"Weak U.S. water protection rules and federal oversight has allowed dozens of U.S. oil refineries to dump toxic chemicals and metals into the nation’s waterways, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) said in a report released on Thursday."

"After a public reckoning and the departure of its executive director, the nation’s largest environmental organization has tapped Ben Jealous as its new leader."

"The White House was widely criticized a year ago for not using racial demographics to identify disadvantaged communities that would be targeted for extra climate aid. ... But the colorblind approach has succeeded at prioritizing minority neighborhoods, an E&E News analysis shows."

"Brazil's federal police said on Monday they had a "strong conviction" a gang leader known as "Colombia" ordered the brutal murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, killed in the Amazon rainforest last June."

"Despite an injection of funding, the agency still has not recovered from an exodus of scientists and policy experts, both insiders and critics say."

"WASHINGTON — The nation’s top environmental agency is still reeling from the exodus of more than 1,200 scientists and policy experts during the Trump administration. The chemicals chief said her staff can’t keep up with a mounting workload. The enforcement unit is prosecuting fewer polluters than at any time in the past two decades.

"A chaotic start to the new Republican-led House may spell trouble for the 2023 farm bill."

"For centuries, a Native American tribe considered a large swath of land with cliffs jutting out along the Rappahannock River in Virginia’s Northern Neck as their ancestral heart and homelands."

"There’s now more than just smoke hanging around the site of an underground landfill fire near Birmingham. In the two days since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed up to take control of the scene, the area has been abuzz with EPA trucks, bulldozers and excavators moving in to begin putting out the fire."

"Racist beauty standards are driving the use of beauty products that are often contaminated with chemicals that alter the human endocrine system, cause organ damage, and spur cancer in communities of color, according to new research."