Southwest (AZ NM OK TX)

"Environmental Defense Fund-backed studies of 30,000 Barnett Shale wells shows the EPA has vastly underestimated emissions."

"Despite reports of U.S. Catholics’ largely positive reception to Pope Francis’s beginning campaign on the issue, not everyone is optimistic that the Catholics of Texas will suddenly start trying to shut down their local coal plant."

"SUPERIOR, Ariz. — Outside of an aging mining town in the mountains east of Phoenix, a copper company has burrowed a shaft 1.3 miles into the high desert landscape in what is believed to be the deepest such mine in the U.S."

"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 Environmental Protection Agency has announced a $168 million settlement to help remedy pollution from a coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation."

"University of Oklahoma officials were seeking a $25 million donation from billionaire oilman Harold Hamm last year, records show, at a time when scientists at the school were formulating the state's position on oil drilling and earthquakes."

"Drinking water wells in Texas counties that are home to intensive hydraulic fracturing operations contain elevated levels of more than two dozen metals and chemicals, including carcinogens, according to a new study in Environmental Science & Technology."

"Tropical Depression Bill drenched large parts of Texas on Wednesday, turning streets into lakes, raising flood worries and killing at least one person in the state where severe weather killed about 30 people last month."

Arizona's Navajo Generating Station, the largest power plant in the West, powers pumps that lift trillions of gallons of water out of the Colorado River and carry it 336 miles to fuel growth in Tucson and Phoenix. As the generators spin, they spew more more greenhouse gases than almost any other coal plant in the U.S.