The Environmental Protection Agency has canceled the speaking appearance of three agency scientists who were scheduled to discuss climate change at a conference on Monday in Rhode Island, according to the agency and several people involved. John Konkus, an E.P.A. spokesman and a former Trump campaign operative in Florida, confirmed that agency scientists would not speak at the State of the Narragansett Bay and Watershed program in Providence. He provided no further explanation.Scientists involved in the program said that much of the discussion at the event centers on climate change. [node:read-more:link]

According to interviews with dozens of storm victims, one of the busiest hurricane seasons in years has overwhelmed federal disaster officials. As a result, the government’s response in the two biggest affected states — Texas and Florida — has been scattershot: effective in dealing with immediate needs, but unreliable and at times inadequate in handling the aftermath, as thousands of people face unusually long delays in getting basic disaster assistance. FEMA has taken weeks to inspect damaged homes and apartments, delaying flood victims’ attempts to rebuild their lives and properties. [node:read-more:link]

U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) joined U.S. Senators Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Angus King (I-ME) and Susan Collins (R-NH) in co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation to expand access to new markets for Illinois farmers who sell their goods in an increasingly competitive global economy. The Cultivating Revitalization by Expanding American Agricultural Trade and Exports (CREAATE) Act would provide long overdue funding increases to two U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Another world’s first for farming and agriculture in the Netherlands; this time it's a CO2-neutral chicken farm with 24.000 chickens in Castenray in the province of Limburg.The most animal and environmentally friendly chicken farm in the world. In order to achieve CO2-neutrality, specific choices have been made regarding the farm itself and the chickens that will inhabit it. [node:read-more:link]

In an audit released October 13, the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General once again found that the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS) inadequate oversight of imported meat and poultry is putting U.S. consumers at risk. FSIS is supposed to determine whether countries that export meat, poultry, egg products or catfish have a regulatory system that can meet the standards required in the United States. However, the OIG audit reveals that FSIS is not doing enough oversight of the process used to determine which countries have “equivalent” food safety systems. [node:read-more:link]

On a Tuesday morning in October, just before noon, the San Francisco port is bustling with life. Shoppers line up for late summer produce and specialty coffee at a farmer’s market in front of the iconic Ferry Building, and suited professionals settle on benches near the water to enjoy their lunches. It’s unlikely that many of these daytime revelers realize that they are just a few feet from the seawall: a critical barricade protecting San Francisco from the looming impacts of climate change, and an accessory in a lawsuit that’s demanding oil companies pay for these impacts. [node:read-more:link]

The Trump administration on Friday removed a major obstacle that had long stalled a project designed to pump groundwater from the Mojave Desert to communities in Southern California. The planned 43-mile pipeline would follow an already existing railroad through public land; the Bureau of Land Management sent a letter last week to Cadiz Inc., the company behind the pipeline, stating that the company did not need federal permission to begin construction. [node:read-more:link]

On Oct. 11, the House Natural Resources Committee approved a proposal from its chairman, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, to overhaul the Antiquities Act. Bishop’s “National Monument Creation and Protection Act” would severely constrain the power of the president to designate national monuments. It would limit the size of monuments a president could designate as well as the kinds of places protected. The 1906 Antiquities Act allows a president to act swiftly to protect federal lands facing imminent threats without legislation getting bogged down in Congress. [node:read-more:link]

The United States Food and Drug Administration should increase seafood import drug residue testing and other efforts to prevent contaminated shipments from entering the country, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The FDA sampled only 0.1 percent of all seafood imports for the presence of banned antibiotics in fiscal year 2015, according to the GAO, which acts as the official auditor of the U.S. government. [node:read-more:link]

In the 2010s, U.S. companies, eager to meet Asia’s growing demand for coal with exports from Wyoming and Montana’s Powder River Basin, proposed six coal terminals in the Northwest. One in Longview, Washington, would ship about 44 million metric tons per year.  Anti-fossil-fuel activists protested, and five of the proposals were dropped.
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