Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke starts the new year by proposing to open up all U.S. waters—including previously protected areas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the Arctic—to oil and gas drilling. 

West Coast starfish are rebounding after being decimated four years ago by a mysterious disease known as sea star wasting syndrome. 

The EPA considers greatly expanding the use of bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides. California says it will freeze use of such pesticides at current levels.

A huge winter storm envelops the East Coast: Invasive iguanas are falling out of trees in Florida. It is colder in Tallahassee than in Juneau, Alaska. Frozen sharks wash up in Cape Cod. The zoo in Calgary, Canada, brings its penguins indoors for safety. 

Developers bulldoze 31 acres of rare pine rockland forest in Florida to make way for a Walmart before a federal judge orders them to stop.

Professional big-game hunter Theunis Botha is killed when the elephant he just shot falls on him. 

The Trump administration renews the lease for a copper and nickel mine next to Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The mine belongs to a Chilean billionaire who is also the Washington, D.C., landlord to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. 

Fifteen coal miners died in 2017, nearly double the number from 2016. David Zatezalo, Trump’s head of mine safety, is the former head of a coal company with a history of serious safety violations. 

China halts production of 500 car models that fail to meet new emission standards. 

The Thomas Fire, still burning in Southern California, is the largest in the state’s history.