Environmental Politics

After a federal payroll division mistakenly paid workers at the Chemical Safety Board, which investigates toxic and hazardous chemical disasters, Trump officials scrambled to claw back the money.

"More U.S. coal-fired power plants were shut in President Donald Trump’s first two years than were retired in the whole of Barack Obama’s first term, despite the Republican’s efforts to prop up the industry to keep a campaign promise to coal-mining states."

"Up against a federal deadline to approve a Colorado River drought plan — a “generational change” in Arizona water management — four key legislators say they’re optimistic they’ll meet it."

"Republicans Are increasingly concerned that President Trump's threat to build a border wall by declaring a national emergency might be repeated by a future president who sees climate change as an existential danger to the United States."

"Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt must soon decide whether to maintain eight temporary agency directors, as the Trump administration presses into its third year without appointees for a slew of top posts at the department.

According to Secretarial Order 3345, eight temporary appointments — including the heads of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service — will expire on Jan. 31.

"Senate Democrats are sounding the alarm that acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler may be tapping furloughed workers to help prepare for his confirmation hearing."

"With trees razed and drivers making new roads on normally protected desert land, the damage at Joshua Tree National Park in California may be far worse than imagined, but Park Superintendent David Smith says he can't talk about it."

A decades-long multi-million dollar covert PR campaign by fossil fuel industries has manipulated many media outlets to give equal time to figures who deny established climate science.

"Joshua Tree National Park will remain open during the government shutdown after officials moved to use park fees to avert the planned closure."