"The Environmental Protection Agency is likely to prevail in a tense stalemate with its internal watchdog unless Congress decides to take up the fight, law scholars say."
"On the morning of Aug. 21, 2018, David Bernhardt, then the deputy interior secretary, wanted to attend a White House meeting on the future of a threatened California fish, the delta smelt — an issue upon which Mr. Bernhardt had been paid to lobby until he joined the Trump administration a year before."
"On a cold morning last March, Kenny Angel got a frantic knock on his door. Two workers from a utility company in northern Nebraska had come with a stark warning: Get out of your house. ...Minutes later, the dam came crashing down, unleashing a wave of water carrying ice chunks the size of cars. Angel’s home was wiped away; his body was never found."
"The U.S. Justice Department has issued civil subpoenas to four major automakers, demanding that they disclose details on a deal struck with California in July to follow strict vehicle emissions standards, a source briefed on the matter said on Thursday."
"The Trump administration changed a 25-year-old policy to make it easier for coastal communities to take sand from protected ecosystems to improve their beaches."
"Lawyers for New York State and ExxonMobil wrapped up a landmark climate fraud trial on Thursday, shaping a tangle of testimony and evidence into competing narratives on whether the oil company misled investors about the risks it faces from climate regulation."
"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided "largely non-responsive" documents in response to a final threat by House Democrats, according to committee staff, likely setting the stage for a forthcoming subpoena."
"The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general is investigating whether chief of staff Ryan Jackson was involved in destroying internal documents that should have been retained, according to two people familiar with the matter."
"The Interior Department is proposing to award one of the first contracts for federal water in perpetuity to a powerful rural water district that had employed Secretary David Bernhardt as a lawyer and lobbyist."
"Efforts to extend and revise an assortment of expired or soon-to-lapse energy tax breaks before the end of the year are struggling to find air in a crowded agenda. Policy and process disagreements are also getting in the way."
