"U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is instructing agency officials to effectively drop enforcement of one key facet of the New Source Review program, in what could be a prelude to broad changes in the handling of air permits for both new plants and expansions of existing facilities."
"The head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is seeking a 30-day extension in the agency’s timeline to consider a proposal to prop up coal and nuclear power plants."
"Fourteen states and the District of Columbia announced Thursday that they are suing the Trump administration over what they say is a failure to enforce smog standards."
"A top Volkswagen official in the United States was sentenced on Wednesday to seven years in prison for his role in the German automaker’s decade-long scheme to cheat on diesel emissions tests."
How the U.S. economy uses energy has huge impacts on the environment. So this week's TipSheet helps journalists understand the economy-energy-environment nexus, detailing nine top trends to watch on fossil fuels and alternative energy in 2018. Plus, a list of helpful sources for tracking energy markets.
Purges of EPA science panels by Administrator Scott Pruitt are just one among many moves in an ongoing dispute over the integrity of the environmental sciences in government policymaking. The latest Issue Backgrounder takes a deep dive with a briefing on five likely battles ahead for the coming year.
"A government program to clean up 503 contaminated military sites across Oklahoma will have cost an estimated $677 million by the time it concludes at the end of the century, Department of Defense records show."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday it would not act on a proposal to require hardrock mining companies to show they can afford to clean up their sites."
"An alarming news item began to make the rounds in November, just in time to ruin the holidays: Glitter is not good for the environment, and some people are trying to ban it."
"House and Senate Republicans have inserted language into spending bills aimed at blocking legal challenges to the Trump administration’s effort to repeal a 2015 water protection rule that gave two federal agencies broad leeway in regulating activities that could affect streams and tributaries."
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