Climate Point: The partisan divide

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate change, energy and the environment. I'm Sammy Roth, a reporter in Palm Springs, California, and today is my favorite day of the year: Opening Day. I wanted to start this week's edition with baseball, but I couldn't find anything relevant...so instead, here's a story by Paste BN's Erik Brady about what the National Hockey League is doing to fight climate change.

NHL, I salute you. Major League Baseball, time to step up to the plate?

Here are some other things you might want to know:

MUST-READ STORIES:

The partisan divide on global warming: Paste BN's Doyle Rice reports that wintertime sea ice in the Arctic neared a record low this month, meaning the four lowest wintertime measurements have all occurred in the last four years. But if you don't want to subscribe to those facts, it's easy to find a website or TV talking head or talk-radio pundit who will tell you otherwise. Indeed, new polling shows that while 90 percent of Democrats worry about climate change and accept that it's caused by humans, only a third of Republicans do, per Steven Mufson at the Washington Post. It's frustrating, and a potent reminder of why a shared understanding of reality matters. You can't solve a problem when nearly half the country doesn't believe there's a problem to solve.

The EPA isn't big on science right now: The Huffington Post's Alexander C. Kaufman got a copy of climate change talking points that the Environmental Protection Agency sent to employees around the country; among other things, EPA spokespeople are supposed to tell the public that "clear gaps remain including our understanding of the role of human activity and what we can do about it." It's not exactly surprising, but it's certainly not accurate, either. Perhaps even more important: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt wants to jettison much of the science that underpins public health protections, a move that Pruitt says is about transparency but which scientists see as a blatant attack on science-based decision-making, as Lisa Friedman reports for the New York Times.

ENERGY, CLEAN AND DIRTY:

Coal tax break could be worth billions: The Trump administration has thus far failed to revive the coal industry, but that isn't stopping others from trying. Larry Bucshon, a Republican member of Congress from Indiana, has proposed a big tax break for owners of coal-fired power plants; Emily Hopkins at the Indianapolis Star found the tax break could be worth $3.8 billion in the first year alone. Meanwhile, in Bucshon's backyard, coal continues to take an environmental toll. The Indy Star's Sarah Bowman reports on new data showing that groundwater near some coal ash pits is extremely polluted, with arsenic levels 45 times above safe drinking water standards at one location.

Utilities versus clean energy, Part 3: Continuing with a story I've been following the last few weeks, the battle between clean energy advocates and utility companies in Arizona is getting weirder and weirder. In response to a proposed ballot measure that would require the utilities to get half their energy from climate-friendly sources, state lawmakers are considering adding a second, nearly identical measure to the ballot — only this one, which is backed by the utilities, would be pretty easy for state officials to nullify, as Ryan Randazzo reports for the Arizona Republic. Critics say the utility-backed measure is designed to confuse voters. (A similar tactic by Florida utilities failed a few years ago.) And even if voters approve the original ballot measure, the utilities don't have to worry; Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill that would make the penalty for violating the new clean energy mandate as low as $100, per Ryan Randazzo at the Republic.

POLITICAL CLIMATE:

What you need to know about the budget deal: In addition to ensuring we have a federal government for at least another six months, the budget deal passed by Congress fixes a longstanding flaw in how we fund firefighting. The bill sets aside billions of dollars for the U.S. Forest Service to fight wildfires over the next decade, meaning the agency will no longer have to steal funds from other critical programs to keep fires at bay, as Connor Radnovich reports for the Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon. That's a big deal, especially since wildfires are getting bigger and more intense with climate change. The budget deal also keeps EPA spending at current levels despite the president's request for a 31 percent cut, as Marianne Lavelle reports for InsideClimate News.

North America's fastest mammal is in danger: The Sonoran pronghorn is a majestic desert creature, and in recent years, it has rebounded from the brink of extinction in the United States, with help from humans and the Endangered Species Act. But now climate change and President Trump's proposed border wall threaten to reverse that progress, as Alex Devoid reports for the Arizona Republic. Climate change is expected to bring longer and more severe droughts, which will dry up the pronghorn's water supply, and a border wall would continue to fragment the species' already heavily fragmented habitat.

AND ANOTHER THING:

I just got back from a trip to Zion National Park in Utah, which was wonderful for all sorts of reasons. It also reminded me of the National Park Service's $12 billion maintenance backlog, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's proposal to fund that much-needed maintenance work by selling more oil and gas leases on public lands and waters.

During my trip, I happened to read this story by Outside Magazine's Elliott D. Woods, who took a close look at Zinke's plan and found that the numbers don't add up.

At this point, it's not surprising that opening up public lands and waters to resource extraction is Zinke's priority, whatever his stated reason. The Washington Post's Darryl Fears also reported this week on a mining executive who told the secretary that federal pollution rules are too onerous. Zinke's immediate response, before the executive even gave any details: "On behalf of the United States government, we apologize."

That's all for this week. For more climate, energy and environment news, follow me on Twitter @Sammy_Roth. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox here.