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INSTITUTE INDEX: Confronting a deepening climate crisis
With new data out showing that 2012 was the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States, and with costs mounting due to droughts and other climate-related disasters, will political leaders...
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Climate change is drowning out 'jobs vs. environment' debate
With the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline intensifying, the old argument that unions must choose between jobs and the environment is losing its grip as climate change becomes more evident and more...
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After a powerful lobbyist intervenes, EPA reverses stance on polluting Texas...
When Uranium Energy Corp. sought permission to launch a large-scale mining project in Goliad County, Texas, it seemed the EPA would stand in the way -- until a powerful Democratic lobbyist and...
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Drilling deeper: The wealth of business connections for Obama's energy pick
MIT physicist Ernest Moniz is an academic who has also served on boards or advisory councils of large energy companies, including BP.Image: Moniz, at left, as the president announces his nomination....
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South's rivers and streams in poor condition, EPA finds
The first comprehensive assessment of the health of the nation's rivers and streams finds that many in the Southern Appalachians and Coastal Plain are unable to sustain life.Image: A groundbreaking...
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Drowning in industry in Houston's East End
Yudith Nieto and Emmanuel Guajardo discuss their experiences organizing a Houston neighborhood that's been sickened by pollution from a Valero refinery slated to receive dirty Canadian tar sands oil...
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Three years after the BP disaster, an urgent call for feds to address health...
More than 30 Gulf Coast advocates have signed a letter sent to six federal agencies outlining ongoing human health problems from the Deepwater Horizon disaster and calling for immediate action.Image:...
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A turning point on mountaintop removal?
There were two big developments this week in the fight to end mountaintop removal, with a federal appeals court upholding the EPA's authority to revoke permits for such coal mining operations, and a...
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What went wrong in West, Texas - and where were the regulators?
Seven different agencies regulate fertilizer plants in Texas, but none of them have authority over how close they are to homes and schools.Image: (West Fertilizer explosion aftermath by Shane...
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Ad campaign puts Arkansas oil spill images before Keystone XL decision makers
An ad campaign featuring images of Exxon Mobil's Arkansas oil spill disaster targets the federal regulators in charge of approving the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project.Image: (Photo of Foggy...
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UN human rights group calls for investigation of mountaintop removal mining...
The United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights recently visited West Virginia communities affected by the controversial mining practice and said allegations of health damage, water...
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Carrying water for an end to mountaintop removal
Activists hauled polluted water from Appalachia to Washington, D.C. this week to draw attention to the plight of communities affected by mountaintop removal coal mining. The action comes as legislation...
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Environmental groups spur NC legal action against Duke Energy coal ash pollution
Under legal pressure from environmental advocates, North Carolina regulators are seeking court orders to force Duke Energy to clean up groundwater contamination from unlined coal ash storage ponds at...
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Southern coal plants top list of worst carbon polluters targeted by Obama...
Bypassing a Congress that's failed to take action to address a worsening problem, President Obama unveiled a plan to curb climate-disrupting pollution from coal-fired power plants -- with big...
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Water pollution a problem for Southern beaches
The NRDC's annual report on bacterial contamination at U.S. beaches finds serious problems at popular swimming spots across the South. The group is calling on the federal government to take action to...
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Clean water advocates criticize limited EPA hearing on coal plant water...
After proposing a rule to clean up toxic pollution from coal-fired power plants, the EPA holds a single public hearing -- but dramatically limits its scope. Environmentalists cry foul.Image: An aerial...
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Why is the White House aiding and abetting lawbreaking by coal plants?
A new report from environmental groups documents widespread disregard for the Clean Water Act by electric utilities -- and an effort by the White House Office of Management and Budget to dilute...
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INSTITUTE INDEX: Killer goo imperils Florida waters
Toxic algae is choking Florida rivers and estuaries, killing animals, sickening people, and costing billions of dollars. Why is the Obama administration backing away from plans to clean up the...
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New study finds high levels of arsenic in groundwater near fracking sites
Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington found elevated levels of arsenic and other heavy metals in groundwater near natural gas fracking sites in Texas' Barnett Shale, providing further...
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INSTITUTE INDEX: Promoting the myth of 'sustainable coal'
A group of prominent Democrats has launched a project to promote the idea that coal is part of a sustainable U.S. energy future -- even as new evidence emerges showing just how environmentally...
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Federal court orders EPA to get moving on coal ash rules
A federal judge has sided with environmental and public health groups that sued to force the Obama administration to issue regulations for the disposal of the toxic waste left over after burning coal...
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INSTITUTE INDEX: Courts weigh polluter challenges to cleaner air
This week top U.S. courts heard two cases challenging Environmental Protection Agency rules limiting health-damaging air pollution from power plants -- one related to mercury emissions and the other to...
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More evidence undermines industry claims of fracking safety
The oil and gas industry says fracking does not endanger groundwater supplies. But an Associated Press review of data from several states offers the latest evidence that the industry's claims are not...
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INSTITUTE INDEX: Duke Energy coal ash spill latest in ongoing regulatory...
A stormwater pipe at a shuttered Duke Energy coal plant in North Carolina has sent thousands of tons of coal ash into the Dan River, which provides drinking water for downstream communities. Five years...
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How ALEC helped Duke Energy block stricter coal ash rules
Duke Energy has long fought strict federal regulations on coal ash, which is in the spotlight again following a spill from one of the company's North Carolina plants. Duke got help from the American...
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Election 2014: Does climate change stand a chance against the oil boom?
