News from around the nation.

Congress is back to work today in the wake of the 'Big Blue Wave,' West Virginia towns push back against air permits for a chemical firm, and despite a US-China trade deal, tariffs remain on essential baby products.

Transcript

The Public News Service Monday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

The Congress is back to work today in the wake of the very big blue wave.

The AP notes newly elected lawmakers arrived on Capitol Hill over the weekend, reflecting the changed political landscape.

Dozens of jubilant Democrats, families in suitcases, and toe-for-freshman orientation appeared emboldened by the party's sweep of power.

That, as a trickle of Republicans coming in, spoke soberly about the GOP's vast challenges ahead.

Meantime, Kanawha County residents are pushing back against a West Virginia industrial chemical company that is seeking state regulators' approval for two air permit requests.

Ryan Kirkpatrick with West Virginia Citizen Action Group says the company is asking the state to modify its existing permits to loosen emissions regulations at its facility in Dunbar Institute, outside of Charleston.

Union Carbide claims the modified permits will not increase chemical emissions, but residents disagree.

They're saying, hey, we're not producing as much as we possibly could, so I feel like you guys should be a little bit less stringent on the regulations, the monitoring.

Kirkpatrick says residents are concerned about the impact of increased ethylene oxide and nitrous oxide emissions.

This is Nadia Ramlagan.

Next, the federal government has changed its interpretation of the Endangered Species Act.

Groups warn those changes will harm plants and wildlife in North Carolina and beyond.

In September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made sweeping changes to the longstanding harm rule, which protects endangered species from unintentional harm and killing.

The new interpretation allows for the killing of species as long as there wasn't an intent to kill.

The new rule paves the way for more development projects on endangered species habitat, since those projects would not intend to harm endangered species.

Dalton George, with the Endangered Species Coalition, says the changes will only make protecting species harder.

When you think about a species' ability to recover, habitat's pretty important.

You and I wouldn't be successful if we didn't have homes, right, roofs over our head, in the same way that an endangered bird needs the tree or the endangered fish or salamander needs the river.

Trump administration officials argued the changes to the harm rule reflect a dissenting opinion from a 1995 Supreme Court ruling, and those changes will reduce regulatory and economic burdens.

I'm Zamone Perez.

And consumer advocates say families continue to pay the high cost of tariffs on essential baby products.

That's despite a September trade agreement between the U.S. and China meant to ease financial pressure.

Trade negotiators agreed tariffs should be relaxed on legally required car seats as well as toys and high chairs.

Allison Jacobson is executive director of the trade association Baby Safety Alliance.

Families should have access to safe, compliant baby products at prices they can afford.

They shouldn't have to worry and make any sort of compensation for having safe products.

Jacobson says it's a great first start, but other important items like cribs and strollers were left off the list.

This is Public News Service.

In Los Angeles, a big event this Wednesday night is planned and will lift up arts and culture history and the humanities.

The theme is everyday courage.

The non-profit California Humanities will present its Spirit of the Humanities Awards.

Dr. Ann Burroughs, president and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum, will receive the award for courageous leadership.

She says California's post-war mistreatment of Japanese Americans remains highly relevant today.

It's critically important that we not only know the history, but we understand history, because if we don't know what the lessons of history are, then they can so easily be repeated.

The evening's featured speaker will be playwright and filmmaker Luis Valdez, founder of El Teatro Campesino, which helped spread the word about strikes and marches by Chicano farm workers in the 1960s.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

Next, the Upper Lewis River, which originates on the western slope of Mount Adams, has been nominated for the highest possible level of protection for waterways.

Located in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in southwest Washington, the Upper Lewis and its tributaries are known for their clear pools and scenic waterfalls.

Susan Saul, founder of Cascade Forest Conservancy, says she's hiked in the area for decades.

She says the Upper Lewis provides the glacier-fed low water temperatures that salmon and other fish need and are harder to come by in a warming climate.

It's cold, clear water all the way down to the first reservoir.

It's one of the last rivers in western Washington that still has bull trout in it, which is now federally listed as a threatened and endangered species.

An outstanding resource waters designation would safeguard the Upper Lewis from anything that could degrade its water quality, like development, mining, and pollution.

The river is one of four that has been nominated to the Washington Department of Ecology this year.

Support for this reporting was provided by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

I'm Isobel Charle.

Finally, conservation groups are celebrating the acquisition of 985 acres of land across the South Fork of the Fork Deer River in West Tennessee.

The idea is to help restore the area's natural landscape.

For more than a century, low-lying floodplains near Jackson have been drained to accommodate railways, highways, and row crop farming, exposing residents to flash floods and disrupting wildlife habitats.

Kendall McCarter with the Tennessee Wildlife Federation says he hopes to see the return of towering oak and hickory trees and aquatic species like mussels to help filter the river.

To think that we can bring that back to this area of the community that is really not very attractive, but also ecologically lifting what is there is just really cool.

I'm Katherine Carley.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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