"Colorado native David Bernhardt’s nomination by President Donald Trump to the post of deputy Interior secretary was confirmed Monday by the U.S. Senate, despite concerns from Democrats who call him a Washington insider and from conservationists worried about his environmental record."
"Eight U.S. senators called for an investigation today after a federal climate scientist filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that he had been arbitrarily reassigned by the Trump administration in what he believed was retaliation for speaking out publicly about the dangers climate change poses to Alaska Native communities."
"Before he was an adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump, Anthony Scaramucci, the president’s new White House communications director, lamented that some people did not accept the consensus among climate scientists that human activity was warming Earth."
"The Hogan administration notified the federal Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday that it plans to file a lawsuit alleging the agency has failed to act against states whose smokestack emissions pollute Maryland’s air."
"The White House has frozen or withdrawn hundreds of planned rules, a move aimed at bolstering the economy but that scraps proposed protections for workers and the environment."
"The White House’s Office of Management and Budget detailed Thursday how it would jettison hundreds of existing or planned regulations as part of its larger push to ease federal restrictions on the private sector, upending federal policies on labor, the environment and public health.
"President Trump is expected to nominate a coal lobbyist and an energy industry attorney for a pair of key posts at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)."
"David Bernhardt, President Trump’s nominee for deputy interior secretary, has been described as 'an excellent choice' by supporters and 'a walking conflict of interest' by opponents. The full Senate is set to vote on his nomination Monday.
Bernhardt wouldn’t be new to the Interior Department. He served under President George W. Bush as solicitor, the third-ranking position at the department, and as a legal officer. But more recently, he worked for a lobbying firm representing energy interests and a water district.
"Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg flew to Glacier National Park on Saturday to tour the melting ice fields that have become the poster child for climate change’s effects on Montana’s northern Rockies. But days before the tech tycoon’s visit, the Trump administration abruptly removed two of the park’s top climate experts from a delegation scheduled to show him around, telling a research ecologist and the park superintendent that they were no longer going to participate in the tour."
"The Trump administration has erased an Obama-era requirement that Harley-Davidson Motor Co. spend $3 million on a pollution control project as part of its penalty for cheating on air emissions."
"Exxon Mobil Corp sued the U.S. government on Thursday, blasting as 'unlawful' and 'capricious' a $2 million fine levied against it for a three-year-old oil joint venture with Russia's Rosneft."
Advertisement 
