"Governors of states along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts desperately want the Trump administration to whisper the same magic words to them that it whispered to Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who learned from Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke that the Sunshine State was being dropped from the president’s proposal to open 90 percent of the outer continental shelf to oil drilling."
"Bunker fuel may now be leaking from the Iranian oil tanker that sank in the East China Sea last Sunday, China’s State Oceanic Administration (SOA) said, underlining fears for contamination from the world’s worst oil ship disaster in decades."
"A top manager who supervises the Environmental Protection Agency program responsible for cleaning up the nation’s most contaminated properties and waterways told Congress on Thursday that the government needs to plan for the ongoing threat posed to Superfund sites from climate change."
"A lack of federal funding could force the state of South Dakota to stop monitoring water for lead and copper, cease regulating wastewater and otherwise pare back pollution control programs."
"Microbial activity in a Baltimore stream is unaffected by exposure to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, evidence that sewage contamination of urban waterways may be fomenting pockets of antibiotic resistance, researchers reported last week in the journal Ecosphere."
"S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster is trying, again, to protect South Carolina from falling into the offshore drilling cross hairs of his “good friend” and political ally, President Donald Trump."
"Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt's point man for Superfund efforts has declined to testify at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the sites' cleanup efforts scheduled for Thursday."
"A new report finds that 38 utilities in Texas are supplying water with radium levels above the legal limit."
"The U.S. Department of State is spearheading a plan to tackle the decade-long problem brewing in the transboundary Kootenai River watershed, where toxic contaminants leaching from upstream Canadian coal mines into Montana’s watersheds continue to poison the prized aquatic ecosystem."
The environmental legacy of past presidents tells us much about the current White House, whose occupant author Douglas Brinkley calls "a used car salesman of the worst kind." In this "Between the Lines" Q&A, the historian talks about what we can learn from TR and FDR, the future of the environmental movement and the role of journalists.
Advertisement 
