"NEW ORLEANS — An $18.7 billion settlement announced Thursday of all federal, state and local claims against the oil giant BP arising from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill would be the largest environmental settlement — and the largest civil settlement with any single entity — in the nation’s history, officials said Thursday.
"Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Wednesday signed a bill into law that bans the manufacturing and sale of personal care products containing tiny plastic beads that are known to pollute waterways."
"A helicopter pilot who repeatedly flew over Curry County homes while spraying herbicides on clear cuts in 2013, drawing 20 complaints of illness, will not face any monetary fine from the state."
The WatchDog has long whined about Congress' mystifying refusal to let taxpayers read Congressional Research Service reports the taxpayers have paid for. A June 17, 2015, editorial in the New York Times called the situation "absurd," expressing hope that a new director of the Library of Congress (home of the CRS) would manage to get the policy changed.
"New York formalized its ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing for natural gas on Monday, concluding a seven-year environmental and health review that drew a record number of public comments."
"U.S. Coast Guard and police boats cleared a way through protesters in kayaks at a Seattle-area port on Tuesday so Royal Dutch Shell's second of two Arctic drilling rigs could depart for Alaska."
"Just over a month after California experienced its worst oil spill in decades, the state is considering allowing a company to triple its oil production off the coast of Santa Barbara and run the oil through the same pipeline that leaked on 19 May."
"The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a woman injured in a 2011 earthquake can file suit in district court against the two energy companies she accuses of causing the quake."
"The U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals from BP Plc and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and left intact a ruling that opens the companies to potentially billions of dollars in fines for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill."
"Sixteen states on Monday filed lawsuits against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, contesting a rule that expands the definition of bodies of water subject to federal pollution controls."
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