Exxon Mobil opposes weakening Obama-era emissions rules: ...
Exxon Mobil Corp sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in support of methane gas emission rules put in place under the Obama administrati...

BRAZIL: Tanker truck explodes, sets off fire at refinery
A tanker truck exploded at a big oil refinery near Rio de Janeiro yesterday, setting off a fire that raged for several hours before being brought under contr...

MARYLAND: Worker hit by excavator at wastewater treatment...
Authorities say a worker was struck and killed by an excavator in a trench at a Baltimore wastewater treatment plant.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Dozens of dead birds wash ashore
South Carolina authorities are investigating why dozens of dead birds have been washing ashore.

TENNESSEE: Audit finds data management at enviro agency i...
An audit of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation found data management was such a mess that auditors were unable to determine whether the...

AUTOS: E.U. agrees to cut emissions by 37.5%
Under a compromise reached yesterday, the European Union will aim to cut cars' carbon emissions 37.5 percent by 2030 compared with 2021 levels.

COAL: Westmoreland looks to cut retiree benefits
Westmoreland Coal Co. asked a federal bankruptcy court last week to eliminate obligations to retired miners.

OCEANS: Giant trash boom's inventor says fix is coming
A floating device sent to corral a swirling island of trash between California and Hawaii has not swept up any plastic waste — but the young innovator behind...

WATER POLLUTION: Coast Guard: Leaky oil well near New Orl...
The Coast Guard says a crew has plugged a well that spewed thousands of gallons of oil into water about 40 miles from New Orleans.

AIR POLLUTION: EPA watchdog to audit risk reviews for tox...
EPA's inspector general is examining how the agency's handled a key aspect of its hazardous air pollutant program.

DRINKING WATER: Federal advisory on PFAS may be too weak:...
The EPA health advisory level for two types of PFAS in drinking water might not be protective enough, a Michigan science advisory panel said today.

PIPELINES: Another member resigns from Mich.'s Mackinac S...
A second member has resigned from a state panel recently established to oversee construction of a proposed oil pipeline tunnel beneath the waterway linking L...

WILDLIFE: Deer poacher ordered to watch 'Bambi'
Some people get sentenced to prison or jail. Some are sentenced to probation. And in this case, a man has been sentenced to watch the movies.

PEOPLE: Coal lobbyist joins conservative legal group
Coal lobbyist Fred Palmer is joining the conservative Energy & Environment Legal Institute as a senior legal fellow.

PEOPLE: Former CEQ official heads to law firm
A former White House environmental official is heading to private practice.

WILDFIRES: Report: Firefighter hit by truck was in unmark...
A firefighter who was run over by a pickup truck during last month's deadly Southern California wildfire was sleeping in an unmarked area but received prompt...

ENDANGERED SPECIES: 3 sandhill cranes reintroduced to the...
Three endangered Mississippi sandhill cranes that hatched earlier this year at a Florida conservation center have been reintroduced to the wild.

PEOPLE: Chelsea Clinton working on book about endangered ...
Chelsea Clinton's career as a children's author continues with a picture book about endangered animals.

ENDANGERED SPECIES: Trump proposals heighten threats to 1...
Environmentalists released a report today pointing to 10 species being threatened by Trump administration policies.

ENDANGERED SPECIES: Rancher who hit wolf with shovel to a...
A New Mexico rancher who trapped an endangered Mexican gray wolf and hit it with a shovel said he plans to appeal the loss of his grazing permit.

WILDFIRES: Report: Calif. damage resembles WWII bombing w...
The record-breaking wildfire that destroyed a California town last month burned like one that razed a German city after a World War II bombing raid, a report...

FORESTS: Prescribed burns on the decline — study
Use of prescribed burns in areas prone to wildfire has fallen since 2011, according to a study by advocates of the practice.

AGRICULTURE: Farm bill dedicates $75M to capture feral hogs
Congress is picking up its fight against feral pigs, estimated to cause $1.5 billion in damage to agriculture annually.

