"The CEO of America’s largest water utility warned that a federal push to streamline permits for infrastructure projects could stymie stronger water quality standards."
"As the head of the federal agency controlling billions of acres of public lands and waters, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has spent the past year making bold policy proclamations to advance President Trump’s energy agenda .... But legal experts say many of the moves were made without fully considering the laws and procedures governing changes like these, making them vulnerable to legal challenges that could delay or block them."
"The Trump administration has formally suspended a major Obama-era clean water regulation ahead of plans to issue its own version of the rule later this year."
"The Trump administration is poised to ask Congress for deep budget cuts to the Energy Department’s renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, slashing them by 72 percent overall in fiscal 2019, according to draft budget documents obtained by The Washington Post."
"Alaska Governor Bill Walker said on Tuesday he has asked U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to pare back a Trump administration plan for oil and gas leasing off the state’s coast."
"A year before President Trump named Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency, where he quickly became a presidential favorite by gutting pollution rules and slashing staff, Mr. Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general, assailed Mr. Trump on a talk radio show, saying he would be “abusive to the Constitution.”"
"Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt insisted his job was not to 'put up fences' to prohibit industries from exploiting natural resources, and he refused to be pinned down on the agency's future direction on clean air and climate change at a Senate hearing on Tuesday."
"Trump talked of the year's climate disasters—without saying 'climate change'—and while repeating his usual promotion of the fossil fuels that drive global warming."
"President Trump has nominated a former astronaut to head a science agency after more than a year in office — even as his administration has touted the agency as key to helping make the United States a dominant force in exporting fuel and minerals globally."
"The start of the new year has been rocky for Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke. He’s on the hot seat for exempting Florida from the Trump administration’s expanded oil and gas offshore drilling proposal without bothering to notify his boss, and for what appears to be a failure to disclose an investment in a Montana gun company, a possible conflict of interest."
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