How Lee Zeldin Went From Environmental Moderate to Dismantling the E.P.A.

When President Trump’s cabinet secretaries clashed with Elon Musk this month over the billionaire’s chain saw approach to shrinking government, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, made it clear where he stood. Mr. Musk had just traded barbs with Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state. Things … Read more

How U.S. Airports Like Pittsburgh’s Generate Electricity On Site to Avoid Heathrow-Like Outages

When Christina Cassotis, the chief executive of Pittsburgh International Airport, heard about the power outage that forced London’s Heathrow Airport to suspend operations last week, she thought of the workers who were frantically trying to manage the chaos. But when an outage hits closer to home, she has a more restrained response: Keep calm and … Read more

Sludge-Fertilizer Giant Leaves Texas Town Amid ‘Forever Chemicals’ Crisis

The City of Fort Worth, Texas, is ending its contract with Synagro, the Goldman Sachs-backed provider of fertilizer made from sewage sludge, over concerns that “forever chemicals” in the fertilizer are contaminating local farmland and groundwater. Fort Worth this month also sued several manufacturers of the chemicals, also called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, … Read more

Mining Company Seeks Trump Support to Shortcut Access to Seabed Metals

The long-running battle over whether to allow Pacific Ocean seabed mining took an unexpected turn Thursday when a company disclosed it had been confidentially negotiating a plan with the Trump administration to circumvent a United Nations treaty and perhaps obtain authorization from the United States to start mining in international waters. The proposal, which drew … Read more

Global Sea Ice Hits a New Low

Earth is missing a lot of sea ice this year. Enough to cover the entire United States east of the Mississippi. That was announced by researchers at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center on Thursday, who said the amount of sea ice on the planet had reached the lowest level ever recorded … Read more