Natural Resources

"The Interior Department is preparing to set aside a decades-old ban on development in federally protected wilderness areas by pursuing a controversial proposal to build a nearly 12-mile road through a wildlife refuge in ­Alaska.

"The Trump administration and congressional Republicans in recent weeks have renewed the fight over opening part of an enormous wildlife refuge in northern Alaska to oil and gas exploration."

"A House panel on Wednesday approved a bill to reform a key federal conservation law, setting up a floor fight over the future of the president’s power to declare national monuments."

"Several Louisiana parishes—the equivalent of counties in other states—have filed lawsuits alleging hundreds of fossil fuel companies violated their coastal use permits by failing to clean up pollution and by failing to restore the marsh wetlands to their original condition. The suits seek to recover “damages, restoration costs and actual restoration.”"

"A House committee on Wednesday will mark up a bill to overhaul the Antiquities Act, a law that gives the president power to establish national monuments for preservation."

"POCOSIN LAKES NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, N.C. — Tea-colored water seeps from bogs here in eastern North Carolina's soggy, shrubby "blacklands," as local farmers call them."

"A new study says small patches of native prairie plants provide a range of conservation benefits to Iowa’s landscape and could reduce water pollution from farm fields."

"The plan — tied into the Republican tax overhaul — assumes $1 billion in revenue, likely to come from oil leases in the pristine Alaska wilderness area."

"The Trump administration will seek to reconsider an Obama-era blueprint for protecting the greater sage grouse, a move that could lead to new mineral leasing, grazing and other commercial activities across the quirky bird’s Western habitat."