BREAKING:

Senate Confirms Scott Pruitt to Lead EPA

The Senate on Friday confirmed Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency, putting a seasoned legal opponent of the agency at the helm of President Trump’s efforts to dismantle major regulations on climate change and clean water — and to cut the size and authority of the government’s environmental enforcer. Senators voted 52-46 to confirm Mr. Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general who has built a career out of suing to block the E.P.A.’s major environmental rules, and has called for the dissolution of much of the agency’s authority. One Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, crossed party lines to vote against Mr. Pruitt, while two Democrats, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp, both from coal-rich states where voters generally oppose environmental rules, voted for him. - New York Times

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Critical Condition: Health Experts Sound the Alarm On Climate

In a gathering impacted by presidential politics, an all-star cast of public health experts largely stuck to their own bleak script: Climate change is poised to unleash an unprecedented, global public health crisis. Not even former Vice President Al Gore, who served as the day's emcee, waded into the political swamp. He presented a half-hour, health-themed version of his much-lauded slide show. - The Daily Climate

Judge Rules Against Pruitt, Ordering Trump's EPA Nominee to Release Emails

An Oklahoma County District judge on Thursday ordered Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s office to turn over emails and other documents requested two years ago by a watchdog group. In the ruling against Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection agency, judge Aletia Haynes Timmons said the agency violated state transparency laws. - State Impact/NPR

EPA Workers Try to Block Pruitt in Show of Defiance

Employees of the Environmental Protection Agency have been calling their senators to urge them to vote on Friday against the confirmation of Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s contentious nominee to run the agency, a remarkable display of activism and defiance that presages turbulent times ahead for the E.P.A. Many of the scientists, environmental lawyers and policy experts who work in E.P.A. offices around the country say the calls are a last resort for workers who fear a nominee selected to run an agency he has made a career out of fighting — by a president who has vowed to “get rid of” it. - New York Times

TransCanada Files KeystoneXL Route Application in Nebraska

TransCanada Corp filed an application with Nebraska authorities on Thursday to route its Keystone XL pipeline through the state, saying it expected a decision this year for this crucial leg of the $8 billion project that had been stymied by environmental groups and other opponents U.S. President Donald Trump cleared the way for the project at the federal level last month, reversing an earlier decision by former President Barack Obama, who had blocked it over environmental concerns. - Reuters

Mexico City, Parched and Sinking, Faces a Water Crisis

Always short of water, Mexico City keeps drilling deeper for more, weakening the ancient clay lake beds on which the Aztecs first built much of the city, causing it to crumble even further. It is a cycle made worse by climate change. More heat and drought mean more evaporation and yet more demand for water, adding pressure to tap distant reservoirs at staggering costs or further drain underground aquifers and hasten the city’s collapse. - New York Times

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EPA Staff Told To Prepare For Trump's Executive Orders

Staff at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been told that President Donald Trump is preparing a handful of executive orders to reshape the agency, to be signed once a new administrator is confirmed. Trump has promised to cut U.S. environmental rules - including those ushered in by former President Barack Obama targeting carbon dioxide emissions - as a way to bolster the drilling and coal mining industries, but has vowed to do so without compromising air and water quality. Meanwhile, a new House bill would eliminate the EPA completely by the end of 2018. - Reuters

Standing Rock: Tribes File Last-Ditch Effort to Block Dakota Access Pipeline

The motion, filed Tuesday by the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes, asks the court to reverse an easement for the pipeline that the Army Corps of Engineers granted. That easement lifted the final hurdle for the project's completion. The tribes said the Corps' actions violate the National Environmental Policy Act and the Corps' responsibility to protect the tribes' treaty rights. They called the decision "arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law." - InsideClimate News

When Climate Change Starts Wars

The warming rate in Central Asia has been twice the average global warming rate over the same period, and larger than any previous decade, over the first 12 years of the 21st century. As the region heats up, it faces increasing political instability and violence. - Nautilus

Researchers Find Pesticides Spills, Accidents May Alter Farmworkers' DNA

Farmworkers who have a high pesticide exposure event—such as a spill—are more likely to experience molecular changes on DNA that may lead to certain cancers, according to a large U.S. study of pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina. The research, part of the ongoing Agricultural Health Study that is monitoring the health of more than 57,000 private and commercial pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina, adds to growing evidence that high exposure to certain pesticides may spur prostate and other cancers in people handling the chemicals. - Environmental Health News

