Trump Administration Abruptly Ends Key Law Enforcement Program at Wildlife Refuges
From: The Hill “The nation has 562 national wildlife refuges spread across 20.6 million acres of public land. Unlike national parks, mining, drilling, hunting and farming are all regulated activities on certain refuges. “Our dual-function officers were an integral aspect of refuge ...
Helicopter Noise Suit Goes to Appeals
From: West Hawaii Today “The lawsuit seeks an injunction for the FAA to implement the Air Tour Management Plan over Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, something both the FAA and the National Park Service has failed to do for 18 years despite Congressional legislature, said Bob Ernst, ...
Trump Admin Touts Children’s Health Programs Amid Questions About Ousting Top Scientist
From: ABCNews “”Children’s health is a top priority at EPA, and we have made tremendous progress improving air and water quality and helping kids and families lead healthier lives,” Wheeler said in a statement Monday. Advocacy groups, however, say they have doubts about the ...
EPA Makes Changes at Research, Child Health Offices
From: CNN “Michael Halpern with the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has opposed other Trump administration moves, said combining the offices would bury a once-influential position “deep inside one specific part of EPA.” In past administrations, the science advisor has ...
US Government Officials Visit, Learn About Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
From: Char-Koosta News “CSKT employees were escorted off the National Bison Range by armed officials and locked out pending an investigation of the claims. CSKT Vice Chairman Leonard Grey worked as a volunteer at the time and recalled his experience to Sweeney. “It was truly an insult ...
US Advocacy Group Sues EPA over Unreleased Formaldehdye IRIS Assessment
From: Chemical Watch “Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a US alliance of state and federal professionals, is suing the US EPA for failing to respond to a public records request related to an assessment of formaldehyde. The claim relates to an unreleased revised ...
Federal Court Rules that CREW and PEER Records Lawsuit Against Pruitt and EPA May Proceed
Washington — This week, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg issued an order allowing a Federal Records Act (FRA) lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) to proceed. CREW and PEER ...
Outdoor Activist Tim Mason Righted Many Wrongs
From: The Gazette “Only because Tim Mason was dogged did the biggest official mass desecrations of Indian prehistoric burial sites in U.S. history come to light,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the group that presented Mason with its eco-hero medal. Mason made his environmental ...
Where Are Trump’s Watchdogs?
From: Greenwire “After eight years as EPA’s inspector general, Arthur Elkins is stepping down next month. Interior has had an acting IG in place for more than nine years, and President Trump hasn’t announced a nominee to fill the job. Trump has put forth a nominee for DOE&# ...
Editorial: Scott is a Disaster on Environment
From: Ocala Star Banner “From the moment the health-care multimillionaire swept into office on 2010′s Tea Party anti-tax, anti-regulation wave, he began slashing the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the five water management districts, cutting budgets, skilled staff and ...
Florida Editorial Roundup
From: Washington Times “What got slashed? The state’s network for water monitoring shrank from 350 monitoring sites to 115, according to Florida International University’s Southeast Environmental Research Center. Enforcement of anti-pollution regulations slowed to a crawl. The DEP ...
Labor Dept.’s OFCCP to Visit Hundreds of Contractors in the Coming Months
From: Federal News Radio “The Government Accountability Office may weigh in on how the Interior Department has been filling vacant political positions. In emails obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, GAO said it may look into “time violations” at Interior ...
Editorial: Scott Must Answer for Environmental Malpractice
From: My Palm Beach Post “With a horrific red tide killing marine life and tourism on Florida’s southwest coast, and with toxic green algae bringing misery to the Treasure Coast and Fort Myers area on a now-annual basis, it’s understandable that Gov. Rick Scott would want to run away ...
While You Weren’t Looking: 5 Stories from Trump’s America That Aren’t About Hurricanes
From: Mic “The memo was released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit environmental protection group that has repeatedly butted heads with the Trump administration over its lack of commitment to protecting wildlife and biodiversity. “This across-the-board ...
Yellowstone Grizzly Bears Spared From Hunters as Court Decides Their Fate
From: Truth Out “Conservation groups and nine Native tribes intervened with lawsuits challenging the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove endangered species protections for the bear population in and around Yellowstone, and a federal court in Missoula, Montana, heard oral ...
Dunes Action Calls on DNR to Hold Public Meeting on Proposed Pavilion Project Changes
From: Chesterton Tribune “Both Dunes Action and the National Park Service (NPS) have recently sent letters to the DNR. NPS asked that the DNR direct Pavilion Partners LLC to either revert to the original plans for restoration, submit new plans for review, or consider converting the ...
GAO May Weigh in on Zinke’s Temporary Filling of Political Positions
From: Federal News Radio “In February, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility urged Interior’s Office of the Inspector General to look into what it considered “blatant violations” of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. More specifically, PEER took issue with the agency’s ...
Navy’s Hunters Point Retesting Plan Draws on Questionable Cost-Cutting Study
From: San Francisco Chronicle “The U.S. Navy’s latest promise to clean up radioactive soil and buildings at its former San Francisco shipyard relies on an earlier Navy effort to remove less radioactivity in order to cut costs, The Chronicle has learned. The perplexing move has ...
The EPA Can’t Stop Polluters When the Trump Administration Cuts Enforcement Staff
From: Union of Concerned Scientists “n addition to reductions in staff focused on pollution prevention, it also means reductions in staff for those who work on environmental cleanup, such as at Superfund sites. There is also a critically low number of criminal investigators working for ...
Zinke Yields to States on Fish and Wildlife
From: Greenwire “Individual states will wield more clout over fish and wildlife on about 780,000 square miles of Interior Department land nationwide under a new policy outlined by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. In a move that’s welcomed by Western conservatives but worries ...
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