"This week, while attention was focussed on the Senate’s health-care bill, the Trump Administration continued to quietly do the one thing it does well: wreak havoc on the environment."
"PLAINFIELD, Ill. -- Most roads have reopened in Plainfield after a train carrying crude oil derailed nearly 40 miles southwest of Chicago. Plainfield police said it will take several days to clean up an estimated 45,000 gallons of oil near Route 59 and Riverwalk Court, near the village's downtown business district."
"Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette called for a deadline to close a controversial portion of an oil pipeline that runs along the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac, a channel that connects two of the Great Lakes. The pipeline has had more than two dozen leaks over its lifespan, and parts of its outer coating have come off."
"The leading senators overseeing energy policy introduced a new version of their broad energy reform bill Thursday."
"Fourteen states — including Oregon and Washington — are threatening to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for violating the Clean Air Act. In a letter to the EPA sent Thursday, the group argues Director Scott Pruitt broke the law when he ordered his agency to halt part of the rule-making process for regulating methane and other air pollution from oil and gas facilities."
"About 10 per cent of Alberta’s 1,500 abandoned oil and gas wells in urban areas are leaking methane, in some cases at levels that create the risk of health damage and explosions, according to an unreleased 2016 report."
"Mainstream experts in energy policy and finance reacted skeptically to the White House's carefully orchestrated energy policy hootenanny this week, as President Donald Trump and his Cabinet declared what he called 'a golden age of American energy dominance.'"
"A federal appeals court said the Environmental Protection Agency should not have been ordered by a lower court judge to assess how its air regulations affect coal industry jobs, in a defeat for Murray Energy Corp, a large coal miner."
"Low-cost solar cells produced in China have helped power the recent surge in the U.S. solar industry. But a case now before the federal International Trade Commission could lead to tariffs that would jeopardize U.S. solar’s rapid growth."
"A House committee voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to advance a bill meant to move along the stalled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada."
