President Biden signed an executive order Friday aimed at ensuring federal decisions consider "environmental justice," which addresses higher pollution burdens often faced by communities of color and people living in poverty.
Driving the news: The new executive order directs agencies to identify and address data and science gaps to help better understand cumulative environmental impacts.
Xprize, a nonprofit that holds international contests to stimulate technological innovation, unveiled an $11-million dollar competition on Friday to transform how the world detects and fights wildfires.
Why it matters: With global warming and land-use change projected to make wildfires more frequent, intense, and possibly more destructive, wildfire agencies around the world may have to the adopt novel technologies and techniques to control future blazes.
A new, first-of-its-kind federal census of older trees on federal lands may presage a battle over whether and how to expand forest protections, specifically as a climate policy.
Driving the news: The United States contains more than 100 million acres of old-growth and mature forests on government lands, according to the tree census conducted by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management and released Thursday.
A severe storm system unleashed strong winds and hail over the Central U.S. and spawned several tornadoes from Wednesday night into Thursday morning — including one in Oklahoma that authorities saidkilledat least three people.
The big picture: The National Weather Service issued severe thunderstorm warnings across the region on Wednesday night, along with tornado watches and warnings for six states: Kansas, Missouri,Nebraska, Iowa, Texas and Oklahoma. More storms could affect a broad region on Thursday.
Scenes from a price war: Tesla's profits and margins fell in Q1 as several rounds of price cuts hit the EV maker's financials.
Driving the news: Tesla reported a $2.5 billion Q1 profit and $23.3 billion in revenues (the lion's share from its car business), during a quarter that saw record deliveries.
Huge demands attached to the House GOP's debt ceiling bill are unlikely to succeed, but squint just right and some pieces could form the basis for negotiations.
Driving the news: The Republican leadership's bill to raise the debt limit incorporates their big energy legislation, including provisions to speed energy project permits.
