National (U.S.)

"A recent accident highlights how state fracking laws protect corporate trade secrets over public safety."

"EPA's non-responsiveness in the Texas air pollution story is troubling because it keeps taxpayers in the dark about a critical issue."

"From all of the commotion around the new federal school lunch standards, you'd think they were really Draconian. Republican legislators have railed against them. Districts have threatened to opt out. The School Nutrition Association (SNA), the industry group that represents the nation's 55,000 school food employees, has officially opposed some of them—and doubled its lobbying ....  Here's who doesn't mind the new standards: kids."

"A nonprofit group backing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is spending $2 million-plus this month on TV ads that slam his Democratic challenger, a campaign partly dedicated to impugning her record on coal that leads some political observers to wonder if the industry is behind the curtain."

"A group of top scientists has called for a fundamental change to how the United States deals with risks to its Atlantic and Gulf coasts from storms and climate change in a National Research Council report released Wednesday."

"Federal scientists will conduct new studies to examine the potential health effects of exposure to the chemicals released during the January leak at the Freedom Industries tank farm along the Elk River in Charleston, under an agreement announced Wednesday."

"Federal land managers on Wednesday banned exploding targets used by shooting enthusiasts from 12 national forests in four Western U.S. states, saying the devices could spark wildfires and are a threat to public safety."

"The decision by a small coastal city in Maine to ban the export of crude oil from its harbor brought threats of lawsuits from the oil industry Tuesday and put South Portland on the front lines of a battle over development of Canada’s huge and controversial tar sands deposits."

"WASHINGTON -- The head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday strongly defended the approach and legitimacy of an Obama administration power plant rule that Republicans attacked as regulatory overreach and Democrats said was vital."

"Federal regulators said on Wednesday that they would require railroads and oil shippers to use stronger tank cars to transport crude oil within two years."