A wastewater spill into the Potomac River that began last month now appears to be one of the largest in American history. DC Water, a local water utility, said in a press release last week that part of a sewer system known as the Potomac Interceptor collapsed along the Clara Barton Parkway on Jan. 19....
Former President Obama and other influential Democratic leaders on Thursday criticized the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to repeal a landmark legal finding about climate change's danger to the public. The Trump administration on Thursday repealed the endangerment finding, a 2009 legal rule under the Clean Air Act that found greenhouse gas emissions pose a...
President Trump is nominating a food service and hospitality executive to lead the National Park Service (NPS). Trump’s pick to lead the U.S.'s national parks, Scott Socha, is Delaware North’s president of parks and resorts, as well as president of Delaware North Australia. Delaware North has contracted with the NPS. According to Delaware North’s website, its parks and resorts subsidiary...
A key official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) indicated Wednesday that he believes the nation’s threshold for the declaration of major disasters is too low as various changes loom for the agency under the Trump administration. During a congressional hearing, FEMA associate administrator Gregg Phillips slammed what he described as an "artificially low threshold" for...
House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced a bill on Wednesday that would fund every agency under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) except Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Office of the Secretary. The move comes as the stopgap measure to fund DHS at existing...
A federal research lab formerly known as the National Renewable Energy Lab laid off more than 100 people this week. The lab, now called the National Lab of the Rockies, laid off 134 people, a spokesperson confirmed to The Hill Tuesday. “The National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) implemented workforce actions affecting 134 employees across...
President Trump is once again opening up a marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean to commercial fishing. Late Friday afternoon, he issued a proclamation allowing for commercial fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. This monument consists of a nearly 5,000 square mile area southeast of Cape Cod, Mass. Species of dolphin, whale,...
The Trump administration is making moves to loosen the environmental rules for nuclear energy. Earlier this month, the Energy Department published an exclusion to environmental reviews for the reactors under its jurisdiction. And it could be loosening other rules, including radiation limits. But the biggest changes could be still to come from the relatively low-profile...
