Environmental Politics

"President Trump is once again proposing to eliminate a program that helps low-income people heat and cool their homes."

"The Interior Department is offering its staff another round of buyouts and early retirements in an effort to slim down the federal department that’s in charge of the nation’s natural resources."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has voted to no longer lead security drills at power plants, instead allowing companies to lead their own drills in the coming years."

"Across the country, Republican-led state legislatures are passing a slate of laws that effectively shield oil and gas companies from legal claims that they are responsible for the destruction and mounting toll caused by climate change. Fifteen laws have either been passed or are currently being debated in 11 states. Together, they threaten to remove long-standing tools for the public to hold corporations accountable."

"Prosecutors say Amit Forlit ran a global hacking operation on behalf of a Washington lobbying group that aimed to thwart environmental lawsuits against oil companies."

"A whiskered gray snout pokes above the surface of Haulover Canal, an inland waterway adjacent to Canaveral National Seashore in Florida. A handful of people are gathered on shore at the canal’s Manatee Observation Deck, waiting patiently for this very moment."

"A rapidly expanding certification scheme run by a UK nonprofit and used by major gas companies may be understating the actual methane emissions it purports to certify, a Guardian investigation has found."

"U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to target Iran’s energy infrastructure, including the country’s desalination plants. Such a move — and Iran’s possible targeting of the plants of its Gulf Arab neighbors — could have devastating impacts across the water-starved Middle East."

"The Trump administration undertook an early step Monday in what is expected to be a significant rollback of a Biden-era rule restricting methane emissions from oil and gas production."

"RJ Laverne’s childhood home in Detroit had a big elm out front. In fact, the whole neighborhood was lined with them: great, graceful trees whose branches spread across the street to create a shady canopy. Elms were so widely planted in cities and suburbs in the 19th and 20th centuries that they became known as the “Main Street tree.” Then, in the 1930s, Dutch elm disease began to ravage them, and by 1989, most of America’s 77 million mature elms were dead."