"Karen Budd-Falen, a top official at the Department of the Interior, has financial ties to the controversial Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada — a project that the Trump administration worked to fast-track during its first term. In recent months, the administration took an equity stake in the mine and the mine’s parent company."
Explore our 10th annual Journalists’ Guide to Environment + Energy, as we scour the beat to identify 15 top stories to put on your radar for 2026. Our updated format for the special report provides a quick read and a broad scope — with insights on climate change and environmental justice, bird and insect declines, data centers and deep sea mining, deregulation and PFAS and much more. Get started here.
For more than a century, oil and gas companies have been drilling — and abandoning — wells across the country, leaving hundreds of thousands to potentially leak pollutants into the air, water and soil. Climate and environment reporter Martha Pskowski looks at how funding and regulatory issues are impacting efforts to identify and plug these wells, and offers resources for drilling into their story.
"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will not issue a nationwide recovery plan for gray wolves, it announced this week. The plan was slated to be launched in December of this year."
"Local non-profits and schools are helping students explore traditional practices paired with modern science to make food sovereignty a reality"
"BLM is narrowing reviews for proposed mining projects in states like Nevada and Utah. Critics say the agency is on shaky legal ground."
"The Trump administration has killed a huge proposed solar power project in Nevada that would have been one of the largest in the world, indicating that the White House plans to attack not only wind power but all renewable energy."
"On March 1, under a clear sky, hundreds of people flocked to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park—not to picnic but to protest. Two weeks earlier, the National Park Service had fired roughly 1,000 employees."
"Meet the researchers restoring these unique wetlands high in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains."
"The Trump administration has offered coal reserves in Wyoming in its latest move to reinvigorate the country’s coal industry. One environmental lawyer says it’s “ludicrous” to be selling leases for the most expensive and dirtiest form of energy."
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