President Trump told Puerto Rico officials they should feel “very proud” they haven’t lost thousands of lives like in “a real catastrophe like Katrina,” the Washington Post reports.

The president also seemed to fault the devastated island for imperiling the United States’s budget by requiring hurricane relief funds:  “I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack.”

Vox: “He downplayed throughout his remarks how dire things are in Puerto Rico, where more than half of the people don’t have power, running water, or cellphone service two weeks after Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm, tore through the island.”

“President Trump’s chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, emphasized to foreign climate and energy officials on Monday that the U.S. still intends to withdraw from the Paris climate accord,” Bloomberg reports.

“Speculation that Trump would reverse course and remain in the Paris deal was heightened after the European Union’s climate chief, Miguel Arias Canete, said Saturday in an interview that the U.S. had signaled it wants to seek new terms from within the agreement, rather than withdraw outright and then re-negotiate. But White House officials have forcefully pushed back against the idea.”

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “has recommended that President Trump modify 10 national monuments created by his immediate predecessors, including shrinking the boundaries of at least four western sites,” according to a copy of the report obtained by the Washington Post.

“The secretary’s set of recommendations also would change the way all 10 targeted monuments are managed. It emphasizes the need to adjust the proclamations to address concerns of local officials or affected industries, saying the administration should permit ‘traditional uses’ now restricted within the monuments’ boundaries, such as grazing, logging, coal mining and commercial fishing.“

“Trump administration officials said Saturday the U.S. wouldn’t pull out of the Paris Agreement, offering to re-engage in the international deal to fight climate change,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The shift from President Trump’s decision in June to renegotiate the landmark accord or craft a new deal came during a meeting of more than 30 ministers led by Canada, China and the European Union in Montreal.”

However: “The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

“This is the time to talk about climate change. This is the time that the president and the EPA and whoever makes decisions needs to talk about climate change. If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is. This is a truly, truly poster child for what is to come.”

— Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado (R), quoted by the Miami Herald, criticizing the Trump administration for denying the connection between climate change and increasingly destructive storms.

“The Environmental Protection Agency has taken the unusual step of putting a political operative in charge of vetting the hundreds of millions of dollars in grants the EPA distributes annually, assigning final funding decisions to a former Trump campaign aide with little environmental policy experience,” the Washington Post reports.

“In this role, John Konkus reviews every award the agency gives out, along with every grant solicitation before it is issued. According to both career and political employees, Konkus has told staff that he is on the lookout for ‘the double C-word’ — climate change — and repeatedly has instructed grant officers to eliminate references to the subject in solicitations.”

Accuweather estimates that Hurricane Harvey could be “the most costly natural disaster in United States history” and estimates that its economic impact on GDP is $190 billion, which is more than that of Katrina and Sandy combined.

Bloomberg: Harvey wasn’t just bad weather. It was bad city planning.

“The Trump administration has decided to disband the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment, a group aimed at helping policymakers and private-sector officials incorporate the government’s climate analysis into long-term planning,” the Washington Post reports.

“A series of emails obtained by The Guardian between staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a USDA unit that oversees farmers’ land conservation, show that the incoming Trump administration has had a stark impact on the language used by some federal employees around climate change.”

“A missive from Bianca Moebius-Clune, director of soil health, lists terms that should be avoided by staff and those that should replace them. ‘Climate change’ is in the ‘avoid’ category, to be replaced by ‘weather extremes’. Instead of ‘climate change adaption’, staff are asked to use ‘resilience to weather extremes’. The primary cause of human-driven climate change is also targeted, with the term ‘reduce greenhouse gases’ blacklisted in favor of ‘build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency’. Meanwhile, ‘sequester carbon’ is ruled out and replaced by ‘build soil organic matter’”.

New York Times: “The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration. The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited.”

“Scientists say they fear that the Trump administration could change or suppress the report. But those who challenge scientific data on human-caused climate change say they are equally worried that the draft report, as well as the larger National Climate Assessment, will be publicly released.”