"The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office filed the first environmental complaint against Mexico Thursday for failing to protect the critically endangered vaquita marina, the world’s smallest porpoise."
"The U.S. Department of the Interior announced the release of nearly $725 million in funding for cleaning up old coal-mining facilities. It’s the first tranche of a record $11.3 billion dedicated to coal cleanup in last year’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to be disbursed over the next 15 years."
"A federal judge today restored Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf, marking a big win for environmentalists in a high-profile fight that’s raged across the Western landscape."
"A federal appeals court yesterday agreed to keep a Colorado lawsuit before a state bench, delivering a victory to local governments suing fossil fuel companies for climate impacts."
"Up to 40 world leaders are due to make “ambitious and concrete commitments” towards combating illegal fishing, decarbonising shipping and reducing plastic pollution at what is billed as the first high-level summit dedicated to the ocean."
"Negotiators from around the world will start work this month on a treaty to reduce plastic pollution, in what diplomats say is the most ambitious round of climate diplomacy since the 2015 Paris agreement that focuses on global warming."
"Oil and gas regulators are assuring Texans the natural gas system will keep functioning this winter, saying they’ve done more than 3,000 inspections to check on it. What they’re not saying is many of those inspections found that gas production and transmission facilities can’t guarantee they’re prepared for another hard freeze."
"In a new draft document, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) science advisers recommended that the agency tighten its air quality standards for soot pollution after the Trump administration declined to make such a move.
The new draft that was released Friday by the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) says “all CASAC members agree that the current level of the annual standard is not sufficiently protective of public health and should be lowered.”
A key federal database on toxic chemicals, kneecapped under the Trump administration, is now back. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week resurfaced the ChemView service, and explains the background law that fuels its data, while offering tips on how to make smart use of the database as it expands in coming years.
"The Biden administration reversed a Trump administration position and upheld the Mandan, Hidatsa Arikara Nation's claim to mineral rights beneath the Missouri River within the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation."
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