"EPA staffers are spending their days addressing an industry wish list of changes to environmental law, according to Elizabeth Southerland, a former senior agency official who issued a scathing public farewell message when she ended her 30-year career there on Monday."
"The Environmental Protection Agency will reject a proposed overhaul of the U.S. biofuels program that would have shifted blending responsibility away from refining companies further down the fuel supply chain, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday."
"The Interior Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) says it has begun a 'preliminary investigation' into reports that Secretary Ryan Zinke made phone calls pushing Alaska's senators to support a GOP healthcare bill or risk losing federal support for economic development efforts in their state."
"The Senate voted Thursday evening to confirm two of President Trump's nominees to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), paving the way for the commission to have its first quorum in six months."
"Climate change is essentially tied with the Islamic State as the most-feared security threat across much of the world — except in the United States, where cyberattacks are considered a greater danger than global warming, according to a Pew Research Center report released on Tuesday."
"The Interior Department announced on Wednesday that the Upper Missouri River Breaks, a famous chunk of river in central Montana that holds a national monument designation, would remain fully protected by federal land-use restrictions."
"One day after getting sued by 15 states, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt reversed his earlier decision to delay implementation of Obama-era rules reducing emissions of smog-causing air pollutants."
"Industry has delivered a clear message to the Trump administration during a series of recent closed-door meetings: Don't completely gut the Obama-era Clean Power Plan."
"For decades, some of the dirtiest, darkest secrets of the chemical industry have been kept in Carol Van Strum’s barn."
"An internal review by the Environmental Protection Agency has found that its administrator did not violate its scientific integrity policy when he contradicted a fundamental tenet of climate science by denying that carbon dioxide pollution is the principal agent of global warming."
