Environmental Politics

"Lawmakers grilled the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over officials' reportedly illegal use of "covert propaganda" to promote a controversial water rule."

Gasoline refiners would blend ethanol into fuel even if the Congressionally-passed law and EPA rules didn't require it. The reason: it's needed to boost the octane rating that makes cars perform properly.

"It took Sen. Ted Cruz to finally persuade me to answer a riddle that's bothered me for years. Suppose somebody yanked away the law that currently props up the nation's ethanol industry, as Cruz has proposed. What would actually happen?

"The agency that decides what gets built and where along the California coast is facing questions about transparency after it pushed out its top executive in a closed-door vote and without a clear explanation of why the change was being made."

"President Barack Obama told supporters 'don't despair' and overreact to the Supreme Court's decision this week that temporarily blocks the administration's rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants."

"After a runaway oil train killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, just miles from the Maine border in 2013, Mainers demanded to know more about the state’s railways."

"Gov. Rick Snyder and other state officials allegedly withheld lead testing results from county health officials while they worked to find ways to present the information to the public, according to emails obtained by The Flint Journal."

"The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday easily passed a bill requiring federal environmental regulators to act faster when lead contamination is found in drinking water."

"The Supreme Court’s surprise decision Tuesday to halt the carrying out of President Obama’s climate change regulation could weaken or even imperil the international global warming accord reached with great ceremony in Paris less than two months ago, climate diplomats say."

"In a 7-5 vote, the California Coastal Commission on Wednesday dismissed embattled executive director Charles Lester."

"The last four armed occupiers of a national wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon said they would turn themselves in Thursday morning after law officers surrounded them in a tense standoff."