Record-breaking domestic oil production is likely to swamp any effort to inject climate concerns into 2014 mid-term elections -- and could even cost Democrats the Senate.Image: Texas Attorney Greg...
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Coal ash polluting NC river was once Appalachian mountaintops
Before its coal-fired units were shuttered in 2012, Duke Energy's Dan River plant burned coal from mountaintop removal mines in Appalachia. The reality that the arsenic-laden ash now contaminating a...
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Are environmentalists pushing a risky alternative for coal ash disposal?
Watchdog groups are raising concerns about calls to move coal ash from wet impoundments into dry landfills, warning of inevitable leakage from landfills that are typically located in low-income and...
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NC lawmaker overseeing legislative response to Duke Energy coal ash problems...
North Carolina regulators have found highly toxic thallium seeping from coal ash pits at two Duke Energy plants. Rep. Mike Hager -- the state lawmaker who co-chairs the committee that will handle coal...
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Opposition mounts to seismic testing for Atlantic oil and gas reserves
With the oil and gas industry back to business as usual in the Gulf of Mexico four years after the BP disaster, it's pushing to open up the Atlantic Coast to offshore drilling -- but it's meeting...
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INSTITUTE INDEX: New power plant pollution rules won't save the planet, but...
The EPA unveiled a rule this week requiring power plants to stop using the Earth's atmosphere as an open sewer for dumping carbon pollution. While the rule doesn't go far enough to halt dangerous...
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Southern waters imperiled by toxic pollution
A new report looks at industrial pollution releases into the nation's rivers and finds that waterways across the South face especially toxic contamination -- and would benefit from efforts to...
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Report criticizes EPA oversight of injection wells
The Government Accountability Office says environmental regulators are failing to adequately enforce rules for wells used to dispose of toxic waste from oil and gas drilling.Image: Diagram of an oil...
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Big Carbon vs. the future at EPA Clean Power Plan hearings
This week's Environmental Protection Agency hearings on the proposed plan to clean up carbon pollution from power plants offered a ringside seat to the political fight that's pitting those with a...
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INSTITUTE INDEX: North Carolina's weak new coal ash law draws protest
North Carolina has passed the nation's first state law regulating coal ash, but it's being met with protests for not doing enough to protect public health and the environment -- and for placing...
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The environmental prosecution gap
Following the $16 billion Justice Department settlement with North Carolina-based Bank of America for financial crimes, Dirt Diggers Digest looks at prosecution of corporate crime of another sort --...
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Duke Energy's money is on a GOP-controlled U.S. Senate
The nation's largest electric utility has skewed its political contributions to give anti-regulatory Republicans a better shot at capturing control of the Senate, as has the industry at large. But Duke...
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NC's ongoing coal ash regulatory disaster shows urgency of EPA action
Environmental advocates announced they discovered a coal ash leak into North Carolina's Yadkin River from a Duke Energy power plant just days before 60 Minutes aired a report in which the CEO said her...
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EPA gives weak protections to communities threatened by toxic coal ash
Environmentalists say a long-awaited federal rule governing disposal of the toxic waste left over after burning coal is "too little and too late" -- and that when the next disaster inevitably occurs...
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Could Duke Energy's coal ash be headed to a mine near you?
With Duke Energy under pressure to move toxic coal ash away from waterways, it's planning to send it to abandoned clay mines in two North Carolina counties. But could scores of mines elsewhere in the...
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Southern Company caught promoting bad climate science again
The Atlanta-based utility giant is in the news for funding a controversial researcher whose work has been used to cast doubt on the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is driving...
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Koch Industries tops list of water polluters spending big on politics
With a fight underway in Congress over protecting more U.S. waterways from industrial pollution, Environment America has issued a report looking at the millions of dollars spent on politics each year...
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After EPA ignored environmental racism for decades, communities fight back
This week the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice filed suit over government violations of civil rights laws in communities including Tallassee, Alabama and Beaumont, Texas.Image: via Earthjustice.)"...
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INSTITUTE INDEX: Southern politicians fight EPA carbon limits as states burn
Among those fighting the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan are leaders of states where residents are most at risk from a dangerously warming climate.Image: via Flickr.)" itemprop="image"...
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Big Coal's war on its workers
Fossil-fuel apologists have accused the Obama administration of waging a war on coal, but the real war is the one coal companies have for years carried out against the health and safety of their...
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What Tennessee paid to lure lawbreaking Volkswagen to Chattanooga
Tennessee taxpayers have financed hundreds of millions of dollars in economic incentives for VW to locate and expand a plant in Chattanooga that manufactures one of the vehicles involved in the...
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Civil rights battle over N.C. hog industry regulation heats up as...
Community advocates say settlement talks with North Carolina's environmental agency fell apart after state officials invited the hog industry into what were supposed to be confidential mediation...
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N.C.'s coal ash-poisoned wells: a harbinger for problems ahead in other states?
North Carolina's carcinogen-contaminated drinking water near Duke Energy's coal ash dumps — and the political fight over what to do about it — should serve as a warning for problems to come in other...
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Slander suit against citizens battling Alabama coal ash dump shows downsides...
As pressure grows on power companies to move toxic coal ash out of leaky, wet impoundments and into dry, lined landfills, the experience of an African-American community near one such landfill in rural...
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INSTITUTE INDEX: Whistleblower complaint charges EPA with methane leak cover-up
A North Carolina-based climate advocacy group filed a complaint this week with the Environmental Protection Agency's Inspector General charging that the EPA is covering up underreporting of the natural...
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