President Trump last week issued executive orders designed to revive the use of coal in power plants, a practice that has been steadily declining for more than a decade. But the effort is likely to fail, energy experts said, because the fossil fuel faces some critical hurdles. The power that coal plants produce typically can’t…
After more than a week of ratcheting up tariffs on products imported from China, the Trump administration issued a rule late Friday that spared smartphones, computers, semiconductors and other electronics from some of the fees, in a significant break for tech companies like Apple and Dell and the prices of iPhones and other consumer electronics….
President Trump’s latest tariffs are about to become an unavoidable and expensive reality for American businesses and for people who rely on foreign goods. Shoppers buying clothes from retailers in China may soon pay more than twice as much, now that a special exemption for lower-value imports is disappearing. And companies involved in international trade…
President Trump this week directed 10 federal agencies — including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — to implement a novel procedure to scrap a wide array of longstanding energy and environmental regulations. He told agencies that oversee everything from gas pipelines to power plants to insert “sunset” provisions…
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, pledged on Thursday to seek out experts globally to discover the reasons for the increasing rates of autism in the United States. “We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Mr. Kennedy announced at a cabinet…
President Trump is planning to announce new deals with several of the nation’s top law firms requiring them to offer legal support for some of his favored causes, according to people with knowledge of the matter. In a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Mr. Trump said four or five firms would reach deals with the administration,…
Privacy advocates say that all this data could enable the government to punish its political opponents by weaponizing information about an individual’s personal life (bankruptcies, criminal histories, medical claims) or halting the benefits they receive (housing vouchers, retirement checks, food assistance). “They have not demonstrated a single case in which fraud detection has required some…
Hard hats are back. So is “beautiful, clean” coal. President Trump signed four executive orders on Tuesday to try to bolster the country’s declining coal industry, including the lifting of restrictions on mining and burning of the dirtiest fossil fuel. In addition to waiving air pollution limits and other regulations on coal imposed by the…
Two big law firms that have come under attack by the Trump administration filed court papers on Tuesday seeking to permanently block executive orders that threaten their businesses and ability to represent clients in matters involving the federal government. The firms, Jenner & Block and WilmerHale, filed the papers in federal court in Washington a…
President Trump plans to sign an executive order Tuesday aimed at expanding the mining and use of coal in the United States, in an effort to revive the struggling industry. The order will direct federal agencies to remove barriers to coal leasing and mining, loosen environmental reviews of coal projects and explore whether coal-fired electricity…