Permanent funding could soon be in store for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a federal program that buys local land and water conservation areas. That means local stories about nearby recreation areas may abound. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox explains more, and points to databases and other resources to help locate those projects.
"Three days before President Trump declared that wind power doesn't work 'all that well,' his Energy Department released a report stating that wind power installations are 'robust' and prices are 'falling.'"
"EPA's internal watchdog did not review allegations against Scott Pruitt for failing to keep track of records or properly respond to Freedom of Information Act requests."
"Interior Department officials and congressional Democrats remain on a collision course over the Trump administration's plans to relocate Bureau of Land Management headquarters."
"Engineers in southern California are hard at work designing the biggest wildlife corridor in the world, to extend over US Highway 101 to the north-west of Los Angeles."
"A lot of money will soon be flowing into California communities with contaminated drinking water thanks to the new Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund."
"The US interior secretary, David Bernhardt, is promoting a fossil fuel project for which his former employer, a lobbying firm, is a paid advocate, e-mails obtained by the Guardian suggest."
"Joe Balash, the Alaskan leading the Interior Department's plans to auction the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's coastal plain for oil development, has resigned, effective at the end of the month."
EPA's internal watchdog released a report this morning that found President Trump's first EPA chief made the most appointments to "administratively determined" positions under the Safe Drinking Water Act compared with his recent predecessors."
"When the Trump administration first pushed to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration, it predicted that drilling would generate a windfall for the federal Treasury: $1.8 billion, by a White House estimate. But two years later, with the expected sale of the first oil and gas leases just months away, a New York Times analysis of prior lease sales suggests that the new activity may yield as little as $45 million over the next decade."
