Laws & Regulations

"From GMO labeling to pesticides to the source of the meat you buy, a handful of companies are spending heavily to keep information off your food labels."

"California legislators aiming to pass more stringent regulations on the sale and dissemination of ivory and rhinoceros horns received a boost last Friday when a San Francisco man pleaded guilty to selling an undercover federal agent two black rhinoceros horns for $55,000. The art dealer Lumsden Quan and Mill Valley man Edward Levine will face sentencing in December."

"A court in the Netherlands has ordered Russia to pay compensation for seizing the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise during a protest against an offshore oil platform two years ago, a ruling which Moscow dismissed as lacking legal authority."

"A former chemical company executive charged over a spill that fouled the drinking water of about 300,000 West Virginians pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors on Tuesday, according to federal court documents."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed new standards to cut greenhouse gas emissions and volatile organic compounds from oil and gas facilities, a key part of a broader strategy to cut methane emissions in the sector by 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels in the next ten years."

DuPont, a major U.S. chemical company, for years hid what it knew about the threats to employees and neighbors from a chemical -- perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as PFOA or C8 -- that can cause cancer and other health damage. The PFOA was used in operations of DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, WV. Its health damage was the focus of a major class-action lawsuit.

"A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge has ruled that the information railroads submit to the state about the volume and frequency of their crude oil shipments is public."

"The Obama administration is expected to propose as soon as Tuesday the first-ever federal regulation to cut emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, by the nation’s oil and natural-gas industry, officials familiar with the plan said on Monday."

"The Obama administration is giving Shell permission to fully drill an exploratory well in the Arctic Ocean and burrow into potential oil-bearing rock thousands of feet below the seafloor that previously was off limits."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has tightened standards for the nation's landfills to reduce emissions of methane and other harmful air pollutants."