National parks struggle with unclear e-bike policy, nonprofit says
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Elizabeth Duan | August 14, 2023
A Park Service policy issued during the Trump administration said that e-bikes could go anywhere regular bikes could. That met with widespread opposition. So, the agency turned the matter over to individual parks, which resulted in legal action. A court ordered the agency to write a new ...
Laudable or laughable? Southern Utahns, others talk Biden’s proposed public lands rule
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Elizabeth Duan | August 13, 2023
President Joe Biden’s administration proposed a new public lands rule emphasizing conservation. The “Conservation and Landscape Health” rule, first proposed in March, lists conservation as a use of BLM lands on par with grazing, recreation and resource extraction, among others. “ ...
Chemical Company-Funded Senators Float Watered-Down PFAS Bill
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Elizabeth Duan | August 11, 2023
The chair and the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works floated draft legislation in late June on the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS that critics argue would fail to regulate the toxic substances by implementing a restrictive legal definition of the ...
Officials: Error led to routing planned transmission line through national monument
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Elizabeth Duan | August 10, 2023
The potential destruction of ice age fossils in a Southern Nevada national monument by a proposed energy transmission line is due to a decade-old mapping error, according to federal employees, but at least one government accountability group isn’t buying it. “We are not aware of a ...
We Had 44 Period and Incontinence Products Tested for Forever Chemicals. Many Were Contaminated.
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Susan Sargent |
Forever chemicals are everywhere, including in period and incontinence products—even in some that companies claim are free of such substances. That’s the conclusion from independent lab testing we solicited that looked for signs of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in 44 ...
$22 million withheld from Minnesota DNR until it proves wildlife priority before logging
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Elizabeth Duan | August 9, 2023
In a rare and possibly unprecedented move to ensure that Minnesota complies with federal environmental laws when selling timber on state hunting lands, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has placed a hold on $22 million in wildlife habitat grant money. “It is outrageous that ...