"A federal judge Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) policy of removing scientists with EPA grants from its advisory boards."
"Gov. Gavin Newsom, diving into one of California’s most contentious water issues, said Tuesday he wants to downsize the Delta tunnels project. The Democratic governor also set out to overhaul state water policy by naming a new chair of the state’s water board."
"Protesters in Alaska urged federal officials to keep oil rigs out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge despite a federal law requiring lease sales in the wilderness area."
"The U.S. president has joined Kentucky's governor and the coal state's U.S. senators in trying to pressure the Tennessee Valley Authority to keep a 49-year-old coal-fired power plant operating, even though the nation's largest public electric utility has concluded that the plant is unreliable, no longer needed and too expensive to repair and operate."
"Despite promises to steer clear of his former employer, the disgraced banker who spearheaded EPA's toxic waste cleanup reform efforts communicated extensively while at the agency with the institution he once led, newly released emails show."
"EPA air chief Bill Wehrum refused for 10 months to release a recusal letter detailing his past work representing chemical manufacturers, refiners, oil drillers and coal-fired power plants."
"Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced today he plans to bring the 'Green New Deal' up for a vote in the Senate."
"The Senate on Tuesday passed the most sweeping conservation legislation in a decade, protecting millions of acres of land and hundreds of miles of wild rivers across the country and establishing four new national monuments honoring heroes including Civil War soldiers and a civil rights icon."
Our latest Issue Backgrounder looks at the potentially historic impact of the ambitious climate action agenda known as the Green New Deal — not just on this Congress or the next, or even on the race for the White House in 2020, but for the soul of the Democratic Party. An analysis of a public policy program in the making, the political maneuvering it’s engendering and its prospects to sow division or prompt a united front.
A former head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has written a powder keg of a book, “Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator.” Author Gregory Jaczko left the post in 2012, far more critical of nuclear power’s safety claims than he came in, his concerns amplified by the Fukushima meltdown in Japan in 2011. Now, he worries that its lessons have not sunk in deeply enough with an industry that he believes is headed toward catastrophe. Read our latest BookShelf review.
