"Royal Dutch Shell Plc has agreed to cut pollution at its joint-venture 327,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in the Houston suburb of Deer Park, Texas, according to an announcement on Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."
"On its face, Eastman Chemical’s lawsuit against two small Texas labs that have said its plastics may be unsafe for consumption looks like a David and Goliath kind of fight (in fact, that’s how the labs are describing it). Corporate giant attempts to silence scientists -- including a professor at the University of Texas at Austin -- from publicizing research that runs counter to its commercial interests."
"Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer, citing lax oversight, urged regulators and states to do more to curb threats caused by poor storage of ammonium nitrate in the wake of April’s deadly explosion in Texas."
"The Obama administration is looking forward to a host of new environmental regulations that go far beyond the president's plans to issue new standards for greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants."
If you are looking for yet another category of environmental information that the U.S. public is not allowed to know about, try international trade agreements. A recent court decision — one that got little attention from the news media — upheld the federal government's authority to keep secret some information about the health and environmental impacts of trade treaties.
Exxon claims trade secrecy in its bid to hide inspection results for the pipeline that leaked 5,000 barrels of Canadian oil sands crude in Arkansas last spring, spurring debate over transparency and spill readiness. EnergyWire's Elana Schor has the story, raising questions that have still to be answered.
"President Barack Obama has vowed to tackle climate change in his second term, but so far has not acted to strengthen a tool that does not require backing from Congress - the National Environmental Policy Act."
"[Tuesday's] Supreme Court decision significantly expanding the rights of property owners to challenge the terms of land-use permits has puzzled environmental law experts and has liberal groups accusing the conservative justices of judicial activism."
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