More than 12% of the total land area of the United States and almost 20% of its marine area are protected by a combination of state and federal protections. However, only 5% of the U.S.’ total land mass is designated federally protected wilderness. The Wilderness Act, the strongest federal protection for public lands, preserves these...
The first case of COVID-19 in the United States was recorded on January 21, 2020; by May 1 over 1,000,000 cases had been reported. To slow the spread of the virus, states across the country issued stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders, instituted social distancing measures, and closed non-essential businesses. President Trump declared a national emergency on...
In order to comply with the Paris Agreement, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama passed the Clean Power Plan, a standard that used the Clean Air Act to require carbon emissions from the power sector to fall 32% by 2030, relative to 2005 levels. The plan did not regulate individual power plants directly,...
The United States does not have a federal carbon price. However, at the state and regional level, eleven states covering approximately thirty percent of the U.S. population participate in carbon pricing programs in the form of Cap and Trade systems. These include the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) for Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states and California’s...
On November 4, 2019, President Donald Trump officially began the formal process to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. Although the President had announced his intent in June of 2017, he was unable to formally submit the intent to withdraw until three years after the agreement had entered into force. Climate activists and opponents...
