"When it comes to filling jobs dealing with complex science, environment and health issues, the Trump administration is nominating people with fewer science academic credentials than their Obama predecessors. And it’s moving slower as well."
"Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday called on President Trump to shrink a total of four national monuments and change the way six other land and marine sites are managed, a sweeping overhaul of how protected areas are maintained in the United States."
"A series of Santa Ana wind-driven wildfires burned out of control in Southern California on Tuesday, destroying at least 180 structures, forcing thousands to flee and smothering the region with smoke in what officials predicted would be a pitched battle for days."
How the U.S. economy uses energy has huge impacts on the environment. So this week's TipSheet helps journalists understand the economy-energy-environment nexus, detailing nine top trends to watch on fossil fuels and alternative energy in 2018. Plus, a list of helpful sources for tracking energy markets.
Purges of EPA science panels by Administrator Scott Pruitt are just one among many moves in an ongoing dispute over the integrity of the environmental sciences in government policymaking. The latest Issue Backgrounder takes a deep dive with a briefing on five likely battles ahead for the coming year.
"In the 29 years that towboat captain Joe Gray has worked flotillas of barges up and down the Ohio River, he has witnessed the decline at the heart of industrial America in what is known as the country’s Rust Belt."
"Leslie Martinez heard the floodwaters before she saw them. ... After all, Ms. Martinez recalled, the home builder had assured her that 'flooding was not even a possibility' when she and her husband purchased the house in this suburban enclave north of Houston in 2011. They would never have bought here otherwise. Flood insurance, of course, was neither required nor needed."
"A U.S. regulator’s preliminary investigation into the biggest oil pipeline spill this year has raised a red flag that could trigger an extensive and costly inspection of tens of thousands of miles of underground energy lines."
"A federal judge ordered Energy Transfer Partners LP to coordinate with local tribes and the Army Corps of Engineers to create an oil-spill response plan for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline by next April, a decision he said will allow oil to keep flowing and prevent spills."
"Rep. Lamar Smith has led a strategic attack on climate science using the committee he chairs. Back in Texas, his constituents face the effects of global warming."
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