Environmental Politics

"After a runaway oil train killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, just miles from the Maine border in 2013, Mainers demanded to know more about the state’s railways."

"Gov. Rick Snyder and other state officials allegedly withheld lead testing results from county health officials while they worked to find ways to present the information to the public, according to emails obtained by The Flint Journal."

"The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday easily passed a bill requiring federal environmental regulators to act faster when lead contamination is found in drinking water."

"The Supreme Court’s surprise decision Tuesday to halt the carrying out of President Obama’s climate change regulation could weaken or even imperil the international global warming accord reached with great ceremony in Paris less than two months ago, climate diplomats say."

"In a 7-5 vote, the California Coastal Commission on Wednesday dismissed embattled executive director Charles Lester."

"The last four armed occupiers of a national wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon said they would turn themselves in Thursday morning after law officers surrounded them in a tense standoff."

"A maverick hedge fund manager thinks Wall Street is the answer to the water crisis in the West."

"For more than four decades, the California Coastal Commission has policed land use and preserved public access along more than 1,100 miles of shoreline — some of the most valuable and scenic real estate in the nation. Now an internal battle over whether to fire its executive director has set off an intense public fight over the direction of the agency and its ability to control development and protect the state's vast coastal resources."

"More than two years after federal researchers found high levels of lead in homes where water mains had been replaced or new meters installed, city officials still do little to caution Chicagoans about potential health risks posed by work that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is speeding up across the city."

"The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement was signed Thursday in Auckland, New Zealand by officials from 12 nations from around the Pacific Rim that together account for nearly 40 percent of the global economy."