Environmental Politics

"The head of a House appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Interior Department threatened to investigate the use of National Park Service entrance fee funds to pay for a July 4 celebration on the National Mall.

House Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) questioned Interior’s spending $2.5 million in park entrance fees on President Donald Trump’s July 4 “Salute to America” event on the National Mall, which will display heavy military tanks and have a ticketed viewing area for White House guests.

"A draft review of a proposed mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region likely underestimates impacts the project could have on fish and other resources, a regional official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said."

"Food and farming haven’t been high on the list of campaign priorities in recent decades, except maybe in Iowa. But this year, that appears to be shifting. With the pivotal role that rural voters played in the 2016 election firmly in mind, many presidential candidates are zooming in to address the challenges that abound in today’s farm country. And a number of them are connecting agriculture to other pressing issues—notably climate change, food insecurity, economic development, and more."

"Last month, the Trump administration took its most significant action to date in regulating power plants... There is an issue, though: Not every state is going to see a reduction in emissions."

"The National Park Service is diverting nearly $2.5 million in entrance and recreation fees primarily intended to improve parks across the country to cover costs associated with President Trump’s Independence Day celebration Thursday on the Mall, according to two individuals familiar with the arrangement."

"A coalition of green groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) late Monday over a rule that lifts requirements for major farms to report the pollution they emit through animal waste."

"How the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules on the Trump administration's bid to build a towering wall across the southern border of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona could wash out the Milky Way for visitors, block wildlife movements, and turn the borderline into something of an industrial construction zone, according to the local Sierra Club representative."

"Investigators didn't uncover concrete evidence that former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had pushed a prominent trade group to weigh in against the Paris Agreement."

"In the early months of the Trump administration, automakers pleaded for — and appeared set to receive — some relief from fuel economy standards that they said were too difficult to meet. But newly released government emails show how a coalition of groups that reject established climate science quickly muscled into the picture, urging the administration to go much further and roll back the rules entirely and characterizing the automakers as their opponents in achieving that goal."

"More than 100 acres of protected sand dunes were bulldozed on President Trump's golf course in Scotland, leading the government to remove the destroyed ecosystem from protected status."