Companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin may be able to forgo reviews required under National Environmental Policy Act
Donald Trump is looking to relax environmental rules for commercial spaceship companies. In an executive order titled “Enabling Competition in the Commercial Space Industry” that he signed on Wednesday, he said it’s imperative to national security that the private rocket-ship industry increase launches “substantially” by 2030.
That would mean, according to the executive order, that those companies may be able to forgo the environmental reviews that are required under the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa). Private space companies are required to obtain launch permits from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). And, as part of that process, companies are subject to review under Nepa.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/13/2025 - 19:50
08/13/2025 - 13:56
Almost 100 countries reject draft treaty as ‘unambitious’ and ‘inadequate’
Talks on the world’s first legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution have stalled just one day before the negotiations are due to end.
Some of the countries calling for an ambitious treaty to include targets to reduce plastic production, including Colombia, the EU and the UK, have rejected as “unacceptable” and “unambitious” a draft treaty text that does not include production caps, nor address chemicals used in plastic products.
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08/13/2025 - 13:51
Commission approves limited season despite calls of cruelty over use of bows and arrows, food traps and dogs
Wildlife groups have condemned a decision by regulators in Florida to allow the hunting of black bears for the first time in a decade, and to permit “barbaric” practices including the use of bait traps, archery and dog packs.
The unanimous vote by the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission (FWC) on Wednesday to approve a limited hunting season in December followed a presentation from staff insisting that a rising bear population and increasing encounters with humans warranted a reduction in numbers.
This article was amended on 14 August 2025 to identify KT Bryden as director of Florida Bear Tracks and correctly attribute a quote about bear populations to her.
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08/13/2025 - 12:00
Some experts tee up public comment on EPA report calling fossil fuel concerns overblown, as others fast-track review
Veteran climate scientists are organizing a coordinated public comment to a US Department of Energy (DOE) report that cast doubt on the scientific consensus on the climate crisis.
The report, published late last month, claimed concerns about planet-warming fossil fuels are overblown, sparking widespread concern from scientists who said it was full of climate misinformation; it was an attempt to support a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to undo the “endangerment finding”, which forms the legal basis of virtually all US climate regulations.
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08/13/2025 - 10:47
State of emergency declared around Chattanooga as child and two adults killed and heavy rain closes roads
Flash flooding and torrential rain has cost at least three lives in Tennessee on Wednesday and caused havoc on the roads around Chattanooga, as the county mayor declared a state of emergency.
A tree uprooted from saturated ground and fell on a family in their car early on Wednesday morning, in East Ridge, on the outskirts of Chattanooga, killing a child and two adults, according to authorities in the area.
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08/13/2025 - 10:00
Almost all of the ‘sex discordant’ birds were genetically female but had male reproductive organs, study finds
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About 5% of common Australian wild birds including kookaburras and lorikeets could have undergone a “sex reversal” where their genetic sex does not match their reproductive organs, according to a new study.
The study is thought to be the first to find widespread sex reversal across multiple wild bird species, but the cause of the phenomenon is not yet known.
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08/13/2025 - 09:20
August is on track to be hottest on record, with temperatures hitting at least 110F (43C) nearly every day
More than 400 people are suspected to have died from extreme heat in Maricopa county, Arizona, so far this summer, according to official figures, as the brutal current heatwave enters its 12th day.
August is on track to be the hottest on record, with temperatures hitting at least 110F (43C) every day apart from one so far. As of 11 August, at least three daily records had been broken including an all-time monthly high of 118F (48C), as well as several night-time record temperatures, according to Isaac Smith, meteorologist at the National Weather Service (NWS) in Phoenix.
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08/13/2025 - 09:14
Officials say temporary barriers helped Juneau avoid hundreds of flooded homes from Mendenhall Glacier melt
Newly installed river barriers held back record levels of flooding and prevented widespread damage in Alaska’s capital city on Wednesday, after an ice dam at the nearby Mendenhall Glacier released a huge surge of rainwater and snowmelt, officials said.
Water pooled on several streets and in some yards in Juneau after the Mendenhall River crested earlier in the day, and high water was expected to persist for hours. But many residents in the flood zone had evacuated before peak water levels, and there were no damage reports similar to the past two summers, when about 300 homes were flooded.
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08/13/2025 - 07:12
Environment minister says blazes, in which two people have died, are proof of country’s vulnerability to global heating
The heatwave-fuelled wildfires that have killed two people in Spain over recent days, devouring thousands of hectares of land and forcing thousands of people from their homes, are a “clear warning” of the impact of the climate emergency, the country’s environment minister has said.
Speaking on Wednesday morning, as firefighters in Spain, Greece and other Mediterranean countries continued to battle dozens of blazes, Sara Aagesen said the 14 wildfires still burning across seven Spanish regions were further proof of the country’s particular vulnerability to global heating.
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08/13/2025 - 07:00
PM says sustainable revenue for roads is needed as report shows nearly one in 10 new car sales are electric vehicles
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Labor is set to overhaul road user charging rules to cover electric vehicles, with Anthony Albanese all but confirming the long-delayed reform will be thrashed out at next week’s productivity roundtable in Canberra.
As data from the Australian Automobile Association showed EVs accounted for nearly one in 10 new car sales in the June quarter – a new record – the prime minister said the new rules would be worked through in this term of parliament.
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