"DENVER — Seeking to head off a costly election-year fight over oil and gas drilling that could threaten vulnerable Colorado Democrats, Gov. John W. Hickenlooper said Monday that he had reached a deal to keep two antifracking measures off November’s ballots."
"Twelve states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration on Friday seeking to block an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate coal-fired power plants in an effort to stem climate change."
North Carolina lawmakers said Thursday they still haven't reached agreement on legislation requiring Duke Energy to limit pollution leaking from its coal ash dumps across the state, nearly six months after a spill coated 70 miles of the Dan River with gray sludge."
"The Department of Energy (DOE) gave conditional approval to a second Oregon facility to export liquefied natural gas to countries that don't have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S."
"The globe’s nuclear power industry is aging, plagued with high costs and construction delays, and generally on the decline."
"Energy taxes in much of the world are far below what they should be to reflect the harmful environmental and health impact of fossil fuels use, the International Monetary Fund said in a new book on Thursday."
"WASHINGTON — Oil companies that locked up more than 1.3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea for drilling in 2007 have since relinquished nearly half that territory."
"SAN FRANCISCO — Pacific Gas & Electric was charged Tuesday with lying to regulators in connection with a fatal pipeline explosion that killed eight people and leveled a suburban Northern California neighborhood in 2010."
Here are some recent explainers of interest to environmental journalists from the CRS, which Congress does not allow to be released to the taxpaying public who paid for them. The WatchDog thanks those who leaked them and the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy for publishing them.
If you want to interview an EPA official about a drinking water pollution catastrophe or a controversy about air pollution from fracking, the press office may do its best to stop you. Examples abound. But, there are ways for journalists to push back. Read about them here.
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