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Ben Wolfgang

Ben Wolfgang

bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com

Ben Wolfgang is a National Security Correspondent for The Washington Times. His reporting is regularly featured in the daily Threat Status newsletter.
Previously, he covered energy and the environment, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016, and also spent two years as a White House correspondent during the Obama administration.
Before coming to The Times in 2011, Ben worked as political reporter at The Republican-Herald in Pottsville, Pa.
He can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.

Articles by Ben Wolfgang

In this Feb. 10, 2017, file photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks during an interview with Yahoo News in Damascus, Syria. (SANA via AP, File)

Syria to sign Paris climate deal; U.S. now only holdout

President Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord has now officially left the U.S. standing alone on the global stage, with Syria, the only other holdout, declaring Tuesday it will join the deal and commit to reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions.

November 7, 2017
In this Sept. 21, 2017, photo, a sign on a door of the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington. The EPA says it has recovered 517 containers of “unidentified, potentially hazardous material” from highly contaminated toxic waste sites in Texas that flooded last month during Hurricane Harvey. But the agency has not provided details about which Superfund sites the material came from, why the contaminants at issue have not been identified and whether there’s a threat to human health. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Senate panel narrowly approves two controversial EPA nominees

A Senate panel on Wednesday approved two controversial nominees for top jobs at the Environmental Protection Agency in highly contentious party-line votes, prompting Democrats to charge that whatever goodwill existed between the two sides is now gone.

October 25, 2017
In this Thursday, June 1, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump speaks about the U.S. role in the Paris climate change accord in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

Nicaragua signs Paris climate deal; U.S., Syria now only countries out

On the same day the U.S. and Syria became the final two holdouts in the landmark Paris climate pact, State Department officials deflected questions about rejoining the accord and placed the full burden of renegotiating more favorable terms squarely on President Trump's shoulders.

October 24, 2017
Under Trump administration policies, which are likely to spur much greater natural gas development, coal production is projected to be well under 600 million tons by 2020, according to an energy report. (Associated Press/File)

Donald Trump’s coal policies clash with market forces

Less than a year into his tenure, President Trump has dismantled much of his predecessor's environmental agenda and rolled back the regulatory war on coal -- but analysts still say coal's long-term future is bleak and that the administration's friendly policies toward natural gas could speed up the decline.

October 23, 2017
In this June 2, 2017, file photo, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt looks back after speaking to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Scott Pruitt has ‘epiphany,’ sides with ethanol industry in key policy fight

After heavy pressure from lawmakers and other stakeholders, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Thursday night sided with pro-ethanol lawmakers and said his agency will abandon many controversial changes to the nation's ethanol mandate -- prompting a top biofuels leader to claim that Mr. Pruitt apparently has had an "epiphany" over the past few days.

October 20, 2017
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt speaks in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, in this June 2, 2017, file photo. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

EPA to end Obama-era ‘sue and settle’ practice

The Trump administration on Monday took steps to end the highly controversial "sue and settle" practice that led directly to a host of environmental regulations throughout former President Obama's tenure.

October 16, 2017
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt speaks in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, in this June 2, 2017, file photo. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

EPA repeal of Clean Power Plan doesn’t mean pollution can be ignored, say experts

The Environmental Protection Agency's repeal of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan doesn't necessarily let the Trump administration off the hook, environmental groups and legal scholars say, and the government may have to show courts that it intends to address carbon pollution from power plants in some way, shape or form.

October 15, 2017
FILE- In this May 26, 2017, photo, Susie Gelbart walks near petroglyphs at the Gold Butte National Monument near Bunkerville, Nev. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is recommending that six of 27 national monuments under review by the Trump administration be reduced in size, along with management changes to several other sites.A leaked memo from Zinke to President Donald Trump recommends that two Utah monuments — Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante — be reduced, along with Nevada's Gold Butte and Oregon's Cascade-Siskiyou. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

National Monument Creation and Protection Act to limit president power

A key House panel Wednesday evening cleared a bill to rein in presidents' authority to create national monuments, striking a major blow at the heart of a power used extensively by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama -- often over the objections of locals.

October 11, 2017
The federal government has a standing commitment to cover health care and pensions for retired miners. (Associated Press/File)

American Miners Pension Act sparks regional divide in Congress

The latest attempt to secure benefits for tens of thousands of retired coal miners pits Appalachia against the West, with battle lines drawn by region and not by party as Congress seeks to solve a looming crisis by pumping federal loans into failing pension plans.

October 9, 2017
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who authored the 1990s ban on assault weapons, said over the weekend that Congress must enact a law banning them or risk seeing a future president simply change federal policy with the stroke of a pen. (Associated Press/File)

Gun control agreement stops with bump stocks

Lawmakers in both parties, the White House and the National Rifle Association have found common ground on outlawing so-called bump stocks, devices that increase rates of fire and can essentially create fully automatic weapons.

October 8, 2017