"On the morning of Aug. 21, 2018, David Bernhardt, then the deputy interior secretary, wanted to attend a White House meeting on the future of a threatened California fish, the delta smelt — an issue upon which Mr. Bernhardt had been paid to lobby until he joined the Trump administration a year before."
"The U.S. Justice Department has issued civil subpoenas to four major automakers, demanding that they disclose details on a deal struck with California in July to follow strict vehicle emissions standards, a source briefed on the matter said on Thursday."
"When officials at a government weather forecasting office assured Alabama residents that a September hurricane would not hit their state, they did not intend to contradict President Trump’s insistence that it would, according to newly disclosed documents."
"The Trump administration changed a 25-year-old policy to make it easier for coastal communities to take sand from protected ecosystems to improve their beaches."
"The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general is investigating whether chief of staff Ryan Jackson was involved in destroying internal documents that should have been retained, according to two people familiar with the matter."
"President Donald Trump is scorching the facts about California’s wildfires. The president in recent tweets blamed California and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for the fires because of state forest management practices and said California’s fires were too expensive and worse than in other states. In fact, the fires were not raging mostly in forests. The bulk of California’s forests are also federally managed, and other parts of the U.S. are burning even more."
"A team of Trump administration advisers – consisting mostly of appointees from private industry – are urging “modernization” of national park campgrounds, with a vision of food trucks, wifi and even Amazon deliveries."
"An environmental group that has sued the Trump administration nearly 100 times announced Tuesday that it has hired Gina McCarthy, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama, as its new president and chief executive."
"GREENDALE, Ind. — Mayor Alan Weiss has a whiskey fungus problem. Baudoinia compniacensis, a little-studied black mold associated with alcohol aging, is growing all over the otherwise idyllic town Weiss leads here in southeastern Indiana."
"The Trump administration is chasing down fewer environmental crimes than any administration since the mid-1990s, according to new data from an independent research group."
