Environmental Politics

"President Donald Trump on Tuesday created what he called a “subcabinet” for federal water issues, with a mandate that includes water-use changes sought by corporate farm interests and oil and gas.

An executive order from Trump put Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler in charge of the interagency water body.

Establishment of a water subcabinet “will streamline decision-making processes” across federal agencies, the EPA said in a statement.

"The presidential election is just weeks away, and climate change has broken through as a defining issue for Americans this year, even amid a historic pandemic and deep economic uncertainty weighing upon the nation."

"Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett called climate change 'a contentious matter' and declined to acknowledge the existence of the scientifically established phenomenon during the third day of her confirmation hearing."

"During the Democratic presidential primaries, James T. Kunz, who leads the operating engineers union in Western Pennsylvania, worried the party would choose a nominee determined to cripple the natural gas industry that has boosted the livelihoods of thousands of fellow Pennsylvanians."

"Mountain Valley Pipeline was given another two years Friday to complete a natural gas pipeline already marked by six years of community opposition, environmental damage, legal fights and delays."

"U.S. coronavirus cases are rising again, driven by rapid transmission in Midwestern states and sparking fears that a forewarned wave of infections this fall and winter has begun."

"William Perry Pendley’s “acting” status as head of the Bureau of Land Management calls into question his rulings on energy leases, monuments and conservation plans."

"A federal appeals court ruled late Friday that President Donald Trump’s use of his emergency powers to build his long-promised border wall with military funds is illegal, striking a blow to one of his signature campaign promises just weeks before the November election."

"The industry that operates America’s hydroelectric dams and several environmental groups announced an unusual agreement Tuesday to work together to get more clean energy from hydropower while reducing the environmental harm from dams, in a sign that the threat of climate change is spurring both sides to rethink their decades-long battle over a large but contentious source of renewable power."

"This has been the 2020 pattern: Politics has thoroughly contaminated the scientific process. The result has been an epidemic of distrust, which further undermines the nation’s already chaotic and ineffective response to the coronavirus."