Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund David Varga Fishing nets will keep catching things even when there’s no one there to haul them in. These “ghost nets” are a ubiquitous form of pollution in today’s oceans, where they ensnare and kill marine life such as sea turtles, dolphins, and sharks. On the western shores […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Today, on behalf of ourselves, our members, and many other environmental groups, we’re submitting an 85-page comment letter to the Trump administration opposing seismic blasting in the Atlantic. As I wrote in early June, the Trump administration has proposed permitting five large-scale surveys that, if approved, would criss-cross […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Greenpeace Polska/Flickr “No Trump, Yes Paris” on the side of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, where President Trump visited ahead of the G20 summit in Hamburg Donald Trump promised to put “America first,” even if it meant alienating old friends and stretching the patience of […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Hundreds of safeguards that protect Americans are now in jeopardy and a court allows the EPA to continue putting kids at risk from a toxic pesticide. iStock Having failed to take away health insurance for 32 million Americans with his Obamacare repeal, President Trump pivoted this week to […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Today, the Trump administration released a list of the public safeguards it intends to destroy. Click to watch a video about how everyday lives will be impacted by halting public protections. The Trump administration has released a list of hundreds of federal rules it plans to weaken or […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund There’s been no small amount of pushback to President Trump’s recently announced plan to expose all our coasts to risky offshore drilling. But today another shoe dropped. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper drew a figurative line in the sand when he publicly denounced the plan and conveyed that […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund There they go again. Automakers are once more on the attack, attempting to weaken the clean car and fuel economy standards that are protecting our health, planet and pocketbooks, that they agreed to just five years ago. If successful, their efforts will take our nation backward, adding at […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund House Oversight Hearing Signals Return of “Empty Oceans Act” and New Efforts to Roll Back Federal Fisheries Law This afternoon, the House Natural Resources Committee’s Oceans Subcommittee held an oversight hearing on the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), the law that governs our nation’s fisheries in […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund The Trump Administration is reportedly looking for ways to artificially prop up an economically struggling coal plant in Arizona, but support for the plant might come at the expense of support for affected communities. The Navajo Generating Station (NGS) is one of the largest coal plants in the […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Roy C. Averill-Murray,USFWS/Flickr Desert tortoises have crawled the Mojave Desert since before there was an America, or a Mojave Desert for that matter. For millions of years, these plodding reptiles have ambled across the sands, gnawing on flowers, grasses, and cacti, digging extensive burrow networks, and every once […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Today the National Ocean Policy turns 7 and I’m increasingly amazed our country ever managed without it. The National Ocean Policy, also known by its wonkier name of Executive Order 13547, promotes coordination among the dozens of government agencies that oversee marine health and development. The idea of […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund There is overwhelming, bipartisan support for strong fuel economy standards in the Midwest auto manufacturing strongholds of Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee, according to recent surveys. Weakening the standards, on the other hand, would be very unpopular. Across the three states, Democratics and Republicans support raising the fuel economy […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund California just set a new bar for what U.S. climate leadership looks like. With passage of a legislative package to extend the state’s market-based cap-and-trade program, state legislators have helped ensure that California—the world’s sixth-largest economy—will cut carbon pollution by 40 percent by 2030, all while cutting dangerous […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Legislative hearings in the House and Senate consider bills that would, among other things, block Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in Minnesota. Dan Behm Today Congress is holding not just one, but two legislative hearings on six separate bills that would undermine the Endangered Species Act […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Based purely on a procedural issue, an appeals court ruled today that the EPA can keep putting off a decision on banning chlorpyrifos. Africa Studio/Shutterstock In late March, after U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt reversed an Obama-era recommendation to ban chlorpyrifos—a widely used, highly toxic pesticide […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund The California legislature today passed a hard-fought air quality and climate package that will extend California’s market-based cap-and-trade program to 2030 and improve air quality in neighborhoods plagued by traffic and industrial pollution. Passage of this legislation, which Governor Jerry Brown is expected to sign, was the right […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Is my water safe to drink? This is a fundamental question that government officials should be able to answer without hesitation. Unfortunately for residents in East Chicago, the answer remains a troubling uncertainty. This weekend, an EPA official was in East Chicago to address the various lead contamination […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Despite national commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some G20 countries still fund highly polluting coal projects. The catch is most of these emissions don’t count towards their carbon footprint – these countries are funding coal projects abroad. If G20 nations are serious about their Paris Agreement goals, […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund This post was co-authored by Dan Sakaguchi. Whether it is President Trump’s proposed budget or Scott Pruitt’s rollback of EPA policies, the federal government appears to be walking backward when it comes to progress on sustainability. However, the real estate community is running forward; in cities across the […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund A farmer in Iowa Scott Sinklier/Alamy In Curtiss Hall, one of the oldest buildings at Iowa State University, students get their career advice and information on global agriculture from the Monsanto Student Services Wing, dedicated in 2012 with help from the colossal food tech company known for bioengineering […]