Pollution

"A leading U.S. coal regulator announced plans on Tuesday to toughen what it called "out-of-date" rules for guaranteeing mine cleanups."

"The Obama administration on Tuesday finalized new fuel-economy standards for large trucks, buses and other heavy-duty vehicles, the latest in a series of efforts aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions and weaning the nation from its dependence on fossil fuels."

A chronic array of mysterious health problems among public housing residents in East Chicago, Indiana, was finally traced to soil contaminated with lead and arsenic by decades of industrial activity. Authorities from various government agencies had kept residents in the dark about the threat.

"A puzzling concentration of the greenhouse gas methane over the Southwestern United States appears to come mostly from leaks in natural gas production, scientists said Monday."

"A pollutant that has leached into California aquifers since farmers first began using synthetic fertilizer continues to accumulate and would not be removed from groundwater even if the state’s agriculture businesses abruptly quit using nitrogen-based materials to boost the productivity of their crops."

"These Catholic social justice advocates are exemplars of the force behind We Are Seneca Lake, one of the nation’s longest-running campaigns of civil disobedience."

"The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general won’t investigate allegations that a top EPA adviser knowingly used flawed data in an influential study of methane emissions from oil and natural gas production."

"Science advisers to the Environmental Protection Agency Thursday challenged an already controversial government report on whether thousands of oil and gas wells that rely on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” systemically pollute drinking water across the nation."

"North Carolina’s state epidemiologist resigned Wednesday to protest her employer’s depiction that “deliberately misleads” how screening standards were created to test private wells near Duke Energy’s power plants."

"An unknown amount of diesel fuel has leaked from a Transocean Ltd. drilling rig that ran aground in Scotland, authorities in the U.K. said Wednesday."