Environmental Politics

"When colleagues want to conduct business with Sally Jewell, they have a better chance getting her to schedule a lengthy hike than a coffee date. President Obama’s unconventional pick to lead the Interior Department -- a former oil engineer and commercial banker who heads the consumer co-op Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) -- represents an effort by the administration to defuse the partisan fight over conservation and energy."

"A breaking investigation by EnergyWire appears to connect the dots between shadowy lobbying efforts by shale gas fracking company Range Resources, and the Obama EPA's decision to shut down its high-profile lawsuit against Range for allegedly contaminating groundwater in Weatherford, TX."

"PRESTON TOWNSHIP, WIS. -- When the biggest frac-sand mine in Trempealeau County opened here in 2011, even the dead were shown consideration."

"President Barack Obama is leaning toward choosing Gina McCarthy, a top official in charge of air quality at the Environmental Protection Agency, to run the EPA in his second term, according to two sources familiar with the matter."

"The National Weather Service moved to fire one of its top managers Friday, four days after he was quoted in an article in The Washington Post lamenting that budget cuts and the threat of further reductions in March were forcing him to pare back a public safety service."

"The effects of the so-called sequestration budget cuts on the federal government are revealed in a Jan. 25 memo to National Park Service staff written by Park Service Director Jon Jarvis."

"A Canadian mining company has come one step closer to building a mile-wide, half-mile-deep open-pit copper mine on public land 30 miles south of Tucson. On Thursday, Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality granted Rosemont Copper, a subsidiary of Augusta Resource of Vancouver, a crucial air quality permit, saying emissions from the proposed mine would not violate federal standards for carbon monoxide, nitrogen and sulfur dioxide, or fine and large particles."

"WASHINGTON -- Critics want a halt to offshore Arctic drilling in the wake of Shell's latest mishap in the waters off Alaska but there's no sign the Obama administration and key members of Congress are backing off their support for drilling in the sensitive region."

"U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize winner who shepherded an effort to help spur a clean energy U.S. economy, will step down after a tenure rocked by the failures of some costly government investments."

"The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - known by its critics as a 'corporate bill mill' - has hit the ground running in 2013, pushing 'models bills' mandating the teaching of climate change denial in public school systems."