Southwest (AZ NM OK TX)

"University of Oklahoma officials were seeking a $25 million donation from billionaire oilman Harold Hamm last year, records show, at a time when scientists at the school were formulating the state's position on oil drilling and earthquakes."

"Drinking water wells in Texas counties that are home to intensive hydraulic fracturing operations contain elevated levels of more than two dozen metals and chemicals, including carcinogens, according to a new study in Environmental Science & Technology."

"Tropical Depression Bill drenched large parts of Texas on Wednesday, turning streets into lakes, raising flood worries and killing at least one person in the state where severe weather killed about 30 people last month."

Arizona's Navajo Generating Station, the largest power plant in the West, powers pumps that lift trillions of gallons of water out of the Colorado River and carry it 336 miles to fuel growth in Tucson and Phoenix. As the generators spin, they spew more more greenhouse gases than almost any other coal plant in the U.S.

"When Texas regulators bypassed the EPA to ease air pollution regulations on 19 coal plants, they violated the federal Clean Air Act, a new petition says".

"Torrential rains have killed at least 17 people in Texas and Oklahoma, including four in Houston where floods turned streets into rivers and led to about 1,000 calls for help in the fourth-most populous U.S. city, officials said on Tuesday."

"Record-setting rains left officials in Texas and Oklahoma scrambling to assess the scope of the damage and destruction Monday as an emergency coordinator told reporters that a dozen people were missing in one county."

"Flooding from record-setting rains in Texas and Oklahoma swept away hundreds of homes and left at least three people dead."

"With the stroke of his pen, Gov. Greg Abbott may have just made Denton not only the first but also the last city in Texas to ban fracking."