Coal industry lobbyists appear to have valuable access to White House officials, and they’re using it to expand mountaintop mining in the Appalachians, according to an article in The Los Angeles Times.

The Department of Labor is officially suspending a Bush administration regulation that stripped agricultural workers of certain housing and wage protections. The rule, one of President Bush’s midnight regulations, was finalized Dec. 18 and went into effect Jan. 17.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will resume a portion of its survey of the use of farm chemicals that was cut during the Bush administration. The surveys historically have provided crucial publicly available data on the amount and types of pesticides used on a variety of crops and livestock operations nationwide.