Alaska and Hawaii

"House Republicans are investigating environmental groups over their efforts to stop a major oil and natural gas project in Alaska."

"Conservationists fighting Alaskan efforts to build a 211-mile industrial mining road across pristine lands of the southern Brooks Range, including a portion of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, told a federal court that President Donald Trump and his team violated numerous environmental laws in pushing through approvals to let it proceed."

"A federal appeals court ruling on New Year’s Eve blocked Hawaii from enforcing a climate change tourist tax on cruise ships passengers, a levy that was set to go into effect at the start of 2026."

"Hundreds of Arctic rivers and streams are turning bright red-orange, not from chemical pollution, but from naturally occurring iron spilling from long-frozen ground as temperatures warm."

"Ice blocks drift past Tristen Pattee’s boat as he scans the banks of Northwest Alaska’s Kobuk River for caribou. His great uncle Ernest steadies a rifle on his lap. It’s the last day of September, and by every measure of history and memory, thousands should have crossed by now. But the tundra is empty, save for the mountains looming on the horizon — the Gates of the Arctic National Park."

"A federal lawsuit filed Thursday challenges an oil company’s new permit to explore for oil in a remote region of the Arctic in Alaska, arguing that such activity threatens the tundra’s ecosystem and the caribou herds that Native communities rely on for sustenance."

"Alaska’s Republican senators are splitting with the Trump administration over an expansive offshore lease plan that would open large swaths of the state’s waters to drilling."

"Congressional lawmakers on Thursday voted to repeal a Biden-era policy that limited the amount of land in an Alaska wildlife refuge that could be leased for oil and gas development. The U.S. Senate voted 49-45 to approve a resolution that revokes the Interior Department's 2024 rule governing energy development on the 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."