As a new Biden administration prepares for office, WatchDog issues a call for restoring open government. The latest opinion column puts forward a list of 20 recommended actions that include outlawing assault on journalists, clearing FOIA backlogs and counteracting ag-gag laws. Plus, an updated reporter’s Bill of Rights for government press offices.
"House investigators are seeking records from the developers of the Pebble Mine project and the Army Corps of Engineers, to determine whether the company misrepresented its plans."
"A coalition of Democrats, Native Americans and liberal activists is urging President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to nominate one of Congress’s first Native American women to head the Interior Department, putting an American Indian in control of vast swaths of the continent and the Bureau of Indian Affairs."
"After years of work, the Trump administration has succeeded in formally unraveling a venerable industrial air toxics policy. Does industry much care?"
"One of Joe Biden’s boldest campaign pledges was to ban “new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters,” part of a sweeping agenda aimed at curbing greenhouse gases that are warming the planet and threatening life on Earth. Transforming that promise into reality, however, will be tough."
"Nearly 90 Democratic lawmakers wrote to the White House to protest a recent shakeup at the agency charged with organizing a key assessment that helps the government consider how to respond to climate change."
"Despite environmental groups’ opposition to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that allows the public to ask the agency to eliminate policy guidances, at least one organization has already started to use the rule to its advantage."
"One of Joe Biden’s boldest campaign pledges was to ban “new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters,” part of a sweeping agenda aimed at curbing greenhouse gases that are warming the planet and threatening life on Earth. Transforming that promise into reality, however, will be tough."
"The Trump administration on Thursday proposed to loosen Obama-era safety regulations for the oil industry in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska to ease the way for petroleum extraction in the region, an effort that President-elect Joe Biden will likely throw out once in office."
"Andrew Wheeler, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, plans to squeeze in two taxpayer-funded trips abroad — to Taiwan next month and to four Latin American countries in January — before President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes over and moves to overturn most of his policies."
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