"Even as President Trump and Republicans in Congress seek to cut federal taxes, the White House has quietly come up with a very different plan for infrastructure: It wants to reward states and localities willing to raise taxes or other revenue to pay for new projects."

"Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt on Thursday defended his frequent taxpayer-funded travel and his purchase of a custom soundproof communications booth for his office, saying both were justified."

"Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency will be free to publicly discuss their work from now on, Scott Pruitt, the agency’s administrator, has assured lawmakers who criticized the E.P.A. for preventing employees from presenting findings about climate change."

"The cost of harmful chemical and heavy metal exposures around the world likely tops 10 percent of the global GDP, according to a new study."

"BALTIMORE — Keyonta Parnell has had asthma most of his young life, but it wasn’t until his family moved to the 140-year-old house here on Lemmon Street two years ago that he became one of the health-care system’s frequent customers."

"Three years after the Army Corps declared it sufficiently cleaned up, a former Air Force station continues to contaminate wildlife on remote St. Lawrence Island".

"House and Senate Republicans have inserted language into spending bills aimed at blocking legal challenges to the Trump administration’s effort to repeal a 2015 water protection rule that gave two federal agencies broad leeway in regulating activities that could affect streams and tributaries."

"The military spends more than a billion dollars a year to clean up sites its operations have contaminated with toxic waste and explosives. These sites exist in every state in the country. Some are located near schools, residential neighborhoods, rivers and lakes."

"The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has blocked an attempt to rein in emissions from concentrated animal feeding operations in the state."

"[Wednesday] morning, the Environment and Public Works Committee moved through the nominations of Kathleen Hartnett White to be chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Andrew Wheeler to be deputy U.S. EPA administrator. Both passed on party-line votes of 11-10."