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At Least 40 Interior Department Employees Tested Positive For COVID-19

by Huffington Post | April 14, 2020
“Almost every bureau of the Interior Department’s vast agency ― 70,000 employees across 2,400 nationwide offices ― has had at least one employee test positive for the virus. The Interior Department has kept these numbers private, while leaving most public parks and refuges open ...

Congress Should Withhold Support for Agency Requests Until Trump Nominates Qualified Leaders, Groups Say

by Government Executive | April 14, 2020
“The Trump administration’s “fumbling response” to the outbreak is a “symptom” of the lack of presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed leaders across agencies directly involved in those efforts, groups like the Project on Government Oversight, Public Employees for ...

Trump Administration Considers Hunting in Wildlife Refuges a Celebration of COVID-19 “Success”

by Union of Concerned Scientists | April 13, 2020
“News broke last week that the Department of Interior (DOI) is planning to open an unprecedented number of wildlife refuges to hunting and fishing. The proposed changes, if finalized, would open over 2.3 million acres of federal land across 97 national wildlife refuges and 9 fish ...

PFAS News Roundup: Indianapolis and Rhinelander find PFAS, PFAS testing and projects stalled due to COVID-19

by Great Lakes Now | April 11, 2020
“PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of widespread man-made chemicals that don’t break down in the environment or the human body and have been flagged as a major contaminant in sources of water across the country. Click on the headline to read the full ...

BLM approves controversial Colo. management plan

by E&E News | April 9, 2020
“The Bureau of Land Management has approved what it calls a “balanced” land use plan for southwest Colorado that critics say unnecessarily emphasizes energy development over conservation. The government watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility ...

The National Park Service Has Not Required All Locations to Close During Coronavirus, Despite Demands

by Government Executive | April 8, 2020
“Despite calls from lawmakers, union officials and advocates, the National Park Service has not mandated that all of its locations close during the novel coronavirus outbreak. Jeff Ruch, Pacific director for the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, called NPS ...

Department of Interior’s e-bike policy under review

“The U.S. Department of Interior’s policy proposal last year to regulate e-bikes as traditional bikes on non-motorized lands is now under standard review with a public comment period. The policy proposal in August allowed e-bikes access to non-motorized trails 30 days afterward ...

Low-level Radioactive Waste Could Go to Local Landfills

by Environment News Service | April 8, 2020
“As the nation is focused on coping with the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, is quietly moving to permanently deregulate massive amounts of low-level radioactive waste, but not spent nuclear fuel. By means of a proposed interpretive rule, the NRC ...

Cell Towers In National Parks: Seriously?

by The Good Men Project | April 7, 2020
“Cell service in national parks has become a flashpoint in recent years as cellular providers compete to blanket the United States with coverage — even in remote, traditionally off-grid areas. On one side of this most modern of environmental debates stand wilderness buffs, who ...

Lee Metcalf, Swan River refuges propose more hunting, including black bear

by KPAX | April 4, 2020
“Two national wildlife refuges near Missoula may allow people to hunt more wildlife, including black bear. While hunting groups back the changes, conservationists said the policy went into effect without adequate environmental review. Like many of the Trump administration changes, ...

Dumping Nuclear Waste, COVID-19 Risks From Food

by Shadowproof | April 3, 2020
“On this edition of the “Dissenter Weekly,” host and Shadowproof editor Kevin Gosztola highlights how President Donald Trump’s administration is apparently moving to massively deregulate nuclear waste disposal while everyone is focused on the coronavirus outbreak. Public ...

Advocates raise questions about proposal to allow some nuclear waste to be disposed in landfills

by The Hill | April 3, 2020
“Scientists and advocates are raising concerns about a proposed relaxation on regulations for disposing of nuclear waste, saying that the government should halt the proposal as the scientific community focuses on the coronavirus. In a statement on Thursday, Public Employees for ...

National Park Service Getting Around To eBike Regulations

by National Parks Traveler | April 3, 2020
“More than six months after Interior Secretary David Bernhardt ordered the National Park Service to expand access for eBike users in the National Park System, the agency is getting around to drafting regulations for the motorized cycles and would soon seek public input. Back in ...

Officials call for Grand Canyon closure to help stem coronavirus spread

by Cronkite News | March 31, 2020
“Arizona lawmakers joined local and tribal officials Tuesday calling on the Interior Department to reverse its “reckless” decision to keep Grand Canyon National Park open during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental ...

Groups Want Pause on State Water Project Permits

by Memphis Flyer | March 30, 2020
“Clean-water advocacy groups are asking state officials to postpone new water permits until after coronavirus orders have been lifted here to ensure the public has a say on projects that affect the “lives and lands of Tennesseans.” These permits include permissions to ...

COVID-19 Isn’t Slowing Down Trump’s Environmental Rollbacks

by Westword | March 27, 2020
“The coronavirus pandemic has brought life to a standstill in many parts of the world, but much to the dismay of environmental and activists, it isn’t holding back President Donald Trump’s efforts to weaken clean-air protections and sell off public lands for private gain. In ...

Environmentalists Say EPA Is Abandoning Its Mission By Reducing Enforcement Because Of COVID-19

by WGBH | March 27, 2020
LeMoult: Well, I’m told they really haven’t been able to do much of their jobs since this whole pandemic began. But I talked with Kyla Bennett today. She’s the science director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which is known as PEER, that’s ...

Hazardous chemicals and government silence — a dangerous mix

by The Hill | March 26, 2020
“Tort litigation has yielded multi-million-dollar verdicts for chemical exposure victims, prompted a documentary and a Hollywood feature film about the chemicals’ perils. Yet, the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to designate waste containing the chemicals as &# ...

Ride Out the Coronavirus in Your Backyard, Not the Backcountry

by Sierra Magazine | March 26, 2020
“Visitors are surging to national parks as people across the country seek relief from coronavirus shelter-in-place orders. In the past week, Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco experienced what park officials described as “unprecedented visitation.” Thousands of ...

Grand Canyon open, services and food aren’t

by Ahwatukee Foothills News | March 25, 2020
“Grand Canyon National Park is still open, but the same cannot be said for lodging and food services in the park that will be shuttered for the next two months by concerns over coronavirus. Grand Canyon Lodging on Thursday announced the “difficult decision” to suspend operations ...
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