Natural Resources

"Environmental groups and women from Alaska and Louisiana say the Environmental Protection Agency has dragged its heels on issuing rules for oil spill dispersants, and they’re ready to sue to demand them."

"A Canadian company has applied for an exploratory gold and copper mining permit in the headwaters of the Skagit River, which flows from British Columbia and through northwest Washington state to Puget Sound."

"Executives at Vale SA, the world’s largest iron ore miner, quashed efforts by Brazilian authorities to audit one of the company’s mining dams months before it collapsed and killed over 300 people, a state prosecutor was quoted as saying by news website G1 on Wednesday."

"Faced with reservoirs less than half full along the Colorado River, federal authorities and negotiators for Colorado and six other Western states on Tuesday finalized a landmark plan to share the burden of voluntarily using less water as growing cities and warming temperatures deplete the supply for 40 million people."

"Spring has arrived in Southern California and with it a crisis has blossomed in the small city of Lake Elsinore, where tens of thousands of visitors have flocked to see a “superbloom” of poppies in a desert canyon."

"A pair of Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Interior Department watchdog to look into ethical concerns involving a number of key agency officials."

"Yak, reindeer and entire ways of life in the “Third Pole” and Scandinavia face new threats in a warming world."

"The Trump administration on Friday finalized its plan to loosen Obama-era protections on the habitat of the sage grouse, an imperiled ground-nesting bird that roams across 10 oil-rich Western states."