Environmental Politics

"The U.S. suffered 15 billion-dollar weather disasters during the first half of 2025, said insurance broker Gallagher Re in its latest quarterly report issued July 16. The average number of January-June inflation-adjusted billion-dollar disasters over the previous 10 years in the U.S. was 15; the record was 23, set in 2024. The Gallagher Re quarterly reports help fill a void left by the elimination of NOAA’s program to track billion-dollar weather disasters, which was terminated this year."

"The president is threatening to deport essential farm workers, grocery clerks and food delivery drivers. But without them, shelves could go empty and prices could soar" 

"EPA has resumed its efforts to reorganize the agency after the Supreme Court earlier this month lifted a lower court’s injunction that stalled the Trump administration’s restructuring efforts. But EPA employees will have less say in where they end up under the restructuring because of the time lost while the injunction was in place, an EPA official told colleagues in an internal email obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News."

"Closing Mauna Loa and three other U.S. sites that track greenhouse gases would disrupt a decades-long record of the planet’s changing atmosphere." 

"The Trump administration said on Thursday that it would apply new layers of political review to wind and solar projects, potentially creating hurdles for renewable energy developments across the country."

"The Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday that it would give utility companies an additional year to begin cleaning up contamination from toxic coal ash landfills across the country."

"President Donald Trump is allowing chemical makers, coal-fired power plants and other facilities to bypass a range of environmental regulations on grounds that the waivers are needed for national security purposes."

"Very few Americans say in a new poll that it’s a good idea to scrap the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) entirely, a position President Trump has embraced in recent months."

"The Commerce Department has indefinitely suspended work on a tool to help communities predict how rising global temperatures will alter the frequency of extreme rainfall, according to three current and former federal officials familiar with the decision, a move that experts said will make the country more vulnerable to storms supercharged by climate change."

"The Trump administration slashed fines for safety violations by small businesses and other employers and plans to reduce already rare workplace inspections. Experts say that will lead to more worker injuries, illnesses and deaths."