Vibrant Environment

World Ocean Day unites communities around the globe to celebrate the ocean, our intricate relationship with it, and the urgent work needed to protect it. First celebrated in 1992, this year marks the 33rd anniversary of this UN-recognized observance. This year’s theme—Strong Marine Protected Areas for Our Blue Planet—serves as an opportunity to take stock of the progress we have collectively made and set the course for global ocean management and conservation in the years ahead.  

May is American Wetlands Month, a time to recognize the ecological, economic, and social importance of wetlands. Established in 1991 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in partnership with federal, state, tribal, local, and non-profit organizations to promote wetland conservation, this annual observance presents an opportunity to celebrate these critical ecosystems and explore opportunities to strengthen their protection. 

Nuclear power remains a major source of electricity worldwide, and it is growing. The United States remains the world’s largest producer as of 2024, having generated 781.9 terawatt-hours in one year alone. Meanwhile, other countries are expanding rapidly.

More than seven billion meals are served each year to the nation's 45.4 million children enrolled in K–12 public schools. These schools are substantial generators of food waste in the United States; in 2019, the U.S.

Animal agriculture accounts for a significant share of global greenhouse gas emissions—somewhere between 12% and 20%, according to recent estimates. And yet, the meat industry has, for the most part, escaped the reach of carbon tax and cap-and-trade regimes.

Nearly 30 years ago, I was invited to Moncton, New Brunswick, to make a presentation on watershed-scale management of the Great Lakes to a group of Canadian officials and fishermen. The ground fishery, mostly cod, had been shut down, and a lot of people were out of work. I was running Michigan’s Office of the Great Lakes at the time. 

In February, the Donald Trump Administration fulfilled a months’ long promise to rescind EPA’s endangerment finding—the 2009 rule underpinning federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions—in what it dubbed “the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history.” 

Accounting for nearly half of the planet’s surface (or about two-thirds of its ocean), the high seas are a critical component of Earth’s oceanic ecosystem.

In December 2025, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) issued its Policy on Addressing Environmental Damage Through the Rome Statute which sets out how the OTP may use its powers and mandate to investigate and prosecute international crimes with an environmental dimension, and to support national efforts to prosecute such crimes.

For the past year, federal grantees have brought many cases contending that the federal government improperly terminated their grants. In August, the U.S. Supreme Court threw a curveball into the litigation of all those claims. Now, a new series of cases involving the Solar for All program has been fielding that curveball, exposing novel issues in the law.