"With trees razed and drivers making new roads on normally protected desert land, the damage at Joshua Tree National Park in California may be far worse than imagined, but Park Superintendent David Smith says he can't talk about it."
"Senate Democrats are sounding the alarm that acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler may be tapping furloughed workers to help prepare for his confirmation hearing."
"Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt must soon decide whether to maintain eight temporary agency directors, as the Trump administration presses into its third year without appointees for a slew of top posts at the department.
According to Secretarial Order 3345, eight temporary appointments — including the heads of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service — will expire on Jan. 31.
"Republicans Are increasingly concerned that President Trump's threat to build a border wall by declaring a national emergency might be repeated by a future president who sees climate change as an existential danger to the United States."
"Up against a federal deadline to approve a Colorado River drought plan — a “generational change” in Arizona water management — four key legislators say they’re optimistic they’ll meet it."
"More U.S. coal-fired power plants were shut in President Donald Trump’s first two years than were retired in the whole of Barack Obama’s first term, despite the Republican’s efforts to prop up the industry to keep a campaign promise to coal-mining states."
"In an unprecedented move, the Dzawada’enuzw nation is claiming in court that farming Atlantic salmon — which often carry disease — in their traditional waters constitutes a violation of Aboriginal rights".
After a federal payroll division mistakenly paid workers at the Chemical Safety Board, which investigates toxic and hazardous chemical disasters, Trump officials scrambled to claw back the money.
"The Canadian government, two territories and several First Nations are expressing concerns to the United States over plans to open the calving grounds of a large cross-border caribou herd to energy drilling, despite international agreements to protect it."
"As men leave animal agriculture for less gritty work, more ranches are being led by women — with new ideas about technology, ecology and the land."
"Hundreds of years before John Wayne and Gary Cooper gave us a Hollywood version of the American West, with men as the brute, weather-beaten stewards of the land, female ranchers roamed the frontier. They were the indigenous, Navajo, Cheyenne and other tribes, and Spanish-Mexican rancheras, who tended and tamed vast fields, traversed rugged landscapes with their dogs, hunted, and raised livestock.
"Scientists say the world’s oceans are warming far more quickly than previously thought, a finding with dire implications for climate change because almost all the excess heat absorbed by the planet ends up stored in their waters."
"Progressive organizers today [Thursday] presented lawmakers with a formal wish list for 'Green New Deal' legislation, asking for a sweeping plan to address climate change and move to 100 percent renewable energy."
"Fiat Chrysler Automobiles agreed Thursday to a settlement with U.S. regulators and other plaintiffs that could cost the automaker roughly $800 million to resolve allegations that it cheated on emissions tests."
"The government shutdown has suspended federal cleanups at Superfund sites around the nation and forced the cancellation of public hearings, deepening the mistrust and resentment of surrounding residents who feel people in power long ago abandoned them to live among the toxic residue of the country’s factories and mines."
"Joshua Tree National Park will remain open during the government shutdown after officials moved to use park fees to avert the planned closure."
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