Natural Resources

"Living peatlands sequester carbon-dioxide, drawing it down from the atmosphere through plants and trapping it underground as carbon".

"For decades, opposition to drilling has left the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off limits. Now the Trump administration is hurriedly clearing the way for oil exploration."

"FAIRBANKS, Alaska — It is the last great stretch of nothingness in the United States, a vast landscape of mosses, sedges and shrubs that is home to migrating caribou and the winter dens of polar bears.

"The tentative deal on the 2018 farm bill is likely to boost the Conservation Reserve Program at the price of other conservation initiatives, reflecting fiscal limitations and policy fights that shaped talks over that part of the five-year legislation."

"Key lawmakers said Wednesday they have reached a tentative deal on a massive farm bill, breaking a months-long impasse over legislation that doles out more than $400 billion in federal funds for farm subsidies, food stamps and conservation efforts."

"Over 110 Democratic lawmakers filed court documents on Monday to join environmentalists' lawsuits opposing President Trump's rollback of the Obama administration's expansion of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah."

"YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — On a recent fall afternoon in the Lamar Valley, visitors watched a wolf pack lope along a thinly forested riverbank, ten or so black and gray figures shadowy against the snow. A little farther along the road, a herd of bison swung their great heads as they rooted for food in the sagebrush steppe, their deep rumbles clear in the quiet, cold air."

"Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spent the Friday before last Christmas mingling with staffers and their dogs, then flew out of Washington for a 15-day holiday break. Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt was erasing the departmental handbook's climate change chapter."

"The woman in charge of studying climate change’s effects on U.S. managed cultural resources for the National Park Service (NPS) has resigned, citing that the administration’s unequal attention to natural resources."

"In early September, the DOI quietly rescinded two memos that provided guidance on protecting vulnerable communities and Native American sacred sites."