National (U.S.)

"The Senate today [Thursday] confirmed Aurelia Skipwith as director of the Fish and Wildlife Service on a mostly party-line vote of 52 to 39."

"A privately funded, nonprofit organization is creating a 3.2 million-acre wildlife sanctuary — American Prairie Reserve — in northeastern Montana, an area long known as cattle country."

"A decade ago, natural gas was heralded as the fuel of the future. ... The boom has given way to a bust."

"The first public report on climate-related risks to financial markets ever commissioned by a U.S. market regulator will be out in June, the head of the group charged with writing it said on Wednesday."

"The Government Accountability Office (GAO), will probe the Trump administration’s decision to relocate Bureau of Land Management (BLM) staff from Washington, D.C., to Colorado, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) announced Wednesday."

"Federal agencies have approved nearly $226 million for 18 projects to restore open ocean and marine habitats that were decimated in the Gulf of Mexico by the 2010 BP oil spill."

"President Donald Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took a step closer to confirmation Dec. 11 when the Senate voted 53-41 to put her nomination to a final confirmation vote."

"Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg was named Time magazine’s 2019 “Person of the Year” early Wednesday."

"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Tuesday proposed a “Blue New Deal” plan in what she calls an effort to protect oceans and rebuild the economy associated with oceans."

"A majority of Americans say they want more stringent oversight of large-scale livestock operations, according to a national poll by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future released Tuesday. The polling follows a recent recommendation from the nation’s leading public health association to temporarily halt the creation of new concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, and increase their oversight and regulation."