More than 60 percent of Alaska is owned by the federal government. That's 225 million acres; a plot of land bigger than Texas. So if any state is going to be impacted by environmental decisions made in Washington D.C., it's Alaska. On this episode, we talk about those decisions being made in D.C. and their impacts on the 49th state with two of its experts.  Elizabeth Harball is a public radio reporter with Alaska's energy desk in Anchorage, and  Liz Ruskin is the D.C. correspondent for Alaska Public Media.

Alaska: Open for Business

Tracking the latest environment-related shenanigans from Trump & his allies.

News

Politics

When he first ran for President, Donald Trump was called the “chaos candidate”. And to bitter end, that has been borne out. But another kind of radical change has happened over the last four years, often out of the headlines.  So, for our last episode, we take stock of the past four years. 

Series Finale

There have been a number of changes in how the EPA, under President Trump, uses science. It has come with much criticism, including from former EPA officials. On this episode, we hear from a veteran EPA scientist on what drove him to leave the Trump Administration. Chris Zarba worked at the EPA for close to four decades. He was an official in the administrator's office of the agency and also directed the Agency’s Science Advisory Board Staff Office.  

"Sound science is not leading the decisions made by this nation."

The outgoing president has a few orders of business he’d like to take care of before January 20.  Among them is a controversial plan to drill for oil in the country’s largest stretch of untouched wilderness. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is 20 million acres of mountains, tundra and coast lands. Underneath it, there are billions of barrels of oil. Similar plans have sparked fights for decades, so why the Trump administration push to drill there now?  Our guest for this episode is Tegan Hanlon, a public radio reporter for Alaska’s Energy Desk in Anchorage. 

Trump’s Last Act: Drilling in the Arctic Refuge

President-Elect Biden ran as a moderate Democrat, but he also campaigned on an aggressive climate platform. How much of that agenda he can pursue could rest on who controls the US Senate, pending results of two runoff elections in Georgia.  We unpack what's coming next with Jody Freeman, law professor and director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School. Before that she worked in the Obama White House as counselor for climate and energy where she was the architect of the fuel-efficiency regulations for cars, which were later rolled back under President Trump. 

What does Biden's win mean for the environment and the fight to rein in climate change?

On this episode, we're looking at what role climate change and other environmental issues could play in deciding the election. We check in with reporters in three major battleground states--Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida--to find out. Our guests are Alex Harris, a climate reporter with the Miami Herald; Lester Graham, a reporter with the Environment Report at Michigan Radio; and Susan Phillips who covers energy for WHYY and StateImpact Pennsylvania.            

Alaska: Open for Business

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