"Plans for a celebrity-backed “hyperscale” data center in rural Utah, so massive that it would consume more than double the state’s current electricity use, have generated an intense public and political backlash in a state where the motto is “industry” and a Republican supermajority tends to be deferential to development."
"Although California laws prevent schools and nearby farmers from applying pesticides when students are present, cities are largely an exception. On May 1, Patterson city staff sprayed pesticides at Floragold Park next to Apricot Valley Elementary school while kids were outside."
"California is considering giving oil refineries and other major polluters billions in free pollution permits under a major overhaul of its carbon market. The fight is exposing a deeper question inside Gov. Gavin Newsom's climate agenda: Can California lower emissions without driving up gas prices?"
"US Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears to be shifting its strategy as it faces environmental review headwinds in its campaign to buy and convert warehouses into detention centers across the country. The Department of Homeland Security is now conducting National Environmental Policy Act reviews for two proposed facilities in New Jersey and Maryland, marking a policy shift after the agency initially exempted the projects from the months-long study process."
"In March, a letter to the editor appeared in the Los Angeles Times imploring Congress to take action against a California law that requires farmers provide hogs, calves and chickens with enough room to turn around, lie down and stretch. A chief problem with the law, according to the letter, is that it applies to animals raised in other states if products from those animals are sold into California."
"The Trump administration has fired the two leaders of an influential health group that determines when insurance must provide free preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies, for millions of Americans. In letters dated May 11, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. notified the two doctors who chaired the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that he was terminating their appointments immediately, before the end of their multiyear terms."
"In the year since President Donald Trump signed an executive order promising to create a deep-sea mining industry from scratch, businesses have raised millions of dollars from investors, stock prices have soared and federal regulators have raced to fast-track a permitting process."
"The Trump administration on Thursday loosened federal rules that require grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gases used in cooling equipment, a step that President Donald Trump said would help lower grocery costs."
"For the first time ever, solar is set to generate more electricity than coal in the power market managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Nobody is building new coal power plants in the state, but developers are adding more solar there than anywhere else in the country."
"A controversial land swap orchestrated by the megarich could be “a harbinger of what’s to come” for public lands under Trump."
