"A salmon-farming company with net pens in Rich Passage has agreed to pay $332,000 in fines after one of its floating pens collapsed in 2017, releasing a quarter-million nonnative Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound near Cypress Island, about 10 miles southwest of Bellingham."
"EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler today discussed infrastructure permitting at a closed-door event featuring other Trump administration officials. The event at the General Services Administration was closed to the press, and an E&E News reporter was barred from the room and later escorted from the building."
As a battle brews over which U.S. waters are protected, environmental journalists can use an invaluable national database to pinpoint vulnerable wetlands. This week’s TipSheet has more on the National Wetlands Inventory, the backstory on wetlands protection, why it matters, and reporting resources and story ideas.
"Brazil’s indigenous women have been overturning tradition to step into the spotlight and lead an international push to defend their tribal land rights, which are up against the greatest threat they have faced in years under right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro."
"The House this week is expected to pass its first major climate-focused bill in almost 10 years, but some Democrats say the party is failing to put its best foot forward on an issue they consider a top priority requiring urgent action."
"New York State has banned offshore oil and natural gas drilling along its Atlantic coastal waters in an effort to block a Trump administration proposal."
"EPA ethics officials drafted multiple recusal statements for Bill Wehrum, the agency's air chief whose industry ties have attracted scrutiny."
"The last time President Donald Trump sat down with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, the president walked out in a huff and dismissed their government shutdown talks as a “total waste of time.”"
"BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — In autumn of 2013, a senior executive from a powerful coal company and a lawyer from one of the state’s most influential firms hashed out a strategy for avoiding a serious — and expensive — problem."
"Facing what it saw as a threat to its monopoly from a surging rooftop solar industry, Arizona’s largest utility secretly funneled millions of dollars to back favored candidates for the state commission regulating it."
