This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
Top Videos
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
Trump Re-Nominates Anti-Wildlife Climate Denier to Top Environment Post
The Trump administration re-nominated Kathleen Hartnett White on Monday to be chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) after she failed to secure a Senate confirmation last year.
The CEQ chair oversees environmental policy across all federal agencies. But during Senate hearings in November, White struggled to answer basic questions about the CEQ's role and whether she would use facts in environmental recommendations to the president. She continues to deny that carbon dioxide is harmful to the planet.
"White is a disastrous candidate who will have a profoundly destructive effect on our climate and wildlife if given this job in the Trump administration," said Stephanie Kurose, endangered species policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Her extreme views and disturbing record should disqualify her from this crucial leadership position."
White has previously argued there is a "moral case" for expanding fossil fuel development regardless of carbon dioxide emissions. She also claimed there is a "connection between the abolition of slavery and humanity's first widespread use of energy from fossil fuels."
In her current position at the Texas Public Policy Foundation—a conservative think tank that has received huge donations from fossil fuel interests that include Koch Industries, ExxonMobil and Chevron—White has worked to undermine the Endangered Species Act.
Nearly 50 organizations sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works opposing White's nomination. The letter expressed support for the Endangered Species Act, which has saved more than 99 percent of species under its protection from extinction and put hundreds of species on the path to recovery.
"White is yet another Trump appointee picked to lead an agency whose conservation mission she fundamentally rejects," said Kurose. "Confirming her to this powerful position would be shortsighted and deeply irresponsible."
The Trump administration also re-nominated Susan Combs to be assistant secretary of policy management and budget within the U.S. Department of the Interior. Combs—an outspoken opponent of federal endangered species protection—built her career by favoring big corporations and special interests over the needs and survival of imperiled species.
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Oil rigs around the world keep pulling crude oil out of the ground, but the global pandemic has sent shockwaves into the market. The supply is up, but demand has plummeted now that industry has ground to a halt, highways are empty, and airplanes are parked in hangars.
Under an agreement negotiated by community groups — represented by NRDC and the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project — the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) will remove thousands of lead water pipes by 2026 in order to address the chronically high lead levels in the city's drinking water and protect residents' health.
Trump Administration Finalizes Car Rule Which Will Worsen Economy, Public Health
By Dave Cooke
So, they finally went and did it — the Trump administration just finalized a rule to undo requirements on manufacturers to improve fuel economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new passenger cars and trucks. Even with the economy at the brink of a recession, they went forward with a policy they know is bad for consumers — their own analysis shows that American drivers are going to spend hundreds of dollars more in fuel as a result of this stupid policy — but they went ahead and did it anyway.
By Richard Connor
A blood test that screens for more than 50 types of cancer could help doctors treat patients at an earlier stage than previously possible, a new study shows. The method was used to screen for more than 50 types of cancer — including particularly deadly variants such as pancreatic, ovarian, bowel and brain.
Trending
Preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control showed a larger number of young people coming down with COVID-19 than first expected, with patients under the age of 45 comprising more than a third of all cases, and one in five of those patients requiring hospitalization. That also tends to be the group most likely to use e-cigarettes.