Endangered Species Act May Be Headed For Threatened List

A Senate hearing to “modernize the Endangered Species Act” unfolded Wednesday just as supporters of the law had feared, with round after round of criticism from Republican lawmakers who said the federal effort to keep species from going extinct encroaches on states’ rights, is unfair to landowners and stymies efforts by mining companies to extract resources and create jobs. - Washington Post

Today's Top 5 Trending: Canadian Mining Abuses, Ocean Garbage, Idaho Lead Woes, Melting Ice Caps, Clinton and Greenpeace

Guatemalan Woman's Claim Puts Focus On Canadian Firms' Conduct Abroad

For a long time, Margarita Caal did not talk about what happened that afternoon. None of the women in this tiny village high in the hills of eastern Guatemala did, not even to each other. But that day, Caal said, the men who had come to evict her from land they said belonged to a Canadian mining company also took turns raping her. After that, they dragged her from her home and set it ablaze. - New York Times

How Bad Is Ocean Garbage, Really? 

Plenty of studies have sounded alarm bells about the state of marine debris; in a paper published in February in the journal Ecology, researchers set out to determine how many of those perceived risks are real. In 83 percent of cases, the perceived dangers of ocean trash were proven true.  - The Atlantic

Like Flint, Idaho Knows Lead Poisoning

The lead poisoning in Flint, Mich., has Idaho environmental authorities taking extra steps to ensure such an event can’t happen here. Jerri Henry, who runs the drinking water program for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, saw what happened in Flint and asked herself: “Are we doing enough?” Idaho Statesman

These Ice Cap Images Show Arctic's Rapid Change

 NASA’s Earth Observatory gathered satellite imagery of two well-studied ice caps on Canada’s Ellesmere Island located north of the Arctic Circle to illustrate the ice’s disappearing act. The imagery captured in 2004 and 2015 shows a major decline in ice cover. When you add an outline of where the ice caps once stretched during a 1959 survey, the decline becomes even more notable. Freakishly warm temperatures in the Arctic this winter — which were up to 20°F above normal in some areas — will likely to hasten their decline and eventual demise. - Climate Central

Usually Calm, Clinton Loses Cool Over Greenpeace Fossil Fuel Question

A question about Clinton's record on accepting donations from the fossil fuel industry tipped the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in this year’s election over the edge. - Reuters

Today's Top 5 Trending: Latin American Environmentalists, Schools and Lead, Climate Politics, Scotland Closes Last Coal-Fired Power Plant

For Latin American Environmentalists, Death is a Constant Companion

Two-thirds of environmentalists who died violently around the world since 2002 lost their lives in that region. For the five years ending in 2014, more than 450 were killed, according to an international network of conservationist groups. Over half were in Honduras and Brazil. - Washington post

Schools Nationwide Still Grapple With Lead in Water 

This winter’s crisis in Flint, Mich., has cast new attention on lead in water supplies. But problems with lead in school water supplies have dragged on for years — aggravated by ancient buildings and plumbing, prolonged by official neglect and tight budgets, and enabled by a gaping loophole in federal rules that largely exempts schools from responsibility for the purity of their water. - New York Times

Where Do The Remaining Presidential Candidates Stand On Climate Change?

We are now officially through half of the United States Presidential election primary and caucus season, and there are currently 5 contenders left in the Republican and Democratic parties vying for their party’s respective nomination. Delegate math shows that Governor John Kasich has no chance to become the Republican nominee, so we’re left with four real candidates to examine. - De Smog Blog

Climate Change May Be a Burning Issue, But Election Campaign Tells a Different Story

While Alaska is clearly on the melting edge of climate change, this fundamental shift barely registered in the Republican caucus held earlier in March and won by Ted Cruz. Even though Democratic candidates have been more willing to discuss climate change, the topic wasn't front and centre ahead of Saturday’s caucus. - The Guardian

Scotland Closes Last Coal-Fired Power Plant

Scotland may be home to golf, haggis, and Sean Connery — but it’s no longer hospitable to coal. On March 24, Scottish Power shut down Longanett power station, its last standing coal-fired power plant. - Grist