"Brazil Lawmakers Gut Environmental Permitting Ahead Of COP30 Summit" [9]
"Brazil's Congress voted Thursday to weaken environmental permitting rules despite fierce opposition from environmentalists."


EJToday is a daily weekday digest of top environment/energy news and information of interest to environmental journalists, independently curated by Editor Joseph A. Davis [1]. Sign up below to receive in your inbox. For queries, email EJToday@SEJ.org [2]. For more info, read an EJToday FAQ [3]. Plus, follow EJToday on social media at @EJTodayNews [4], and flag stories of note by including the @EJTodayNews handle on your posts. And tell us how to make EJToday even better by taking this brief survey [5].
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"Brazil's Congress voted Thursday to weaken environmental permitting rules despite fierce opposition from environmentalists."
"The $1.6bn Biden-era plan for a gas-powered blast furnace at a steel mill in Middletown, Ohio, is indefinitely on hold"
"Environmental regulators have launched an investigation into a heavily trafficked lake below the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Range, with an Enterococci reading 384 times the safety threshold."
"Decades of work that has steered grizzly bears away from extinction in the Greater Yellowstone region could be lost if House Republicans succeed in weakening the powerful law that protects them. Progress by the iconic bruins under the Endangered Species Act is not yet enough to keep them safe, in the eyes of environmental advocates."
"President Donald Trump is allowing chemical makers, coal-fired power plants and other facilities to bypass a range of environmental regulations on grounds that the waivers are needed for national security purposes."
"The Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday that it would give utility companies an additional year to begin cleaning up contamination from toxic coal ash landfills across the country."
"The Trump administration said on Thursday that it would apply new layers of political review to wind and solar projects, potentially creating hurdles for renewable energy developments across the country."
"A megadrought has sapped water supplies, ravaged farms and ranches, and fueled wildfires across the American Southwest for going on 25 years. Not in 12 centuries has the region been so dry for so long."
"Closing Mauna Loa and three other U.S. sites that track greenhouse gases would disrupt a decades-long record of the planet’s changing atmosphere."
"EPA has resumed its efforts to reorganize the agency after the Supreme Court earlier this month lifted a lower court’s injunction that stalled the Trump administration’s restructuring efforts. But EPA employees will have less say in where they end up under the restructuring because of the time lost while the injunction was in place, an EPA official told colleagues in an internal email obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News."
"The president is threatening to deport essential farm workers, grocery clerks and food delivery drivers. But without them, shelves could go empty and prices could soar"
"The U.S. suffered 15 billion-dollar weather disasters during the first half of 2025, said insurance broker Gallagher Re in its latest quarterly report issued July 16. The average number of January-June inflation-adjusted billion-dollar disasters over the previous 10 years in the U.S. was 15; the record was 23, set in 2024. The Gallagher Re quarterly reports help fill a void left by the elimination of NOAA’s program to track billion-dollar weather disasters, which was terminated this year."
"Experts scrambling to understand losses in hives across the country are finally identifying the culprits. And the damage to farmed bees is a sign of trouble for wild bees too"
"Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Attorney General Pam Bondi toured the halls of Alcatraz prison at Golden Gate National Recreation Area on Thursday, marveling over some of the names of "the rock's" most notorious prisoners to announce that the crumbling facility would be renovated to house "the most dangerous criminals and illegals."
"The Senate has passed about $9 billion in federal spending cuts requested by President Donald Trump, including deep reductions to public broadcasting and foreign aid, moving forward on one of the president’s top priorities despite concerns from several Republican senators."
