"With scientists warning that the Northwest’s beloved killer whales are on the brink of extinction, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced dramatic plans Thursday to help the population recover — including $1.1 billion in spending and a partial whale-watching ban."
"The Senate will not vote this year to confirm a new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, lawmakers said this week. That leaves the agency responsible for understanding and predicting changes in the earth’s climate without a Senate-confirmed leader for the longest period since it was created in 1970."
"The strain of E. coli causing the current outbreak in romaine lettuce has been found in a reservoir on a farm in Santa Barbara County, California, the US Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday."
"Scientific understanding of the risks greenhouse gases pose to public health and welfare has strengthened and broadened in the decade since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made its landmark 'endangerment finding,' according to a new review of the latest science published Thursday."
"LANSING – Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation Wednesday to create a new authority to oversee a proposed Line 5 tunnel in the Straits of Mackinac and named a top aide, an academic and a labor leader as its three members."
"The Trump administration's proposal for limiting Clean Water Act oversight of some wetlands and waterways is open for edits."
"Federal officials improperly granted forest-crossing permits to developers of the Atlantic Coast pipeline, a panel of appellate court judges found today.
The Forest Service violated the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it authorized construction of the 600-mile natural gas pipeline through two national forests and across parts of the Appalachian Trail, Judge Stephanie Thacker for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in a 60-page opinion issued this morning.
"House and Senate negotiators are still haggling over a year-end public lands package that would reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund but would also include several parochial bills, some of which could be controversial."
''Negotiators from nearly 200 countries produced a draft text on Thursday on how to implement the Paris Agreement on combating global warming, but some disputes remain with only one day left before the official end of the conference."
"When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, automakers, the obvious winners from the proposal, balked. The changes, they said, went too far even for them. But it turns out that there was a hidden beneficiary of the plan that was pushing for the changes all along: the nation’s oil industry."
