Environmental Politics

"California sued the Trump administration today over EPA's refusal to extend Clean Water Act protections to salt ponds in San Francisco Bay."

"Senate appropriators approved by voice vote this morning a $35.8 billion fiscal 2020 spending bill for EPA, the Interior Department and related agencies, with bipartisan consensus and without any new 'poison pill riders.' But the bill does seek to limit Interior's ability to relocate hundreds of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) jobs out of Washington, D.C."

"China has denounced a landmark U.N. deal that caps emissions from international flights, in a setback for an industry eager to placate the growing international movement to curb air travel’s impact on the environment."

"Mitch McConnell staked his last Senate campaign, five years ago, in large part on his support for the coal industry and coal miners. But McConnell's unwillingness to shore up the fund that supports miners with black lung disease or their pension fund, even after dozens of his constituents traveled 10 hours by bus this summer to his Washington office, has allowed a well-funded opponent to seize on what should be McConnell's strength: coal."

"The Senate voted to confirm a top lawyer for the Department of the Interior who was accused of lying to Congress. Daniel Jorjani, already the de facto top lawyer for the department, was confirmed with a 51-43 vote. He is the subject of an ongoing review by the Interior Department’s Office of the Inspector General."

"Protesters were characterized as a threat to national security in what one calls an attempt to criminalize their actions".

"The political war between California and the Trump administration escalated Monday with a letter from Andrew Wheeler, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, warning that Washington would withhold federal highway funds from the state if it did not rapidly address a decades-long backlog of state-level pollution control plans."

"The Trump administration is ratcheting up its threats against California with a letter warning the state faces sanctions – including cuts in federal highway funding – over its “failure” to submit complete reports on its implementation of the Clean Air Act."

"UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Climate Action Summit on Monday was meant to highlight concrete promises by presidents, prime ministers and corporate executives to wean the global economy from fossil fuels to avoid the worst effects of global warming. But despite the protests in the streets, China on Monday made no new promises to take stronger climate action. The United States, having vowed to pull out of the Paris Agreement, the pact among nations to jointly fight climate change, said nothing at all. A host of countries made only incremental promises."

"Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg had one question for the global leaders assembled at the United Nations: “How dare you?”"