"It’s the peak of the leafy greens growing season in Yuma, Ariz., where irrigated valleys are lush and verdant amid cactus-covered mountains. .... But these are anxious times for the leafy greens industry, and the partial federal government shutdown and furloughing of many Food and Drug Administration officials has deepened the distress."
"Acting Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler’s past lobbying work for coal companies and other industries regulated by the agency is expected to draw scrutiny Wednesday when a Senate committee considers his nomination to the position."
"The FDA plans as soon as Tuesday to restart food safety inspections at facilities that handle riskier products like fresh-cut produce, as the partial government shutdown extends into its fourth week, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Monday."
"President Trumphas tapped Commerce Department inspector Mark Greenblatt to be the new inspector general of the Department of the Interior."
U.S. courts will be a key venue of environmental conflict in 2019, as the Trump administration pushes back against an extensive array of long-standing environmental law. This special edition Issue Backgrounder looks at seven key legal disputes, including cases involving climate change liability, intergenerational equity and policy, as well as conflicts over maintaining national monuments, defining which waters are subject to anti-pollution rules, disposing of coal ash and extending offshore drilling.
Expect the fight to worsen over the Trump Administration’s attempted rollback of auto mileage standards. Not only is California resisting a loss of its waiver to set tighter rules, joining at least 16 other states in a preemptive lawsuit. But carmakers themselves are deviating from the Trump line, worried over a fracturing of the nationwide auto market or seeking an edge in the field for more efficient vehicles. This special edition TipSheet looks at prospects for conflict in the year ahead.
"As men leave animal agriculture for less gritty work, more ranches are being led by women — with new ideas about technology, ecology and the land."
"Hundreds of years before John Wayne and Gary Cooper gave us a Hollywood version of the American West, with men as the brute, weather-beaten stewards of the land, female ranchers roamed the frontier. They were the indigenous, Navajo, Cheyenne and other tribes, and Spanish-Mexican rancheras, who tended and tamed vast fields, traversed rugged landscapes with their dogs, hunted, and raised livestock.
After a federal payroll division mistakenly paid workers at the Chemical Safety Board, which investigates toxic and hazardous chemical disasters, Trump officials scrambled to claw back the money.
"Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt must soon decide whether to maintain eight temporary agency directors, as the Trump administration presses into its third year without appointees for a slew of top posts at the department.
According to Secretarial Order 3345, eight temporary appointments — including the heads of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service — will expire on Jan. 31.
"Senate Democrats are sounding the alarm that acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler may be tapping furloughed workers to help prepare for his confirmation hearing."
Advertisement 
