"Federal regulators on Thursday threw a significant curveball at a coalition that has been planning for years to demolish four massive hydroelectric dams on a river along the Oregon-California border to save salmon populations that have dwindled to almost nothing."

"At the dawn of the Trump era, Republicans in the White House and Congress turned an old law into a potent new weapon. An obscure 1996 statute was harnessed to wipe out 14 Obama-era regulations in 16 weeks, before President Trump set out to enact the most significant deregulatory agenda in the modern presidential era. ... Now Democrats are eager to show that turnabout is fair play ..."

"Democrats are working on climate plans now in hopes that they'll be ready if voters deliver them the Senate and White House. But winning it all won't mean a Democratic cakewalk in the Senate where controversial bills require 60 votes."

"The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has changed the rules for a federal law that allows independent energy projects to secure utility contracts for their power. Utility groups say the changes will reduce costs for customers, but clean-energy groups and independent power developers say they’ll stifle open competition."

"A federal judge in California late on Wednesday blocked a rollback by the Trump administration of a rule on slashing emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas operations on federal and tribal lands."

"Low-income Black and Latino communities will be pummeled by the Trump administration’s changes to the nation’s permitting rules for federal infrastructure projects, according to environmental justice leaders across the country."

"A multibillion-dollar measure that would help build, repair, and maintain a wide variety of water infrastructure projects sailed through the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Wednesday."

"The state of Virginia adopted the first set of coronavirus-related workplace safety mandates in the country, after a board approved the emergency regulation Wednesday — a move the state took after months of inaction from a federal agency tasked with nationwide enforcement."

"President Trump finalized a major overhaul Wednesday of one of the country’s most consequential environmental laws on the grounds that it has slowed the construction of highways, pipelines and other major projects across the country. The sweeping changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act, which opponents have vowed to fight in court and reverse if Democrats regain control of the executive and legislative branches this fall, underscore the stakes in this year’s election."

"President Trump plans this week to overhaul a federal law that poor and minority communities around the country have used for generations to delay or stop projects that threaten to pollute their neighborhoods — a law he says needlessly blocks good jobs, industry and public works."