The Economic Perspective 5/2/2025

The Latest Trending Economic, Environmental and Infrastructure News Curated for You by The Balmoral Group

The Balmoral Group provides practical, professional and precise Economics, Data Analytics, and Engineering Consulting services and is part of a globally integrated team.

Happy Friday!

This week, TBG Seattle’s Amy & Brandon Bainbridge attended the AWRA Spring 2025 Conference in Anchorage, AK. Amy presented on the cost-effectiveness of evaluating natural resource-based climate adaptation strategies in the Florida Keys, as well as explored how some of the lessons learned in TBG’s research could potentially inform adaptation planning in Alaska’s coastal frontier.

In this edition of the Economic Perspective, we're bringing focus to new bills passed by the Florida legislature, melting snowpacks in the western U.S., rising costs for climate disasters, deep-sea mining and more. Our data visualization covers monthly construction spending information released by the Census Bureau. 

Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think would be interested. If you’d like to view previous editions please click here, or to subscribe please click here!

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

---

Early Melting Snowpacks Threaten Western U.S.

Snowpacks in the western United States have been diminishing up to four weeks early in some regions. Parts of Washington, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico are now being considered by the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) as snow drought regions, with abnormally low snow for the time of year. Washington and Utah have already declared drought emergencies due to little snowpack and below-average streamflow forecasts. Washington State Department of Ecology recently declared an emergency in the Yakima Basin, while Utah announced a state of emergency in 17 counties. Should the trend continue it will exacerbate already dry forecasted conditions, providing additional water supply and management challenges (including likelihood of fires) ahead of summer across the western U.S. Read more here and here.

Costs for Climate Disasters to Reach $145 Billion Globally in 2025

According to Swiss insurance company Swiss Re, climate disasters, including hurricanes, storms, floods, and others will reach costs of $145 billion this year, a 6% increase from last year. The Los Angeles fires were a major increase in Swiss Re’s modeling as $40 billion in insured losses were caused by the wildfires. Total losses, including non-insured losses in 2023 were $292 billion in 2023 and $318 billion in 2024. Insured losses in 2024 were $137 billion. As risk increases, insurance companies are expected to take on greater losses leading to rising costs and potential loss of coverage. Read more here and here.

'The Next Gold Rush' President Trump Unlocks Access to Critical Deep Seabed Minerals

On April 24th, President Trump signed an Executive Order establishing a guideline for American companies to search and retrieve offshore critical minerals and other resources. The Executive Order prioritizes U.S. leadership in seafloor mapping and mineral exploitation. Resources such as manganese, nickel, cobalt, and other rare earth metals are the target which are used in defense systems, batteries, phones, medical devices, and more in hopes to enhance supply chain resilience. NOAA will be partnered to develop this sector and work to better understand the deep sea through technology advancements in mapping and environmental data collection. Read more on the story here.

Scientists Expect Record Number of Pink Salmon Returning to Washington Streams

This year, scientists expect to see a record number of pink salmon returning to streams in Washington State, totaling around 7.5 million salmon, according to an interview conducted by local news station KUOW with Matt Bogaard, biologist at the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. While ostensibly good news for the state, Bogaard claims it is not without downsides. In fact, Bogaard said in the interview that increasing numbers of pink salmon can cause declines in other salmon species, particularly the larger Chinook salmon that resident orcas prefer to consume – Bogaard claims that due to pink salmon being less fatty, they are less valuable as a food source to orcas, so orcas cannot properly substitute these smaller salmon for the larger Chinook. Read more here.

Cultivating Solutions to the Climate Crisis

A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and School of Global Policy Strategy provided an in-depth analysis on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) scaling issues and proposed a plan to estimate the speed and extent emerging, highly uncertain technologies might scale. Despite the analysis being focused on carbon-enhanced crops, the framework generalized across CDR approaches. To better understand how carbon-enhanced crop use can be scaled up, the researchers analyzed past innovations that improved yields. Read more here

Florida House Passes Expansive State Farm Bill

Senate Bill 700, nicknamed the Farm Bill, was passed in the Florida House of Representatives on Tuesday and is now headed to Governor Ron DeSantis for signing. DeSantis is expected to sign the bill, which would protect farmers from environmental, social, and governance-related bias from lenders, ban the addition of fluoride from being added to the water supply, and bolster disaster recovery loan program for farmers. The bill also would restrict plant-based products labeling themselves as milk, meat, eggs, etc. Critics argue that the bill will hinder demand for plant based products, and a similar regulation in Mississippi was changed in 2019 after a lawsuit based on first amendment grounds. The bill will also prohibit local governments from banning housing for legally verified farm workers and create a requirement for legal worker eligibility to prevent noncitizens from working on farms. Read more here and here.

Judge Says Florida Should Reject Permit to Drill for Oil Near Apalachicola River

An administrative law judge on Monday advised that the state should reject a permit to drill for oil near the Apalachicola River saying Florida Department of Environmental Protection did not adequately consider the sensitive nature of the area. The Apalachicola Riverkeeper had filed a challenge last year after the FDEP issued a draft for Louisiana-based Clearwater Land & Minerals Fla. To drill an exploratory well in Calhoun County. The proposed site is within the 100-year floodplain of the Apalachicola River and within two miles of ponds that are hydrologically connected to the river. The judge warned of catastrophic consequences of a potential spill. This case has drawn attention as historically the state and federal governments have taken steps to protect the Apalachicola area. Read more here and here.

Legislature Repeals 2018 Law that Restricted Public Access to Walton County Beaches

Walton County residents could soon have access to beaches regardless of private ownership. The Florida House of Representatives passed a bill (SB 1622) that would repeal a 2018 law that limited public access and barred local governments from passing ordinances regarding customary use. This 2018 bill had nullified Walton County’s customary use ordinance, which locals had criticized as unfairly targeting Walton County. If local governments wanted to have ordinances or rules aimed at ensuring customary use it required judge approval leading to difficulty in passing these ordinances. The bill was previously championed by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who lived in Walton County, but he had sold his Blue Mountain Beach home in 2021. Read more here and here.

---

Data Visualization of the Week

Monthly Construction Spending, March 2025

Yesterday, the U.S. Census Bureau released construction spending statistics for March 2025. March saw small declines in spending compared to February at -0.5%, but 2.8% above the March 2024 estimate. Private construction saw 0.4% decline, while public saw a 0.6% decline. Across the board for most categories construction spending has seen minor declines from February to March when seasonally adjusted. Transportation, amusement, and public safety were some of the few categories that saw increases in spending. Read the Census Bureau’s report here and take a look at other reports here.