Government

"The Environmental Protection Agency says it has recovered 517 containers of 'unidentified, potentially hazardous material' from highly contaminated toxic waste sites in Texas that flooded last month during Hurricane Harvey. The agency has not provided details about which Superfund sites the material came from, why the contaminants at issue have not been identified and whether there’s a threat to human health."

"In a speech to a federal advisory board dominated by oil and gas industry executives, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke claimed that nearly a third of his staff is disloyal to President Trump, saying that workers in Washington are reluctant to relax regulations to permit increased mining for coal and drilling for natural gas and oil on public land."

"The U.S. Climate Alliance members, including California and New York, represent more than a third of the U.S. population."

"Cleanups at some U.S. hazardous waste sites have stopped or slowed down because the Environmental Protection Agency does not manage its Superfund staff effectively to match its workload, an internal government watchdog said Tuesday."

"President Donald Trump's nominee for the No. 2 spot at the Federal Emergency Management Agency withdrew from consideration on Wednesday after NBC News raised questions about a federal investigation that found he had falsified government travel and timekeeping records when he served in the Bush administration in 2005."

"A government watchdog agency has agreed to a request from Democratic senators to open an inquiry into whether the Environmental Protection Agency circumvented the Trump administration’s own ethics rules when hiring certain agency employees."

"Hundreds of U.S. EPA employees are heading for the exits after the agency offered a round of buyout and early retirement packages."

"William Bradford, a Trump appointee who sent racist and anti-Semitic tweets before being chosen to lead the Energy Department’s Office of Indian Energy, resigned from his position on Thursday."