"The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday 49-47 to confirm a top air quality official at the Environmental Protection Agency, despite concerns raised by lawmakers over his industry ties."
"A House panel today approved legislation to increase energy development on public lands and waters by reducing federal regulations, streamlining the permitting process and creating a revenue-sharing partnership with coastal states."
"The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use of mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria as a 'biopesticide' in 20 states and the District of Columbia. The bacteria keep mosquitoes from spreading diseases like dengue and Zika."
"Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowksi (R-Alaska) released legislation Wednesday that would open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling for the first time in a generation by calling for at least two major lease sales over the next decade."
"The National Academy of Sciences has agreed to review U.S. EPA's beleaguered chemical assessment program, the Integrated Risk Information System."
"A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday rejected a challenge by two animal rights activists to the constitutionality of a federal law used to prosecute them for breaking into an Illinois farm and releasing more than 2,000 minks into the wild."
"Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has put a hold on all four pending Interior Department nominees over the Trump administration’s plans to potentially shrink multiple national monuments."
"Kathleen Hartnett White, President Trump’s pick to serve as his top White House environmental official, told the Senate Wednesday that she had doubts about the link between human activity and climate change."
"Federal investigators have issued subpoenas for information on Carl Icahn’s efforts to change biofuel policy while he served as an adviser to President Donald Trump, according to regulatory filings."
"Besides lead, no contaminant in drinking water has provoked as loud a public outcry in the last two years in the United States as a class of chemicals known as perfluorinated compounds. New Jersey regulators are taking the strongest action to date on the man-made chemicals that are used in scores of household and industrial products."
