Can’t catch a break: Five years after the largest oil spill in U.S. history spewed millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, many Louisiana oystermen fear that a once-bountiful population of the mollusks may never recover. “My kids are losing hope,” Wilbert Collins, 77, a retired third-generation oysterman in southeastern Louisiana with four sons who followed him into the industry, tells Reuters. The family business has endured a 60% drop in yields in the past five years, Collins says. He’s not alone. State data show that in 2009, the oyster harvest in the Lake Pontchartrain Basin fetched about $29 million, which dropped to $12 million in 2013, the latter figure buoyed by higher oyster prices. “I’ve never seen it so bad,” Collins says. Read the full story.
Time to gird the grid: Severe weather is the leading cause of power disruptions in the U.S., costing the American economy anywhere from $18 billion to $33 billion a year, and climate change will only make it worse, a White House review on energy infrastructure concludes. The report, released this morning by the Energy Department, recommends investments in the electric grid to protect it from the elements as well as potential physical and cyber-attacks. It contains more than 50 recommendations to improve pipelines, power lines, waterways, railroads and other energy facilities—all at a total cost of about $15 billion over the next decade. “Modernizing the electricity grid is critical,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz tells Bloomberg, which has the full story.
Generational shift: Today’s young adults are three times as likely as their parents to say they got a lot of financial help from their parents when they were starting out, a new survey from USA Today/Bank of America Better Money Habits shows. The survey, which included 1,000 millennials aged 18 to 34 and 1,005 parents of millennials, shows 36% of millennials say their parents helped them a lot, compared to 12% of millennial parents who said they got plenty of help from their parents early on. The survey also finds 40% of millennials say they still get money from their parents. Both generations surveyed say millennials face more difficulty achieving financial goals than previous generations; those goals include buying a house, starting a family, earning enough to support their lifestyle and saving for retirement. USA Today has the full story.
