Environmental Politics

"Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services is the first state attorney general to create an environmental justice bureau."

"The Trump administration on Monday proposed allowing companies searching for oil and gas deposits in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to disrupt polar bears living there."

"State police brandishing firearms Monday raided the Tallahassee home of Rebekah Jones, the former Department of Health data scientist who built the state's much-praised COVID-19 dashboard before being fired over what she said was refusing to "manipulate data.""

"The Trump administration on Monday declined to tighten controls on industrial soot emissions, disregarding an emerging scientific link between dirty air and Covid-19 death rates."

"President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has selected Xavier Becerra, the Democratic attorney general of California, as his nominee for secretary of health and human services, tapping a former congressman who would be the first Latino to run the department as it battles the surging coronavirus pandemic."

"The Department of Energy has issued a final rule rolling back liquefied natural gas project reviews under a landmark environmental law, the latest in a string of Trump administration actions aimed at overhauling the federal approach to the National Environmental Policy Act.

The rule would exempt liquefied natural gas facilities from NEPA review at DOE through so-called categorical exclusions and is aimed at boosting an industry that has faced headwinds amid a slump in global energy demand brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

"President Trump signed a big public lands conservation bill this summer. But so far the White House’s implementation of the new law has been scattershot and controversial."

"President Trump’s quest to build as much of his border wall as possible before leaving office is newly angering landowners and authorities in the American southwest."

"President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s environment and energy team — facing a narrowly divided Congress and a hostile Republican leadership — will need creativity and perseverance if Mr. Biden is to follow through on his ambitious promises to address climate change."