lawmakers are set to gather today to certify President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.
THE TOP FIVE
1. Major winter storm sweeps across U.S.
More than 60 million people across 30 states are under weather warnings as a winter storm bears down. At least seven states have declared emergencies: Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Arkansas, and New Jersey. One of the hardest-hit cities is Kansas City, Missouri, which got about a foot of snow. The system – dubbed Winter Storm Blair by the Weather Channel – is moving east now and will bring six to 12 inches of snow, as well as icy conditions, to the mid-Atlantic. The National Weather Service warned that “travelers should anticipate significant disruptions.” After this storm passes, temperatures will continue to plunge well below normal throughout much of the nation. “Should the cold wave evolve to its full potential, maximum temperature departures could plunge 30-40 degrees Fahrenheit below the historical average from the northern Plains and Midwest to the interior Southeast through the first two weeks of January,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Duffus. The forecast prompted Jim Robb, the CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., to put out a warning via YouTube about the potential for power outages. Robb urged everyone within the power system to prepare for the worst. “The actions you take now may very well help us avoid the consequences of events such as we saw in Texas in 2021 and in the mid-Atlantic in 2022,” he said. As of this morning, about 300,000 customers were without power across Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia.
2. Biden moves to ban offshore drilling across 625 million acres
The White House today announced that President Biden will move to permanently ban new offshore oil and gas drilling across huge swathes of U.S. coastal waters. “Biden has determined that the environmental and economic risks and harms that would result from drilling in these areas outweigh their limited fossil fuel resource potential,” the administration said. The 625 million acres included in the protections will cover the entire East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California, as well as parts of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska. As Politico noted, most of those areas are of little interest to the oil and gas industry, but “the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico is believed to hold large untapped reservoirs of oil.” It will be difficult for the incoming Trump administration to dismantle Biden’s ban, but the fossil fuel industry is likely to challenge it. With this decision, Biden will have conserved more lands and waters than any other U.S. president, the White House added. “President Biden has been a steadfast champion for climate progress from Day One of his administration,” Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, said in a statement. “His legacy of conservation and advocacy to protect our climate will leave an indelible mark on the health of our communities and our environment.”
3. NYC launches congestion pricing
The first congestion pricing scheme in the U.S. officially came into effect on Sunday. Drivers entering lower Manhattan during peak hours will now have to pay $9, which is down from the $15 fee originally proposed. Gov. Kathy Hochul paused the ambitious plan last summer, then hastily reinstated it at the lower rate before the incoming Trump administration could do anything to block it. The program aims to reduce traffic and pollution in New York City, with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority estimating it will cut traffic by 10% and raise money to pay for infrastructure upgrades. Its success – or failure – could help inform other cities that might consider similar moves. A “congestion pricing tracker” is monitoring the new scheme’s effect on commutes in real-time. Here’s a snapshot of the data from the Holland Tunnel yesterday, where commute times seem to have been cut down to about 10 minutes from 30 minutes:
Congestion Pricing Tracker
4. Speaker Johnson targets energy policy
After being re-elected as House speaker on Friday, Mike Johnson made it clear that energy policy would be a top priority for the new Congress. “We have to stop the attacks on liquefied natural gas, pass legislation to eliminate the Green New Deal,” Johnson said. “We’re going to expedite new drilling permits, we’re going to save the jobs of our auto manufacturers, and we’re going to do that by ending the ridiculous EV mandates.” Of course, there is no actual “Green New Deal” to eliminate, nor any EV mandates to end. Those minor details aside, Johnson’s message signalled that the fight over President Biden’s landmark climate and energy policies has only just begun. “It is our duty to restore America’s energy dominance,” Johnson said, “and that’s what we’ll do.”
5. Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge gets 22,000-acre expansion
In case you missed it: The Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday finalized a decision to expand the boundaries of a Georgia wildlife refuge by 22,000 acres. The new boundaries for the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, the largest blackwater swamp in North America, will include some lands that mining company Twin Pines Minerals had hoped to use to mine titanium dioxide. Environmental groups (and the Biden administration) opposed the mine; Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said it “poses an unacceptable risk to the long-term hydrology” of the swamp. In its statement, the FWS called the expansion “minor,” but said it would help “strengthen protection of the hydrological integrity of the swamp, provide habitat for the gopher tortoise, mitigate impacts of wildfires, and provide opportunities for longleaf pine restoration to benefit the red-cockaded woodpecker.”
THE KICKER
Thirteen of the world’s busiest oil ports could be badly damaged by rising sea levels as soon as 2070, according to recent scientific analysis.
