"The Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering whether facilities that recycle plastic chemically should be held to the same strict air pollution standards as incinerators. The possible change is alarming environmental advocates who say it would lead to more dangerous pollution spewing into communities, with fewer or no checks at the federal level."

"Risks from cancer and other diseases could be hidden with little accountability if justices favor big firms, critics warn"

"Despite hours of impassioned arguments from Sen. Tina Smith, the U.S. Senate ended a Biden-era moratorium on mining in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness watershed."

"A new Gallup survey found that a record-low 35 percent of American respondents rated the quality of their country’s environment positively, just more than a week before Earth Day."

"Public health officials in Omaha, Nebraska, say not enough kids who live near the country’s largest residential lead cleanup site are tested for the metal. Faced with similar crises or concerns, 13 states have passed laws requiring all kids to get a blood test for lead early in life."

"Federal judges held stock, bonds and leased mineral rights to Exxon, Chevron and others while hearing cases against the companies alleging damage to the La. coast."

"Climate change is making the risk of disastrous chemical accidents more likely. But the EPA wants to gut recently enhanced safety requirements for hazardous facilities."

"For two decades, Nick Pehle's grapes, pressed and distilled, have filled glasses at wineries across Missouri. ... Last year was different. In May, before the vines could bloom, their leaves started curling into the shape of small bowls."

"In places like Indonesia, plastic refuse is often burned in unregulated low-tech furnaces that pose grave health risks."

The job of the E.P.A. chief is to protect human health by safeguarding “the air we breathe, the water we drink and land that grows our food,” as the agency’s founding charter puts it, and most administrators have talked about their work in those terms. Mr. Zeldin, though, speaks more about supporting industry and exporting fossil fuels than about protecting the environment."