"A group of 139 Democratic lawmakers is urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to “promptly” reinstate California’s ability to set its own vehicle emissions standards — which is expected to increase electric vehicle adoption."
"A highly anticipated review by the U.S. Interior Department of the federal oil and gas leasing program is undergoing final internal review and should be released "very soon," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland told a Senate hearing on Tuesday."
"In a major step against climate change, President Joe Biden is proposing a return to aggressive Obama-era vehicle mileage standards over five years, according to industry and government officials briefed on the plan. He’s then aiming for even tougher anti-pollution rules after that to forcefully reduce greenhouse gas emissions and nudge 40% of U.S. drivers into electric vehicles by decade’s end."
"As the drought worsens across the West and ushers in an early fire season, cattle ranchers are among those feeling the pain. Their hay yields are down, leading some to make the hard decision to sell off animals."
"The Dawn Marie is rising and falling in the gray swells, one of a hundred boats crowded together in search of striped bass — sometimes called America’s fish — on the Chesapeake Bay."
"Baby salmon are dying by the thousands in one California river, and an entire run of endangered salmon could be wiped out in another. Fishermen who make their living off adult salmon, once they enter the Pacific Ocean, are sounding the alarm as blistering heat waves and extended drought in the U.S. West raise water temperatures and imperil fish from Idaho to California."
"A disbarred American lawyer who spent more than two decades trying to prove Chevron Corp polluted Ecuador's rainforest was found guilty on Monday by a U.S. judge of six counts of criminal contempt."
"The move would reverse a major Trump administration rollback of pollution rules. But many coal plants will be allowed to send toxic wastewater into rivers and streams while the agency writes the new regulations."
The origins of the struggle to protect animal welfare began with preventing the brutal mistreatment of carriage horses. And a new volume explores how one man did much to extend those protections to many species with the founding of the ASPCA. Our BookShelf has a review of “A Traitor to His Species: Henry Bergh and the Birth of the Animal Rights Movement.”
If you’re a freelancer with disorganized piles of 2021 receipts already gathering dust in a corner, the latest Freelance Files is for you. Globetrotting science journalist Dan Grossman shares his system (and advice from his accountant) for tracking expenses for travel, legal and professional services, business costs, home office use and more. Your Schedule C will never seem quite so disconcerting again.
