"The global mining firm Rio Tinto announced Monday that it will divest its 19 percent stake in the controversial Pebble Mine project in Alaska, donating its shares to two state charities."
"A Senate panel is set to consider President Obama’s nominee for a top post within the Environmental Protection Agency this week, which will likely stir up the fight over contentious climate change regulations."
"After months of wincing in the face of negative ads funded by the industrialists David and Charles Koch, Democrats believe they have finally found a way to fight back: attacking the brothers’ sprawling business conglomerate as callous and indifferent to the lives of ordinary people while pursuing profit and power."
"A North Carolina judge on Friday denied Duke Energy's motion seeking to shield records related to groundwater pollution leaching from 33 coal ash dumps in the state while a separate federal criminal investigation is ongoing."
People care about the information they get. But the public isn’t getting what it needs from federal and state agencies where, during crisis events and day-to-day operations, agencies work harder at controlling the information that reaches the public than they do at gathering and making it available. Read more from SEJ President Don Hopey.
As a rising ocean eats away at North Carolina, a GOP legislature that seems to be driven by politics and profit is also washing away hard science.
"A tax credit for wind-energy production made it after all into a Senate bill that would revive a host of expired breaks for numerous industries."
"Even when pollution discharges from shale gas well pads and impoundments contaminate private water supplies, those violations often go unrecorded or publicly reported by state environmental regulators, according to documents filed in the Pennsylvania Superior Court case challenging the constitutionality of the state's oil and gas law, Act 13."
"The Senate Finance Committee’s abrupt move to take up “tax extenders” legislation is testing the lobbying clout of the renewable energy sector and other special interests in Washington."
"Environmental groups believe a large favor was handed to corporations, billionaires and the campaigns they fund when U.S. Supreme Court justices decided Wednesday to strike down overall limits on campaign contributions."
