"President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has selected Michael S. Regan, North Carolina’s top environmental regulator, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Mr. Biden’s transition team announced Thursday. The decision elevates for the first time a Black man to lead the powerful department, which is central to achieving the new administration’s climate change agenda."
"In a historic decision, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has chosen Deb Haaland, a congressional representative from New Mexico and a Native American, to lead the Interior Department, an agency that for much of the nation’s history played a central role in the dislocation and abuse of Indigenous communities from coast to coast."
"The selection of the first Native American interior secretary and first Black male EPA chief highlights pollution disparities". ... "With that selection and several others this week, Biden is sending a clear message that the officials who will confront the nation’s environmental problems will look like the Americans who are disproportionately affected by toxic air and despoiled land."
"Michigan legislators on Wednesday finalized a plan to borrow $600 million to finance the state’s proposed settlement with the residents of Flint, whose water was contaminated with elevated levels of the neurotoxin lead."
"Scientists reveal further details about the damage sustained under Trump — and the challenges for Biden in restoring science’s standing at the agency."
"Michael Regan, who has been secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality since 2017, is under consideration for EPA administrator by President-elect Joe Biden's team."
"The Yukon Water Board is asking the public to weigh in as the territory considers legislation to protect remaining undisturbed wetlands from small-scale gold mining in streams and riverbeds".
"The Indian River watershed, which used to provide “sweeping” wetland habitat south of Dawson City, Yukon, has been all but destroyed by placer mining, Darren Taylor, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation’s director of natural resources, told the territory’s water board during a recent virtual hearing.
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency is proposing to slash disaster aid to states by making it substantially harder for them to qualify for assistance after extreme weather events like floods, wildfires or storms."
"TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Over a lifetime on the industrial side of this university town, Antonia Brand has become accustomed to breathing bad air."
"When Joseph R. Biden, Jr. won the presidential election, his top candidate to lead the nation’s most powerful environmental agency appeared clear: Mary D. Nichols, California’s clean air regulator and arguably the country’s most experienced climate change official, was seen as a lock to run the Environmental Protection Agency."
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