House Dems Push Trump to Fill High-Level Interior Vacancies
From: The Hill “Fifty-nine percent of key [Interior] positions have yet to be filled; fewer than half of those vacant even have a nominee awaiting Senate approval,” Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, wrote in a letter to President Trump ...
Federal Managers who Try to Protect Public Lands Face Threats and Violence. Here’s What Makes That Much Worse.
From: The Washington Post “Recently, the federal Bureau of Land Management fired a longtime employee, allegedly for blowing the whistle on the Trump administration’s refusal to enforce grazing policies on federal lands. The former employee, Craig Hoover, reported that agency ...
Number of Criminal Environmental Cases Referred to DOJ by Interior at Nearly 25-Year Low
From: The Hill “The number of criminal environmental enforcement cases brought by the Interior Department has decreased by nearly 40 percent since 2016, according to internal data shared with The Hill. Criminal environmental cases that often deal with unlicensed big-game hunting, ...
Ethics Group Goes After Interior for Sidestepping Senate When Filling Posts
From: The Hill “An environmental group filed a complaint against the Department of the Interior on Tuesday, saying the agency shuffled controversial employees into roles without Senate confirmation. A May 23 order from Interior Secretary David Bernhardt slotted people into various ...
Trump’s EPA Is Letting “Forever Chemicals” Into Our Food, Experts Say
From: Truth Out “A growing chorus of environmental groups and public health experts are slamming the Trump administration for its milquetoast response to the widespread problem of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a family of toxic “forever chemicals” that are linked to ...
Public Lands Critic to Oversee Fish, Wildlife and Parks
From: Environment News Service “Putting Karen Budd-Falen in this position is like putting Genghis Khan in charge of a day care center,” said PEER Senior Counsel Peter Jenkins, pointing out that she was previously slotted into an Interior deputy solicitor job that required no Senate ...
