"The EPA was set to tighten rules on landfill operators. With Trump in charge, state policies may be the nation’s best bet at curbing these emissions."
"President Donald Trump’s executive orders shrinking the federal workforce make a notable exception for public safety staff, including those who fight wildland fires. But ongoing cuts, funding freezes and hiring pauses have weakened the nation’s already strained firefighting force by hitting support staff who play crucial roles in preventing and battling blazes."
"The Trump administration has removed environmental protections covering more than half of the land managed by the U.S. Forest Service as part of the president’s aim to significantly bolster the U.S. logging industry."
"Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is a challenge, especially for adventurers making the entire run from Southern California to Canada, and Eric Kipperman’s job is to greet them at the start and lay bare the difficulties ahead. He has lately begun warning that the journey may be even tougher. Following cuts by the Trump administration, plans to clear downed trees and rebuild storm-battered stretches in 2025 have been scrapped."
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"Chevron has been ordered to pay more than $744m in damages for destroying parts of south-east Louisiana’s coastal wetlands over the years. The ruling, which came in the form of a civil jury verdict on Friday, marks the conclusion of the first trial among 42 lawsuits filed about 12 years earlier which alleged that the company’s oil and gas projects have led to the degradation of the region’s wetlands."
"Retired coal miner Stanley “Goose” Stewart questions whether it’s safe for anyone to work in the industry right now. The Department of Government Efficiency, created by President Donald Trump and run by Elon Musk, has been targeting federal agencies for spending cuts. That includes terminating leases for three dozen offices in the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the agency responsible for enforcing mine safety laws."
The Potomac is one of the most prominent rivers in the United States, a defining ecological feature of Washington, D.C., at the same time it reveals the city’s history of racial inequality and disenfranchisement. Writer, historian, educator and herbalist Charlotte Taylor Fryar recounts that tale in her ambitious “Potomac Fever,” reviewed in the latest BookShelf by contributing editor Jennifer Weeks, herself a Washington native.
"The White House is weighing an executive order that would fast-track permitting for deep-sea mining in international waters and let mining companies bypass a United Nations-backed review process, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the deliberations."
"Brazil’s Supreme Court backed down and withdrew its proposal to open up Indigenous territories to mining and economic activities from a controversial bill that critics say violates the Constitution."
"The EPA’s slashing of more than $1 billion in grant funding has hit hard in Western communities that have felt climate impacts from flooding, wildfire smoke and melting permafrost."
