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Thursday, March 28, 2024
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CASPER — A federal court has ruled the Bureau of Land Management cannot move forward on a large oil and gas lease sale in Wyoming after concluding the agency did not adequately assess potential risks to groundwater and wildlife, prolonging a …

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Electric vehicle charging ports are a key part of President Joe Biden’s effort to encourage drivers to move away from gasoline-powered cars and trucks that contribute to global warming, but only four states have them. New public chargers outside Columbus, Ohio, can power an electric vehicle in about half an hour. New York, Pennsylvania and Hawaii also operate public charging stations. The pace of progress could hinder Biden’s goal to create a national network of 500,000 public chargers by 2030. Federal officials say the program is on track. Walmart and other companies pledge to build a network of affordable fast-charging stations for EVs.

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Investigators are collecting evidence from the cargo ship that plowed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge and caused its collapse. Meanwhile in the waters below, divers searched Wednesday through twisted metal for six construction workers who plunged into the harbor and were feared dead. The bodies of two men were found. The investigation picked up speed as the Baltimore region reeled from the sudden loss of a major transportation link that’s part of the highway loop around the city. The disaster also closed the port that is vital to the city’s shipping industry. Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board boarded the ship and planned to recover information from its electronics and paperwork.

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The Biden administration has issued a final rule aimed at limiting methane leaks from oil and gas drilling on federal and tribal lands, its latest action to crack down on emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to global warming. The rule issued Wednesday by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management will tighten limits on gas flaring on federal lands and require that energy companies improve methods to detect methane leaks that add to planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution. The actions follow a more comprehensive methane-reduction plan announced by the Environmental Protection Agency in December. Oil and gas production is the nation’s largest industrial source of methane, the primary component of natural gas.

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A new United Nations report estimates that 19% of the food produced around the world went to waste in 2022. That's a little more than 1 billion metric tons of food that could have helped feed the hundreds of millions of people who live with hunger every day. The biggest share of that waste, about 60%, came in households. Almost 30% came in food service operations, such as restaurants. The updated Food Waste Index out Wednesday comes three years after the U.N.'s first attempt to quantify the problem as part of trying to cut food waste in half by the year 2030. Besides leaving people hungry, food waste means needless greenhouse gas emissions and amounts to a misuse of the land and water required to raise crops and animals.

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