"WASHINGTON -- The Transportation Department issued an emergency order Wednesday requiring that railroads inform state emergency management officials about the movement of large shipments of crude oil through their states and urged shippers not to use older model tanks cars that are easily ruptured in accidents, even at slow speeds."
"The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States, scientists reported Tuesday, with water growing scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains increasing in wet regions, heat waves becoming more common and more severe, wildfires growing worse, and forests dying under assault from heat-loving insects." New York Times, May 6, 2014. See a plethora of additional coverage here.
"VATICAN CITY — For four long days, several dozen physical, environmental and social scientists hunkered here with theologians, philosophers, economists and a poverty campaigner to explore ways to balance human ambitions with the planet’s limits. The rare joint meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences — “Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature, Our Responsibility” — helped demarcate where science leaves off and the rest of society, including organized religion, plays a role in shaping the quality of human life and environmental conditions in this century."
"White House counselor John Podesta said congressional attempts to trump EPA’s climate rules will fail."
"A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday threw out an oil industry challenge to the Obama administration's 2013 biofuel mandate, ruling that the government has "wide latitude" to decide whether to modify renewable fuel use targets, and by how much."
Continued fighting in the Senate over amendments to a bipartisan energy efficiency bill prompted Majority Leader Harry Reid to compare his Republican colleagues to "greased pigs" on Tuesday, after a lengthy explanation of what exactly those are."
"How broken is the nation's chemical-safety system? Of the 80,000 or so chemicals currently used in commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency has only tested 200 since Congress gave the agency its marching orders nearly four decades ago. And of the 200 tested chemicals, only five have been banned or regulated."
"A unit run by President Barack Obama's political staff inside the Environmental Protection Agency operates illegally as a 'rogue law enforcement agency' that has blocked independent investigations by the EPA's inspector general for years, a top investigator told Congress."
"Greenpeace USA announced new leadership on Tuesday, tapping filmmaker, author and environmental activist Annie Leonard to serve as its next executive director."
"Stanford University announced Tuesday that it would divest its $18.7 billion endowment of stock in coal-mining companies, becoming the first major university to lend support to a nationwide campaign to purge endowments and pension funds of fossil fuel investments."
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