EPA: Pruitt's scandals cloud methane rule redo — senators
Scandals surrounding former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt may have tainted his rulemaking, six Senate Democrats argue in comments to the agency.

OIL AND GAS: API's executive vice president heads for the...
Marty Durbin, a longtime oil and gas official and former Capitol Hill aide, is leaving the American Petroleum Institute.

PEOPLE: Ex-EPA regional chief to lead state regulators' g...
An organization comprised of the heads of state environmental agencies has hired a former top EPA official as its second executive director in less than a year.

WHITE HOUSE: Former conservative activist taking budget o...
After a weekend of shake-ups in the Trump administration, the day-to-day leadership of the White House budget office will soon fall to a former conservative ...

INTERIOR: As Zinke says his goodbyes, department sails on
As Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt prepares to temporarily take over the department's tiller on Jan. 2, the man he's replacing is going about the t...

MINING: Embattled Pebble investors would rather fight tha...
Die-hard investors in the troubled Pebble mine are using social media to wage guerilla war for the southwest Alaska gold and copper project.

AIR POLLUTION: Years-in-the-making ozone litigation hits ...
EPA offered a steady defense today of Obama-era ozone standards the agency previously considered scrapping.

APPROPRIATIONS: White House backs off shutdown threat
The White House won't force a government shutdown at the end of this week to get border wall funding, likely averting the threat of furloughs for thousands o...

INTERIOR: What will Zinke do with the rest of his life?
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will enter uncertain career territory when he leaves his $196,700-a-year job in President Trump's Cabinet.

Blind creature that buries head in sand named after Donal...
Amphibian’s behaviour compared to US president’s approach to global warming A newly discovered blind and burrowing amphibian is to be officially named Dermop...

Gut microbiome regulates the intestinal immune system
A new study in mice unveils the role of vitamin A in immune system regulation, a finding that could assist in developing treatments for autoimmune and inflam...

InVivo looks to pesticide-free food, French bread for fut...
French agricultural cooperative InVivo said on Tuesday it wants to invest heavily in new farming techniques to support pesticide-free food and is considering...

Time to consider hydrogen, the new clean energy carrier o...
The case for hydrogen as a fuel has been well made but there has been little investment to bring it to scale If Australia wants fair dinkum power, there is a...

Broading the biodiversity catalogue of spider populations...
The biodiversity catalogue of the Iberian Peninsula spiders is now adding the discovery of a dozen new species -- from seven different families -- that are m...

Sofosbuvir rids organism of chikungunya and yellow fever ...
Sofosbuvir is already used to treat hepatitis C and has passed all human use approval tests, so it can be fairly easily deployed if the chikungunya epidemic ...

Fossils suggest flowers originated 50 million years earli...
The discovery in China of fossil specimens of a flower called Nanjinganthus from the Early Jurassic shakes up widely accepted theories of plant evolution.

Deciphering infanticide
It may seem like one of the cruelest aspects of the natural world, but a new study is pinpointing the suite of factors, including the shape of the pup and a ...

Peering into Little Foot's 3.67-million-year-old brain
MicroCT scans of the Australopithecus fossil known as Little Foot shows that the brain of this ancient human relative was small and shows features that are s...

French pair invent plastic-to-fuel recycler fit for Afric...
A French actor and a self-taught inventor have designed a low-tech machine that converts plastic waste into diesel and petrol, which they say could help figh...

Christmas shoppers warned to avoid plastic toys due to to...
Toys feature in more than half of EU alerts for products containing banned chemicals Christmas shoppers are being warned to avoid plastic toys after they app...

Flexible thermoelectric generator module: A silver bullet...
Researchers developed an inexpensive large-scale flexible thermoelectric generator (FlexTEG) module with high mechanical reliability for highly efficient pow...

Explaining differences in rates of evolution
Scientists look to fossils and evolutionary trees to help determine the rate of evolution -- albeit with conflicting results. A new model has helped to resol...

Volkswagen may have to step up electric car plans to meet...
Volkswagen may have to step up its plans for mass production of electric vehicles in order to meet tougher-than-expected European targets to cut greenhouse e...