latest articles in Politics

Trump's Other Agent of Ecocide
Should we conserve American wilderness and cultural sites, or bulldoze trees, lop off mountaintops and deface areas of spiritual and ancestral heritage to benefit extractive industries? The fiery, never-ending debate...

The Last Plastic Straw: How Legislation Can Stop Plastic Pollution
I have been writing about single use plastics for a long time, well before I co-founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition in 2009. In that time, plastic pollution has only escalated despite...

Scott Pruitt, You Have No Conscience
Mr. Pruitt, It’s been a little over three months since I last wrote and I have yet to receive a response. No, no — it’s okay. You’re a very busy...

Why Is Ryan Zinke Shaking Up the Interior Department?
On Wednesday, The Center for Biological Diversity filed a Freedom of Information Act request for public records that address the sweeping reassignment of dozens of high-level staff within the Department of the...

Wyoming Governor Attacks Endangered Species Act
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead has attacked the Endangered Species Act, saying, “It’s not good industry, it’s not good for business and, quite frankly, it’s not good for the species.” He added that...

Zinke Recommends Shrinking Bears Ears National Monument
On Monday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended that President Trump vastly shrink Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, removing critical protections for irreplaceable public lands and rewarding corporate polluters and the lawmakers they...

Trump Officials Push for Atlantic Oil Exploration Using Harmful Seismic Blasting
The Trump administration today issued draft authorizations to five companies to search for oil off the Atlantic Coast — from Florida to Delaware — using loud seismic airgun blasts that hurt whales,...

Overwhelming Support for Bears Ears in the Form of 685,000 Public Comments
Supporters of Bears Ears National Monument sent a flood of comments to the Department of the Interior urging that the Utah monument be protected, with more than 685,000 messages of...

Trump's Budget Unkind to Environment and Endangered Species
The Trump administration’s detailed 2018 budget proposal, released on Tuesday, contains unprecedented funding cuts for the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency and increased spending for a...

EPA Gets Earful After Opening Public Comments on Deregulation
By Lauren McCauley It turns out Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt's plan to gut environmental protections is wildly unpopular as a call for public comment amassed nearly 60,000...

Bill Letting Big Industry Veto Environmental Rules Progresses in Senate
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today marked up and approved two harmful deregulation bills that would make it harder to protect people and imperiled wildlife from environmentally destructive practices....

Trump to Pick Radio Host to Be 'Chief Scientist' at USDA
By Nika Knight President Donald Trump is expected to pick Sam Clovis, a conservative talk show host who campaigned for Trump in Iowa, for the position of "chief scientist" as...