Top mine regulator dogged by legal questions
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Elizabeth Duan | August 6, 2020
“As President Trump nears the end of his first term, the federal agency tasked with protecting the environment from the impacts of coal mining still does not have a confirmed director. The Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement oversees state ...
Massachusetts Enacts New Measures for Mosquito Management with Pros and Cons
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Elizabeth Duan | August 4, 2020
“Last month Massachusetts lawmakers finalized, and the Governor subsequently signed, emergency legislation S.2757, aimed at revamping the state’s approach to mosquito management. The final version of this mosquito reform bill continues to include certain problematic provisions, but ...
A ‘bigoted and divisive extremist’: NAACP takes on BLM chief
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Elizabeth Duan | August 3, 2020
“A large coalition of environmental and social justice groups, including the NAACP, urged members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in a letter today to reject Pendley. Among other things, the letter cites Pendley’s “track record of dismantling the very ...
Endangered turtles facing a new threat: budget cuts
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Elizabeth Duan | July 28, 2020
“Decades of conservation efforts have brought the Kemp’s ridley sea turtles back from the brink of extinction. It now looks like their future may be in peril once again. The National Park Service is proposing massive cuts in conservation officers. It’s a change that could have a ...
Trump pick to lead BLM has complicated history with public lands
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Elizabeth Duan | July 27, 2020
“William Perry Pendley, the longtime president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative legal fund that has fought the federal government on a host of issues in the American West, is now preparing for confirmation hearings to become the permanent director of the Bureau ...
EPA overhauls permit appeals process
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Elizabeth Duan | July 23, 2020
“EPA yesterday finalized a rule to speed up industry permit appeals, overhauling the decades-old process at the agency. In past decades, more states and tribes have assumed permitting authority under the law, EPA added. The final rule, the agency said, “clarifies the EAB’ ...