"An independent government watchdog will investigate the Trump administration's alleged political interference with public health agencies, Democratic senators announced Monday."
A forthcoming U.S. National Climate Assessment, due in 2022, faces delays, thanks to Trump administration foot-dragging, according to the new WatchDog Opinion column. And the Supreme Court, possibly with a new Justice Amy Coney Barrett aboard, is about to hear arguments on a freedom of information case involving the Endangered Species Act.
"A shuffle to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) independent board of science advisers will add a longtime consultant who has worked for the tobacco and chemicals industries while promoting a member listed as someone “not to pick” by the Union of Concerned Scientists to be the panel's chair."
"Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett called climate change 'a contentious matter' and declined to acknowledge the existence of the scientifically established phenomenon during the third day of her confirmation hearing."
"Even the pitch black, nearly freezing waters at the bottom of the ocean – far from where humans live and burn fossil fuels – are slowly warming, according to a study of a decade of hourly measurements."
"A bird said to have the aerodynamic build of a “jet fighter” has been tracked flying more than 12,000km (7,500 miles) from Alaska to New Zealand, setting a new world record for avian non-stop flight."
"This has been the 2020 pattern: Politics has thoroughly contaminated the scientific process. The result has been an epidemic of distrust, which further undermines the nation’s already chaotic and ineffective response to the coronavirus."
The narrative around the ocean should become a more hopeful one, argues former NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco. As evidence at the Society of Environmental Journalists’ recent virtual conference, Lubchenco cites a top-level international analysis that suggests the ocean can play a positive role in everything from reducing climate change to securing the future of food. Find out more.
If oddsmakers are right and the Dems sweep the White House and both houses of Congress next month, one significant outcome could be the rollback of prominent Trump administration deregulatory moves. The latest TipSheet explains how an arcane law might make such reversals possible, and then spotlights half-a-dozen potentially vulnerable Trump regulatory actions.
"Mario Molina, who shared a Nobel Prize in chemistry for demonstrating the threat to the ozone layer posed by CFCs, chemical compounds often found in refrigerants and hair sprays and whose use was later curtailed by a landmark international accord, died Oct. 7 at his home in Mexico City. He was 77."
