"A federal judge ordered U.S. wildlife managers on Wednesday to enlarge habitat protections in Idaho, Montana and Colorado for the Canada lynx, a rare wild cat that roams the Rockies and mountain forests of several other states."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will order wastewater disposal wells shut near the epicenter of a 5.6 magnitude earthquake that struck on Saturday around Pawnee, Oklahoma, local media reported on Tuesday."
"A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from opening more than 1 million acres in Central California to oil drilling because the agency did not properly explore the potential dangers of fracking."
"A former top Bureau of Land Management official in New Mexico who later headed an oil and gas trade group accepted improper industry gifts while at the agency and 'attempted to obstruct' a federal investigation into his conduct, according to an inspector general's report that was kept from the public for more than three years."
"Murray Energy Corp. made a $250,000 donation to the Republican Attorneys General Association last year and, in return, the coal mining company’s chief executive got a closed-door meeting with state prosecutors to discuss the Obama administration’s regulation of power plants. Eleven days later, the attorneys general went to federal court to fight the rules that Murray Energy says could put the coal industry out of business."
The Congressional Research Service produces expert nonpartisan backgrounders on many subjects of interest to environment and energy journalists. But Congress won't release them. Thanks to the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, you can read them now.
A lawsuit over Wyoming's controversial "data trespass" law, which made it illegal to document pollution violations on "private open land", was settled in August without really resolving any of the important Constitutional issues behind it — and with both sides claiming victory.
A key issue on the Freedom of Information Act is once a government record is released to a single FOIA requester, should it then be automatically released to any other requester and the general public? "Yes" was the answer from most journalists surveyed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press — but with an important caveat. Image: © Clipart.com.
"Hand and body washing products containing triclosan, triclocarban and 17 other antibacterial chemicals can no longer be sold over the counter after the FDA determined they may be harmful and ineffective."
"Congress is going down to the wire on a bill to rewrite federal energy policy."
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