Climate

Native American and a national environmental group separately outlined plans Monday to resist the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back regulations and build more oil and gas pipeline projects.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry told lawmakers that he regrets saying he would dismantle the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and said he believes climate change is real, making him the third high profile appointment to break from President-elect Donald Trump on the issue.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry told lawmakers that he regrets saying he would dismantle the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and said he believes climate change is real, making him the third high profile appointment to break from President-elect Donald Trump on the issue.

Introducing himself as an “unapologetic admirer of Teddy Roosevelt,” Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) told lawmakers considering his confirmation as the next secretary of the Department of Interior (DOI) that he believes climate change is real, a significant departure from President-elect Donald Trump.

Former ExxonMobil Corp. CEO Rex W. Tillerson said he would recuse himself for one year from matters directly related to his 41-year employer if he is confirmed as President-elect Trump’s Secretary of State.

President Obama said he believes the clean energy economy that developed during his eight years in the White House will be “irreversible,” due in large part to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) driving down the cost and pollution associated with power generation.

Claiming approved energy projects on federal lands could be put in jeopardy, Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman just before the Christmas holiday weekend intervened on the side of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups against the federal agency.

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), a five-term Republican and the highest-ranking woman in the GOP leadership, as secretary of the Department of Interior (DOI), according to reports.

CEOs of 10 of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world — although none based in the United States — each pledged Friday to invest an average of $100 million a year over the next decade in “climate investments” to create low-carbon technologies that would, among other things, reduce methane emissions from operations.