"Bipartisan dissatisfaction with the Department of the Interior was on display Thursday as lawmakers on the House Natural Resources Committee probed the difficulties they’ve faced in getting information on department business."
"Minnesota and New Mexico, in a rebuke to the Trump administration, plan to join 10 other states in adopting both of California’s tough rules on tailpipe emissions and zero-emission vehicles."
"The Senate urged its negotiators Sept. 25 to back language banning the Pentagon’s use of firefighting foam containing potentially hazardous nonstick chemicals known as PFAS, as House-Senate talks continue toward a single Defense Department reauthorization bill."
"Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the US Fish and Wildlife Service has links to powerful agricultural interests opposed to protections for endangered species she would oversee, the Guardian has learned."
"William Perry Pendley, the sagebrush rebel-turned acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, has identified nearly five dozen organizations, companies and individuals that will trigger his recusal from decisionmaking, according to his ethics filing."
"Attorneys general in 17 states on Wednesday made good on a promise to sue the Trump administration over rule changes that substantially weakened how Endangered Species Act protections are considered and enforced."
"California sued the Trump administration today over EPA's refusal to extend Clean Water Act protections to salt ponds in San Francisco Bay."
"Senate appropriators approved by voice vote this morning a $35.8 billion fiscal 2020 spending bill for EPA, the Interior Department and related agencies, with bipartisan consensus and without any new 'poison pill riders.' But the bill does seek to limit Interior's ability to relocate hundreds of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) jobs out of Washington, D.C."
"China has denounced a landmark U.N. deal that caps emissions from international flights, in a setback for an industry eager to placate the growing international movement to curb air travel’s impact on the environment."
"Mitch McConnell staked his last Senate campaign, five years ago, in large part on his support for the coal industry and coal miners. But McConnell's unwillingness to shore up the fund that supports miners with black lung disease or their pension fund, even after dozens of his constituents traveled 10 hours by bus this summer to his Washington office, has allowed a well-funded opponent to seize on what should be McConnell's strength: coal."
