"The Trump administration is planning on ending a policy that requires oil drillers, miners and land developers to pay the government for damages its work can have on wildlife and habitats on public land."
The presence of a new acting administrator at EPA in the wake of Scott Pruitt’s resignation may mean a change in tone and a renewed openness for journalists covering the agency. But it doesn’t appear to mean different policy approaches. This week’s TipSheet reports on the early days of former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler’s command, with a roundup of coverage and angles to watch.
"A federal judge rejected claims that a long-stalled irrigation dam in Montana would doom a primitive, endangered fish species, prompting U.S. officials to say Tuesday that a contract for the project will be awarded by the end of the year."
"A coal company executive and a lawyer have been convicted in federal court of bribing an Alabama lawmaker to oppose Environmental Protection Agency plans that could have made the company help pay to clean up a polluted Superfund site."
"As a major wildfire disrupts thousands of vacations and the tourist economy of the Sierra Nevada, National Park Service officials on Tuesday announced they are closing large sections of Yosemite National Park and ordered visitors and employees to evacuate by noon Wednesday."
"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Tuesday that it is implementing recently passed legislation that exempts farmers from having to report emissions derived from animal waste and other pollutants."
"WASHINGTON -- California and like-minded states are girding for a legal battle with the Trump administration on whether those states have gone too far in controlling greenhouse gases from automobiles, a prospective case that legal scholars say — barring a last-minute settlement — is sure to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies are expected to announce, as soon as this week, a rollback of national fuel economy standards for vehicles. They could also revoke California’s ability to set its own, tougher, air pollution limits.
"The most concentrated and consequential Endangered Species Act fight in a generation starts tomorrow [July 25]."
"Senior Interior Department officials prepared last fall to eliminate the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument — even as they had yet to agree on the public justifications for doing so, according to newly disclosed internal documents."
"Hackers working for Russia claimed “hundreds of victims” last year in a giant and long-running campaign that put them inside the control rooms of U.S. electric utilities where they could have caused blackouts, federal officials said. They said the campaign likely is continuing."
