Laws & Regulations

"At Monsanto, sales of genetically modified seeds were steadily rising. But executives at the company’s St. Louis headquarters were privately worried about attacks on the safety of their products. So Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, and its industry partners retooled their lobbying and public relations strategy to spotlight a rarefied group of advocates: academics, brought in for the gloss of impartiality and weight of authority that come with a professor’s pedigree."

"Some of the world's most ambitious climate change legislation is currently under consideration in America. But the lawmakers in question aren't in D.C. — they're in Sacramento."

"SACRAMENTO -- Hoping to discourage the alarming killing of African elephants, the state Senate on Wednesday voted to ban the sale of old elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn."

"A court has vacated federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken, a Great Plains bird that was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act last year."

"Monsanto said it would abide by Latvia's and Greece's requests under a new EU opt-out law to be excluded from its application to grow a genetically modified (GM) crop across the European Union, but accused them of ignoring science."

"Emails and financial documents released by the University of Kansas on Thursday reveal earmarked funding from Koch Industries to develop research used to lobby against the state renewable energy standard."

"One partner was the son of a local police chief, the other an executive at a state-run chemicals firm. After meeting at a dinner party, they started a company here to handle the export of the most dangerous chemicals made in China, promising 'outstanding service' and 'good results.'"

"The legal and practical morass surrounding the Obama administration's controversial water rule became more muddied [Thursday] when a federal judge blocked its implementation in 13 states just hours before it was set to go into effect."

"The Lacey Act, a 115-year-old law that seeks to protect threatened species, is still going strong."

The story of how a DuPont chemical called C8, or PFOA, harmed the health of people around Parkersburg, WV, is an epic one that resulted in a huge class-action settlement. "DuPont deceived as many people as they could deceive as for as long as they could," one resident said. Under the current regulatory system, the same thing could happen again.