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[9] https://www.sej.org/headlines/brazil-lawmakers-gut-environmental-permitting-ahead-cop30-summit
[10] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/climate-change
[11] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/environmental-politics
[12] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/laws
[13] https://www.sej.org/taxonomy/term/81
[14] https://www.sej.org/category/region/international
[15] https://www.sej.org/category/region/international/south-america
[16] https://www.yahoo.com/news/brazil-lawmakers-gut-environmental-permitting-204814733.html
[17] https://www.sej.org/headlines/trump-admin-dashes-hopes-anti-pollution-plan-jd-vance-s-home-town
[18] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/energy
[19] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/infrastructure
[20] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/pollution
[21] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/technology
[22] https://www.sej.org/category/region/national
[23] https://www.sej.org/category/region/national/great-lakes
[24] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/15/pollution-ohio-trump-administration
[25] https://www.sej.org/headlines/wyoming-s-crowded-lonesome-lake-tops-epa-s-us-list-fecal-contamination
[26] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/environmental-health
[27] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/land
[28] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/water
[29] https://www.sej.org/category/region/national/mountain-west
[30] https://wyofile.com/wyomings-crowded-lonesome-lake-tops-epas-national-survey-for-fecal-contamination/
[31] https://www.sej.org/headlines/can-grizzly-bears-survive-without-endangered-species-act
[32] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/biodiversity-1
[33] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/environmentalists
[34] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/wildlife
[35] https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2025/07/can-grizzly-bears-survive-without-endangered-species-act
[36] https://www.sej.org/headlines/trump-exempts-scores-plants-biden-s-pollution-rules
[37] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/air
[38] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/chemicals/toxics
[39] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/business
[40] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/trump-exempts-scores-of-plants-from-bidens-pollution-rules
[41] https://www.sej.org/headlines/epa-delays-required-cleanups-toxic-coal-ash-landfills
[42] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/environmental-justice
[43] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/waste
[44] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/climate/epa-toxic-coal-ash-cleanup.html
[45] https://www.sej.org/headlines/interior-put-wind-and-solar-projects-through-stricter-political-review
[46] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/climate/interior-dept-wind-solar.html
[47] https://www.sej.org/headlines/west-s-megadrought-might-not-let-decades-study-suggests
[48] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/agriculture
[49] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/consumer
[50] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/climate/southwest-megadrought.html?unlocked_article_code=1.XU8.O6mj.1IXR3r1yYx4T&smid=url-share
[51] https://www.sej.org/headlines/trump-s-budget-would-end-7-decades-mauna-loa-greenhouse-gas-measurements
[52] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/government
[53] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/science
[54] https://www.sej.org/category/region/national/alaska-and-hawaii
[55] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/climate/budget-cuts-climate-observatories.html
[56] https://www.sej.org/headlines/epa-plows-ahead-reorganization-giving-employees-less-choice
[57] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/journalism/media
[58] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/people-population
[59] https://www.eenews.net/articles/epa-plows-ahead-with-reorg/
[60] https://www.sej.org/headlines/how-trump-s-anti-immigrant-policies-could-collapse-us-food-industry
[61] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/disaster
[62] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/food
[63] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/17/how-many-immigrants-food-industry-workers
[64] https://www.sej.org/headlines/us-suffers-15-billion-dollar-weather-disasters-during-1st-half-2025
[65] https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/07/u-s-socked-with-15-billion-dollar-weather-disasters-during-the-1st-half-of-2025/
[66] https://www.sej.org/headlines/scientists-discover-what-s-driving-record-die-offs-us-honeybees
[67] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/08/record-us-bee-colony-dieoffs-climate-stress-pesticides-silent-spring-aoe
[68] https://www.sej.org/headlines/interior-secretary-says-alcatraz-will-be-renovated-criminals
[69] https://www.sej.org/category/region/national/california
[70] https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2025/07/updated-interior-secretary-says-alcatraz-will-be-renovated-criminals
[71] https://www.sej.org/headlines/senate-passes-9-billion-spending-cuts-public-broadcasting-foreign-aid
[72] https://apnews.com/article/trump-republicans-budget-cuts-pepfar-pbs-npr-486f0f5871068f14d97eb4c4d7f9bb88
[73] https://www.sej.org/headlines/list/%2A/208
[74] https://www.sej.org/headlines/list/%2A/208?page=80
[75] https://www.sej.org/headlines/list/%2A/208?page=77
[76] https://www.sej.org/headlines/list/%2A/208?page=78
[77] https://www.sej.org/headlines/list/%2A/208?page=79
[78] https://www.sej.org/headlines/list/%2A/208?page=82
[79] https://www.sej.org/headlines/list/%2A/208?page=83
[80] https://www.sej.org/headlines/list/%2A/208?page=84
[81] https://www.sej.org/headlines/list/%2A/208?page=85
[82] https://www.sej.org/headlines/list/%2A/208?page=498