Natural Resources

"The House on Friday passed legislation to expand public access to recreational shooting and hunting on federal lands."

"A coalition of environmental groups has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's sweeping greater sage grouse conservation plans across the West, claiming they are riddled with loopholes, scientific flaws and "political compromises" and won't protect the bird or its habitat."

"Congress is to consider two bills that would allow states to hand over vast tracts of federal land for mining, logging or other commercial activities – just weeks after the arrest of an armed militia that took over a wildlife refuge in Oregon in protest at federal oversight of public land."

"The ailing coal industry must face the costs of cleaning up spent mines even as companies get pushed toward bankruptcy, the U.S. Interior Secretary said on Tuesday."

"A program that has allowed U.S. coal companies to forego cleanup insurance on massive western mines is flawed and needs to be fixed, Wyoming officials have told federal regulators."

"President Obama designated three new national monuments in the California desert Thursday, expanding federal protection to 1.8 million acres of landscapes that have retained their natural beauty despite decades of heavy mining, cattle ranching and off-roading."

"The last four armed occupiers of a national wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon said they would turn themselves in Thursday morning after law officers surrounded them in a tense standoff."

"The group's anger was a slow burn. But after decades of being ignored by federal authorities, its members decided to take a very public stand against what they saw as an unjust land grab by the U.S. government."

"Sweden’s nomadic reindeer herders have won a 30-year battle for land rights in a court case that has seen the state accused of racism towards the country’s only indigenous people."

"ST. LOUIS — A Midwest environmental group is questioning the ability of the country's largest coal producer to guarantee it has enough money for future cleanup of its Illinois mines, and it's threatening to sue the state if regulators don't change their approach."