Natural Resources

"The Trump administration is heading to the Supreme Court to fight an environmental lawsuit that halted construction of several border wall projects."

"Scientists hope the massive telescope they plan to build atop Hawaii’s highest peak, a world-renowned location for astronomy, will help them peer back to the time just after the Big Bang and answer fundamental questions about the universe."

"The political fight has begun over the Interior Department's proposal to relocate the Bureau of Land Management's headquarters to Grand Junction, Colo."

"Burning Man started three decades ago as a low-key gathering of friends who celebrated summer solstice on a West Coast beach by setting a wooden man aflame. Now, event organizers say the counterculture gathering of arts, music and communal living is eyeing attendance in the six figures, leading to a months-long struggle with federal regulators over whether its swelling size will cause long-term harm to the environment and even make the event vulnerable to a terrorist attack."

"A mining company says it won’t carry out cleanup work ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of a Superfund project in southwest Colorado."

"Oil and gas industry groups are becoming more vocal in supporting bipartisan legislation that proposes using federal fossil fuel production royalties to chip away at the $12 billion maintenance backlog at national parks."

"The Treasure State looks poised to permit its first new copper mine in decades. Sandfire says it will raise the environmental bar — a promise Montanans have heard before."

"WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, Montana ― In the late 1800s, a homesteader named Johnny Lee settled in a remote gulch along Sheep Creek, a tributary of the Smith River that zigzags west through the rolling Little Belt Mountains of central Montana. For two decades, Lee toiled on a nearby hillside where a small amount of copper had been found, hoping to uncover a large underground deposit of the valuable ore.

"A draft review of a proposed mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region likely underestimates impacts the project could have on fish and other resources, a regional official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said."

"An appeals court on Wednesday upheld a freeze on Pentagon money to build a border wall with Mexico, casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s ability to make good on a signature campaign promise before the 2020 election."

"The National Park Service is diverting nearly $2.5 million in entrance and recreation fees primarily intended to improve parks across the country to cover costs associated with President Trump’s Independence Day celebration Thursday on the Mall, according to two individuals familiar with the arrangement."