Laws & Regulations

"The Trump administration's proposal for limiting Clean Water Act oversight of some wetlands and waterways is open for edits."

"Federal officials improperly granted forest-crossing permits to developers of the Atlantic Coast pipeline, a panel of appellate court judges found today.

The Forest Service violated the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it authorized construction of the 600-mile natural gas pipeline through two national forests and across parts of the Appalachian Trail, Judge Stephanie Thacker for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in a 60-page opinion issued this morning.

"House and Senate negotiators are still haggling over a year-end public lands package that would reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund but would also include several parochial bills, some of which could be controversial."

''Negotiators from nearly 200 countries produced a draft text on Thursday on how to implement the Paris Agreement on combating global warming, but some disputes remain with only one day left before the official end of the conference."

"When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, automakers, the obvious winners from the proposal, balked. The changes, they said, went too far even for them. But it turns out that there was a hidden beneficiary of the plan that was pushing for the changes all along: the nation’s oil industry."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has hired a Pennsylvania environmental official to lead the program dedicated to cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay’s pollution."

"Already in the midst of a massive push to extract more oil and gas from the nation’s waters and wide-open spaces, the Trump administration has set its sights on a new goal: to ramp up drilling in national forests."

"A growing number of House Democrats are backing the idea to create a special committee to fight climate change next year, but it likely won’t have the authority to pass any bills."

"Congress has voted for an $867 billion farm bill with strong bipartisan support, spurred in part by pressure from farmers battered by President Trump’s trade war with China."

"Crews are hard at work these days on the oil rigs that rise above the horizon in southeastern Saskatchewan. At least for now."