While it's too soon to tell what the new Trump administration and 115th Congress will do, our special report suggests we may see a groundswell of environmental deregulation and massive energy development. Backgrounder looks at the top 10 energy-environment issues to watch in the President Trump era.
Democrats and Republications may agree on a vast federal program to build and repair the nation's crumbling infrastructure, but still uncertain is what will be built, how it will be paid for and who will vote for it. TipSheet looks at the politics of public works (what journalists used to call "pork").
At a time when government information may be harder than ever to access, WatchDog offers a unique guide to leaks that reporters can offer potential whistleblowers. Also in the latest column, sealed records on a weedkiller-cancer connection, secret talks on coal-ash regs and more.
To help keep tabs on the newly seated 115th Congress and its gate-keepers of energy and environment law, the latest TipSheet offers a checklist of committee leadership. Plus, a closer look at three key Senate panels, likely agendas and new leadership, such as Senate Energy Committee Chair John Barrasso, R-Wyo. (shown in photo).
"The reopening of the nation's only underground nuclear waste repository nearly three years after a radiation leak marks a key step toward cleaning up a decadeslong legacy of bomb-making and research, but the U.S. energy secretary said more needs to be done before a backlog of contaminated material starts heading to the New Mexico desert again."
"A new law in Michigan will prohibit local governments from banning, regulating or imposing fees on the use of plastic bags and other containers. You read that correctly: It’s not a ban on plastic bags — it’s a ban on banning plastic bags."
Late last week Congress moved authority over coal-ash pollution standards from the feds to states and utilities. With hundreds of huge pits and ponds of the potentially toxic substance scattered across the United States, our latest TipSheet explores this unsolved problem and helps you find your local coal-ash angle.
Sarah Palin for Interior secretary? Her name is among those being mentioned for top environment and energy posts in the incoming Trump administration. To help you cover the shaping of the new cabinet, the latest TipSheet runs down better-known and lesser-known candidates being floated for EPA, Interior, Energy and Agriculture department chiefs.
"The U.S. government said on Tuesday it was delaying indefinitely its proposal for how to clean up or seal off radioactive soil buried in a St. Louis-area landfill adjacent to another waste site where an underground fire has been smoldering for several years."
With the nation's infrastructure suddenly atop the political agenda, thanks to incoming President Trump, Circle of Blue reporter Brett Walton talks with SEJournal Online about his award-winning series on the neglected risks of septic system pollution, in our latest 'Inside Story' Q&A.
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