"For more than a year, Volkswagen executives told the Environmental Protection Agency that discrepancies between the formal air-quality tests on its diesel cars and the much higher pollution levels out on the road were the result of technical issues, not a deliberate attempt to deceive Washington officials."
"President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the nation’s rail safety agency told lawmakers Thursday that the agency would hold railroads to a year-end deadline to install collision-avoidance technology even if it meant that freight and passengers could be left stranded."
"The Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board claim VW deliberately programmed almost 500,000 diesel cars to emit fewer pollutants under test conditions than during actual use."
"CSX Transportation moves up to five trains, each carrying 1 million gallons or more of a kind of crude oil, through Baltimore weekly, according to records released Wednesday by the Maryland Department of the Environment."
"The USCGC Healy reached the North Pole earlier this week, carrying a crew of scientists investigating environmental changes in the Arctic."
"Thousands of U.S. schools sit along rail corridors used to carry toxic substances such as crude oil and would be at risk in the event of a derailment, an environmental group said on Tuesday as it called for a temporary halt on oil trains."
"Officials have unveiled plans for a grassy bridge over a Southern California highway that would provide a safe and natural passage for mountain lions and other animals migrating between wilderness areas."
"JUNEAU -- The new boom industry in Skagway is tourism, providing the bulk of the jobs and at the height of the summer, regularly giving the big cruise port the lowest unemployment rate in the state."
"They rumble past schools, homes and businesses in dozens of cities around the country — 100-car trains loaded with crude oil from the Upper Midwest. While railroads have long carried hazardous materials through congested urban areas, cities are now scrambling to formulate emergency plans and to train firefighters amid the latest safety threat: a fiftyfold increase in crude shipments that critics say has put millions of people living or working near the tracks at heightened risk of derailment, fire and explosion."
"Railroad tank cars equipped with defective valves still will be allowed to transport crude oil and other hazardous materials through the end of the year, despite a March directive from federal regulators requiring their replacement within 60 days."
Advertisement 
