Greenwire

MONTEREY, Calif. -- California's drought is hitting industries in sharply different ways. While some companies are planning layoffs, others are adding workers to drill water wells and install irrigation systems.

The Supreme Court ruling late last month that upheld a U.S. EPA rule curbing air pollution that crosses state lines bolstered the agency's confidence that its upcoming greenhouse gas regulations will withstand legal challenges, U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said today.

When about 500 all-terrain vehicle riders splashed up a closed portion of southern Utah's Paria River in spring 2009, Bureau of Land Management officials stood by scribbling down their license plate numbers and photographing the law breakers. But five years later, not a single participant in that ride has faced federal prosecution, a fact that angers conservationists to this day. Environmentalists and former BLM officials are urging the agency to take a more aggressive posture against the roughly 50 who drove their ATVs through a closed portion of southeast Utah's Recapture Canyon last Saturday.

U.S. EPA political appointees broke ethics rules by violating the administration's "revolving door" ban and accepting a private jet flight from a lobbyist, according to a new watchdog report. Those ethics violations and other misconduct cases were laid out today in a new report from EPA's Office of Inspector General. Investigators also uncovered an employee watching child pornography on the job and several other outlandish cases of staffers' bad behavior.

How does this month's National Climate Assessment inform the domestic and international discussions on climate change mitigation? During today's OnPoint, Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy, discusses the United States' shifting influence in the international negotiations and previews next week's Green Climate Fund meeting.

The British government has been conducting secret tests to gas badger dens -- called setts -- since last summer in the wake of failed pilot badger cull programs, according to documents acquired by the London Guardian today.

Hong Kong today began destroying its ivory stockpile and, government officials hope, the link their country has long provided between African elephant poachers and the lucrative Chinese ivory market.

Mourning has turned to angry protest and strikes in Turkish cities as the toll from the deadliest mine accident in the country's history continues to mount.

Texas' environmental watchdogs this week announced incentives up to $2,500 for drivers who buy alternative-fuel vehicles.

Flame retardants are common at preschools and day care centers, where children may be exposed to chemicals thought to harm their health, according to new research.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation said at least 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the Nushagak River in southwestern Alaska yesterday after a tug vessel struck a submerged object.

U.S. EPA has documented more than 200 cases of contamination from coal ash ponds nationwide, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice said in a new report today.

Applying sewage sludge to farmland might be fast-tracking prescription drugs and other contaminants into water and soil, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey.

One of the many buses transporting workers to and from Powder River Basin coal mines collided with a line of vehicles stopped in a construction zone yesterday south of Gillette, Wyo., killing three people.

The operator of New Jersey's Salem Unit 2 nuclear reactor will need more time to make repairs before restarting operations after discovering problems at the plant.

A ruptured oil pipe dumped 10,000 gallons of crude oil onto the streets of Los Angeles early today.

The Army today announced plans to develop three 30-megawatt solar arrays at Georgia installations, the latest projects under the service's efforts to woo private financing to help build 1 gigawatt of renewable energy production by 2025.

Members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today disagreed about just how large an effect wind production tax credits are having on the U.S. nuclear fleet.

Oil and gas companies flare or vent enough methane from federal lands each year to supply all the homes in Los Angeles, according to a new report from a left-leaning government watchdog group.

A Tennessee man pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act when he was the owner of a salvage and demolition company that handled asbestos.

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