Laws & Regulations

"USDA’s staffing cuts, scuttled conservation programs, and misdirected crop insurance are hitting farmers hard."

"A group of experts says Western states urgently need to cut water use to avert a deepening crisis on the Colorado River. The river’s major reservoirs are less than one-third full, and another dry winter would push reservoirs toward critically low levels."

"Both House and Senate lawmakers have advanced bills rejecting the Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate climate research at the weather agency."

"FDA leaders under President Donald Trump are moving to abandon a decades-old policy of asking outside experts to review drug applications, a move critics say would shield the agency’s decisions from public scrutiny."

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed doing away with a program that has required large, mostly industrial polluters to report their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to the government."

"California legislative leaders in the wee hours of Wednesday morning reached an agreement with Gov. Gavin Newsom to extend the state’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction program, known as cap and trade, through 2045 — a contentious expansion that for weeks stewed in backroom discussions, held up other critical legislation and roiled insiders."

"Protecting wild places was once a radical idea. It still is."

"Like a Senate panel in July, a U.S. House of Representatives spending committee has rejected President Donald Trump’s request to gut the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A bill released today would give the agency a base budget of about $47 billion in the 2026 fiscal year that begins on 1 October, essentially the same level as this year."

"House Speaker Mike Johnson is going to bat for an offshore wind project located off Virginia Beach at a time when the Trump administration has halted the construction of similar projects and the president himself has warned that support for the industry could cost politicians their careers."

"Provisions in the House and Senate annual Defense authorization bills reduce restrictions on the Pentagon’s use of “forever chemicals.”