"New bipartisan polling finds widespread disapproval among Western voters of the Trump administration’s public land policies, including recent reductions to two Utah national monuments and the expansion of lands being made available for energy extraction."
"The Trump administration will curtail a detailed review of how cordoning off 230,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land in Minnesota from mining development will affect a neighboring wilderness area, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post."
"Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke today [Wednesday] appointed P. Daniel Smith as the new acting director of the National Park Service, replacing Mike Reynolds, who's taking over as superintendent of Yosemite National Park."
This is a decisive time on the energy and environment front, with challenges and confrontation expected over the consummation of the Trump deregulatory agenda. Our second annual issues guide provides a roadmap for covering the big stories. The guide's formal launch took place at an SEJ event in Washington, D.C. on January 26. If you missed it, the webcast is archived here.
The effectiveness of Trump administration governance looms large in environment stories for 2018, and this week's TipSheet looks at flash points like an Interior Department reorg and the reshaping of the EPA, plus budgets and shutdowns. Ideas to help you cover the story.
"Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed a land-swap agreement Monday to allow a small, remote Alaska town to construct a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, a vast wilderness area that has been protected for decades."
"The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin today filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claiming the agencies have failed to take 'primary responsibility' for wetland permitting on a controversial proposed open pit mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula."
"A tablespoon of soil contains billions of microscopic organisms. Life on Earth, especially the growing of food, depends on these microbes, but scientists don't even have names for most of them, much less a description."
"As a Friday deadline for a government shutdown approached, the Trump administration began setting plans in motion to halt scores of federal functions — even as it scrambled to keep hundreds of national parks and monuments open to the public to minimize anger over the disruption of services."
"The U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday said it welcomed the mass resignation of members of the National Parks Service advisory board, saying they had ignored sexual harassment cases and lied about how they were treated by the Trump administration."
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