"Officials in multiple states said they were alerted late Wednesday that their second shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine had been drastically cut for next week, sparking widespread confusion and conflicting statements from Pfizer and federal officials about who was at fault."

"Climate change raises the risk from failing sewage systems. So Catherine Coleman Flowers is working for a new way to deal with waste."

"Republicans and Democrats together approved the Great American Outdoors Act, but the administration has ignored planned projects and imposed rules restricting spending."

"The partisanship poisoning Washington made it hard to imagine the sharply divided Congress coming together over anything in this year, let alone environmental legislation. And fallout from the pandemic made it seem even more unlikely that Democrats and Republicans could agree on something like spending hundreds of millions of dollars on parks and conservation.

"Four ways the new administration can elevate evidence and build up the science ranks".

"President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has selected Michael S. Regan, North Carolina’s top environmental regulator, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Mr. Biden’s transition team announced Thursday. The decision elevates for the first time a Black man to lead the powerful department, which is central to achieving the new administration’s climate change agenda."

"In a historic decision, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has chosen Deb Haaland, a congressional representative from New Mexico and a Native American, to lead the Interior Department, an agency that for much of the nation’s history played a central role in the dislocation and abuse of Indigenous communities from coast to coast."

"The selection of the first Native American interior secretary and first Black male EPA chief highlights pollution disparities".  ... "With that selection and several others this week, Biden is sending a clear message that the officials who will confront the nation’s environmental problems will look like the Americans who are disproportionately affected by toxic air and despoiled land."

"The U.S. Energy Department on Tuesday finalized two rules easing energy standards on consumer fixtures and appliances, including one on shower heads after President Donald Trump complained some showers don’t adequately rinse his hair."

"Scientists reveal further details about the damage sustained under Trump — and the challenges for Biden in restoring science’s standing at the agency."