The nation is at a “pivotal moment” in environmental law and Monday, April 15 is the deadline for public comment to a proposed ruling by the Trump administration that would reduce the amount of waters and wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act of 1972.
President Obama’s administration blocked President Trump from expanding the area open to offshore oil drilling, including off Georgia’s coast, a federal judge has ruled. On a related front, the Georgia House approved Tuesday a resolution opposing the exploration and drilling for oil off Georgia’s coast.
As MARTA and its advocates in Gwinnett County look beyond the unofficial negative transit vote Tuesday, the Trump administration is looking forward to a transportation future replete with innovations including hyperloops and autonomous vehicles – albeit with no details about how to pay for it or the nation’s existing infrastructure needs.
The Census Bureau on Monday unveiled the $500 million communication platform for the 2020 count of the nation’s population – “Shape your future. START HERE.” The release comes as the decennial count remains mired in litigation brought by several states and the NAACP.
The real-time snapshot of the Southeast regional economy released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve cites concerns over politics and trade. This notion of unease tracks comments in a speech the Fed’s vice chairman delivered last week, when he observed that patience is the watchword at the start of 2019.
Amid reports that the Trump administration intends to announce next week a reduction in the amount of wetlands and waterways covered by the federal Clean Water Act, the Southern Environmental Law Center is condemning the proposed step as the most destructive of Trump’s rollback of environmental rules.
The Trump administration has submitted to the White House a new definition of the “Waters of the United States,” a proposal the Southern Environmental Law Center contends could remove environmental protections from up to 60 percent of the nation’s streams and more than 90 percent of wetlands.
Emory University is continuing to support the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, joining 16 other leading universities in urging the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York to support the program and reject the Trump administration’s effort to end DACA.
A large swath of economically challenged Georgia communities got a boost from the Trump administration in the weeks after Georgia lawmakers passed a package of legislation aimed at helping rural areas where folks struggle to make ends meet.
By Guest Columnist NEILL HERRING, a lobbyist for environmental organizations and armchair historian
Sonny Perdue, the Secretary of Agriculture for the whole, entire United States, and former governor of Georgia, has come out in favor of what used to called “surplus commodities.” This is his proposed substitute for what used to be called “food stamps.” Sonny said, early in his secretaryship, that program, now called SNAP, was “not broken,” and therefore needed no fixing.
By Guest Columnist STANLEY ROMANSTEIN, professor of practice, Creative Media Industries Institute at Georgia State University, and principal with BLJackson Associates
In 1965 the U.S Congress – both Republicans and Democrats – expressed the firm belief that, “Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens. It must therefore foster and support a form of education, and access to the arts and humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located, masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants.”
An Atlanta solar coalition is reporting strong and favorable response to its effort to provide low-cost solar panels for buildings of all types in the city. Solarize Atlanta is moving ahead amid significant shake-ups in the solar power marketplace.
Whatever President Trump actually said about Haiti, the spirit of the comments doesn’t square in Georgia. Haitian soldiers sailed to defend Savannah during the Revolutionary War. On Monday, an Atlanta human rights leader who’s active in Haiti observed that Haiti’s modern woes stem from lingering resentment, and resulting poverty, over the outcome of Haiti’s revolution that overthrew the French in 1804.
The continental waters off Georgia’s coast are to opened to drilling for oil and natural gas in leases to be signed in 2020, 2022, and 2024, under a draft proposal released Thursday by the Trump administration that would open most of the nation’s seabed to drilling. Environmental groups have announced their opposition to the plan.
By Guest Columnist BILL SAPP, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center
In the past year, the devastation inflicted from hurricanes Matthew and Irma serves as a stark reminder that Georgia’s coast is vulnerable to the vagaries of nature. Wrecking countless homes and businesses, and shredding boats and docks along the entire coast, these hurricanes flooded St. Marys and Tybee Island, pounded the beaches of Jekyll Island and Cumberland Island, and overtopped the sea walls in Savannah and St. Simons.
The most dominant national headlines in recent weeks have highlighted a fundamental principle that’s often overlooked but cannot be overstated: Science matters. From predicting dangerous tropical storms to charting the path of an eclipse or utterly discrediting the claims of hate-filled racists, science may ultimately help to save us, if only from ourselves.
This hardly seems a good time for Georgia to update its transportation spending plan, given the drama in Washington. For starters, President Trump is attacking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the husband of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao – who is rumored to be considering resigning her post.
The ascension of France on the global stage was exemplified on July 14 – Bastille Day – when Frenchman Warren Barguil gave France its first Bastille Day Tour de France victory in 12 years.
But an even more significant sign was when U.S. President Donald Trump accepted an invitation from the recently-elected President of France – Emmanuel Macron – to spend Bastille Day in Paris.
On the heels of reports that rank Atlanta among cities with the most green buildings, the city of Atlanta and its partners have recognized nearly 80 buildings that are leaders in the Atlanta Better Buildings Challenge.
Metro Atlanta has climbed to third place on the fourth annual Green Building Adoption Index, an index led by CBRE, a real estate firm. But the big news appears in at the start of the executive summary – regarding the potential demise of the green building movement.
