"Environmental organized crime is a massive global enterprise, bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars each year — and the U.S. financial system appears to be helping conceal its profits."
"August Pfluger, an Air Force veteran and member of the U.S. House representing a small district in West Texas, isn’t exactly a household name on the national political scene, with little press coverage in the last two months outside a recent Fox News appearance. But he is the country’s top recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry".
"The new rule builds on a landmark 2015 rule prohibiting coal ash from being permanently stored in places where it comes into contact with groundwater. This was meant to reform the widespread practice of creating so-called coal ash ponds where the toxin is stored in a wet slurry. While at that time the EPA only applied the rule to coal plants in active use, the new rule will require the cleanup of hundreds of “legacy” coal ash ponds."
"Last month, one of the nation’s top Republican donors became a flashpoint in a debate over the outsized power coal has in the state of Kentucky."
"The oil and gas industry has reaped profits without ensuring there will be money to plug and clean up their wells. In Oklahoma, that work could cost more than $7 billion if it falls to the state."
"Gardeners are inadvertently killing scores of earthworms with soil conditioners marketed as “organic”, experts fear, as they call for tighter regulation on products that poison the invertebrates."
"The deal will help the tribe raise money for infrastructure and services for its members while the water could ease the drought in the Southwest."
"House Republicans and Democrats have released two dueling visions for the farm bill, the massive $1.5 trillion omnibus that underpins the U.S. food system."
"The ban on acephate comes a week after a ProPublica investigation highlighted the EPA’s controversial finding that the bug killer doesn’t harm the developing brains of children."
"Environmentalists warn that a California Democrat’s bill “drives a bulldozer” through the state’s new law that protects imperiled Joshua trees from commercial development. But the lawmaker says his impoverished desert region desperately needs the economic boost."
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