Southwest (AZ NM OK TX)

"When Texas regulators bypassed the EPA to ease air pollution regulations on 19 coal plants, they violated the federal Clean Air Act, a new petition says".

"Torrential rains have killed at least 17 people in Texas and Oklahoma, including four in Houston where floods turned streets into rivers and led to about 1,000 calls for help in the fourth-most populous U.S. city, officials said on Tuesday."

"Record-setting rains left officials in Texas and Oklahoma scrambling to assess the scope of the damage and destruction Monday as an emergency coordinator told reporters that a dozen people were missing in one county."

"Flooding from record-setting rains in Texas and Oklahoma swept away hundreds of homes and left at least three people dead."

"With the stroke of his pen, Gov. Greg Abbott may have just made Denton not only the first but also the last city in Texas to ban fracking."

"Oil tycoon Harold Hamm told a University of Oklahoma dean last year that he wanted certain scientists there dismissed who were studying links between oil and gas activity and the state's nearly 400-fold increase in earthquakes, according to the dean's e-mail recounting the conversation.

"Protesters argue that eminent domain laws may not even apply as the pipeline will serve Mexicans, not Americans".

The US Geological Survey says a spate of earthquakes near Dallas is most likely caused by fracking.

"A series of tornadoes, including a major twister, touched down southwest of Oklahoma City on Wednesday, injuring several residents of a trailer park, causing severe flooding and the escape of bears from a wildlife park, officials said."

"In the Sonoran Desert, rainwater harvesting is finally going mainstream."