"A group of US lawmakers including the 2020 Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders are proposing to declare the climate crisis an official emergency – a significant recognition of the threat taken after considerable pressure from environment groups."

"New York’s health department will set the nation’s lowest allowable level for industrial chemicals that have contaminated some communities’ drinking water."

"Two major health organizations on Monday sued the Trump administration over its rollback of an Obama-era rule on power plant emissions."

"Senators from both parties are unhappy with new Trump administration rules giving political appointees at two government agencies more power to review public information requests, and they say they may craft legislation to fix it."

"A coalition of environmental groups pushed back Monday against a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that could restrict access to public records."

"President Trump delivered a full-throated defense of his administration’s environmental record Monday, despite relaxing nationwide limits on air and water pollution and reversing course on U.S. climate policy."

"Environmental groups say a new rule from the agency eliminates one of the only tools providing communities near CAFOs with information about toxic substances in the air."

"The Treasure State looks poised to permit its first new copper mine in decades. Sandfire says it will raise the environmental bar — a promise Montanans have heard before."

"WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, Montana ― In the late 1800s, a homesteader named Johnny Lee settled in a remote gulch along Sheep Creek, a tributary of the Smith River that zigzags west through the rolling Little Belt Mountains of central Montana. For two decades, Lee toiled on a nearby hillside where a small amount of copper had been found, hoping to uncover a large underground deposit of the valuable ore.

"A federal court in the District of Columbia upheld federal protections Wednesday for the California gnatcatcher bird by dismissing a lawsuit by a developer group who said the coastal bird was not qualified to receive protections."