"At a February 21 hearing, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the Trump administration must either fork over documents showing how the U.S. Department of State reversed an earlier decision and ultimately came to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, or else provide a substantial legal reason for continuing to withhold them."
"With fanfare, U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt convened top officials from across the government last week to discuss a coordinated federal effort to combat lead poisoning. What did they do? Hard to say."
"A pair of environmental groups representing public employees sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday, claiming officials failed to adequately take and maintain public records in violation of federal law."
"Federal officials must go back and review documents related to the disputed Keystone XL oil pipeline, under a Wednesday court ruling that came after environmentalists accused President Donald Trump’s administration of withholding details on the project’s approval."
"A harrowing lawsuit poses a serious threat to the First Amendment and press freedom, but it isn’t coming from legal action against a newspaper. Instead, it originates from legal action against environmental advocacy organizations."
Covering local infrastructure projects often means covering energy and the environment. This week’s TipSheet offers a companion to our special backgrounder on the national infrastructure story emerging out of Washington. We’ve got dozens of resources and links for finding infrastructure news and information from Congress, executive agencies, infrastructure organizations and environmental groups.
A recently unearthed report reveals Bureau of Land Management plans to limit how many FOIA requests a single person or group can submit and to make government records more expensive to acquire.
"Lissa Lucas is a Democrat running for a state House seat in West Virginia’s District 7. Part of her campaign’s goal is to challenge the stranglehold of the fossil fuel industry on the state’s politics."
For decades, federal law has required environmental impact statements for big federal actions, like the building of dams, highways and more. Those impact statements, a valued reporting tool, may now be under threat. This week’s TipSheet explains how journalists can find them and use them, and why they could be at risk.
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