12-14 NWR EPA Appointee

This is your Northwest report for Wednesday, December 14, I'm David Sparks and a conversation between agripulse.com broadcasters Spencer Chase and Phil Brasher coming from Washington DC detailed President-elect Donald Trump's choice for EPA Director: "One appointment in particular key to agriculture, that being EPA Administrator nominee, Scott Pruitt who is currently the Atty. Gen. for the state of Oklahoma, this is an Atty. Gen. who has led the fight and certainly participated in the fights he did not lead in a lot of EPA regulations, WOTUS in particular and also got a fair amount of biofuel lobbyists kind of nervous with this appointment. He has been critical of the RFS, he has been supportive of holding down the annual volume requirements RVO's mandates, so yes, a lot of reason for supporters of ethanol and corn growers in particular to be a little bit nervous.

Elsewhere, The Seattle Times reports four swarms of more than 120 earthquakes shook Mt. St. Helens in late November in less than a week, The quakes — so tiny that you wouldn't have felt them if on the epicenter — hit one to two miles beneath the volcano's surface.

Scientists say the quakes reveal the volcano is likely recharging.

A seismologist with the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver said that each of these little quakes is a reminder of an eruption someday.