"Officials around [Pennsylvania] are optimistic about the impact of Shell’s new ethane cracker on the local economy. It will bring thousands of construction jobs to western Pennsylvania and 600 permanent ones once it’s built along the Ohio River in Beaver County. The plant will produce 1.6 million tons of plastic a year out of the region’s natural gas."
"A Native American tribe from the northeast shore of Lake Michigan is trying to halt the approval of a multi-million-dollar settlement between Canadian pipeline giant Enbridge, Inc., and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And it is using arguments similar to those made by a Sioux tribe in its campaign against a North Dakota oil pipeline that has so far succeeded in stopping construction."
"The federal government announced Monday that it will work to increase the captive population of endangered red wolves. The move ends years of speculation that the government might abandon a 30-year effort to reintroduce the animals into the wild. The reintroduction project will be greatly restricted, however, and some wolves may be removed from the wild."
"A federal court on Friday faulted U.S. EPA for releasing hundreds of pages of documents containing personal information of owners of livestock operations."
"Letter from nine legal scholars says Rep. Smith's subpoenas of state attorneys general and organizations were 'invalid and constitutionally impermissible.'"
"Royal Dutch Shell has started production at the world’s deepest underwater oil and gas field, 1.8 miles beneath the sea surface in the Gulf of Mexico."
"As the United Nations General Assembly converges in New York on Tuesday, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is using the gathering of world leaders to rush the 2015 Paris climate change accord into legal force this year, hoping to bind all countries to its strictures for at least the next four years — regardless of the outcome of the presidential election in the United States."
"Last Friday, the Bureau of Land Management‘s (BLM) National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board made the decision to use euthanasia to kill 45,000 wild horses currently captive in government holding facilities throughout the US. The decision has come under great scrutiny by organizations who argue for using birth control to minimize population growth, instead."
"PORTLAND, Ore. — The trial of Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan and five of their followers, antigovernment protesters charged in the armed takeover of a national wildlife refuge earlier this year, will begin here on Tuesday in a federal court."
The Society of Environmental Journalists joined some 40 other journalism groups in a letter urging the White House to do more on improving the transparency of federal agencies. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest (pictured) had recently claimed President Obama had a good record on transparency in an August 30 letter to the New York Times. But journalism and open-government groups said plenty of problems remained — particularly press office interference with journalists' access to agency officials. See this WatchDog story.
Advertisement 
