"A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday rejected a challenge by two animal rights activists to the constitutionality of a federal law used to prosecute them for breaking into an Illinois farm and releasing more than 2,000 minks into the wild."

"Voters in New Jersey, Virginia and Washington state backed candidates who support clean energy and could expand regional carbon markets."

"Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has put a hold on all four pending Interior Department nominees over the Trump administration’s plans to potentially shrink multiple national monuments."

"Kathleen Hartnett White, President Trump’s pick to serve as his top White House environmental official, told the Senate Wednesday that she had doubts about the link between human activity and climate change."

"Federal investigators have issued subpoenas for information on Carl Icahn’s efforts to change biofuel policy while he served as an adviser to President Donald Trump, according to regulatory filings."

"U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is again signaling his determination to slow-walk key compliance decisions for the agency's 2015 ground-level ozone standard, raising the odds that only a prolonged court battle will settle the issue."

"Key Interior Department vacancies have lingered for an unusually long time, leaving Secretary Ryan Zinke's management team problematically short-handed."

"A group of mostly Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday slammed a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policy designed to overhaul the agency’s scientific advisory panels."

"Then there was one. Syria announced during United Nations climate talks on Tuesday that it would sign the Paris agreement on climate change. The move, which comes on the heels of Nicaragua signing the accord last month, will leave the United States as the only country that has rejected the global pact."