Articles by Steve Davies

Twenty lawmakers are demanding to know whether the Environmental Protection Agency considers its pollution reduction targets for the Chesapeake Bay legally enforceable.

The Trump administration is proposing to speed up the environmental reviews that are required on everything from new pipelines to grazing permits under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Many Americans in rural areas could receive high-speed internet connections through a $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund proposed by the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

The health of the Chesapeake Bay took center stage at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing Wednesday, as a Maryland senator threatened legal action to ensure Pennsylvania meets its goals under the federal-state plan to clean up the estuary.

Monsanto is receiving help fighting a multimillion-dollar verdict awarded for exposure to its flagship herbicide, Roundup, from an unusual source: the federal government.

Supporters and detractors of atrazine are clashing over EPA’s recently proposed interim registration decision, which would impose new label language to reduce spray drift but also would increase the concentration of the herbicide allowed in watersheds before corrective action is required.

The Trump administration's proposed changes to the definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) “decreases protection for our nation’s waters and does not support the objective of restoring and maintaining ‘the chemical, physical and biological integrity’ of these waters,” EPA’s Science Advisory Board said.

A new USDA honeybee research lab has opened at UC Davis. USDA's Agricultural Research Service says the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility will focus on developing technology to improve colony survivorship through long-term studies of multiple stress factors.

A Virginia lawyer heavily involved in Roundup litigation has been charged with attempted extortion for “threatening to inflict substantial financial and reputational harm” on an unnamed chemical company unless he received $200 million in “consulting fees,” the Justice Department says.

Farmworker wages under the H-2A program will rise 6% nationally in 2020 to an average of $13.99 an hour, with farmers in some states seeing increases of up to 10%, the Labor Department says.