"EPA’s core workforce would shrink to its smallest size since the mid-1980s, while funding for numerous grant programs would be zeroed out, according to new documents released Friday."
It’s not just scientists who are being lost to the new administration’s extensive firings of federal workers. A Backgrounder Analysis argues it’s the science itself. It’s happening at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but also across agencies that conduct research to protect health and the environment, whether around toxic chemicals or on the battleground of climate change science. A frank look at the reality and what’s being lost for journalists and the communities they serve.
"The Interior bureau that holds the key to Trump’s fossil fuel agenda is riven by feuding between career staff and an emissary from Elon Musk’s budget-cutting operation."
On a tour of the West Bank this spring, Yessenia Funes found a region where the relationship between land and people serves as a counterweight to occupation and the threat of violence. For her Voices of Environmental Justice column, Funes exhorts fellow environment journalists to report on that struggle, through stories that touch on wildlife, wildfire, food, climate and more.
"HFC-23 emissions from chemical plants in eastern China and elsewhere likely violate an international climate agreement despite readily available pollution controls. Advocates are pressing for action."
"Perched above the New York City diner made famous by the TV show Seinfeld, Tom’s Restaurant, a small research laboratory became, improbably, crucial to humanity’s understanding of our changing climate and of the universe itself."
"Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday vigorously defended firing large numbers of Interior Department staff because he said too many work in offices and too few in national parks."
"China has pledged to give $500 million to the World Health Organization as the country is set to replace the United States as the group’s top state donor, expanding Beijing’s global influence in the wake of Washington’s retreat from international cooperation."
"President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to merge the government’s wildland firefighting efforts into a single agency, a move some former federal officials warn could increase the risk of catastrophic blazes and ultimately cost billions of dollars."
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