"Oklahoma regulators released for the first time guidelines aimed to reduce the risk of major earthquakes being generated from fracking operations, including a mandate to immediately shut down operations in the event of a quake measuring 3.5 or higher on the Richter scale."

"U.S. pipeline regulators on Wednesday ordered Belle Fourche Pipeline Co to improve leak detection, along with other actions, after a Dec. 5 incident that spilled about 4,200 barrels of oil in North Dakota."

"Roughly 288,000 Iowans rely on private water supplies but may not know what is in their water because their wells’ water quality is unregulated."

"A decision by state regulators to end net metering for customers with rooftop solar panels will curtail demand for such systems in Arizona, industry officials say."

"The California Energy Commission has passed sweeping energy-efficiency standards for computers and monitors in an effort to reduce power costs, becoming the first state in the nation to adopt such rules."

"Paraquat, one of many pesticides that can’t be used in Europe but is sold in the United States and elsewhere, has been linked to Parkinson’s disease in a growing body of research."

"A Montana lawmaker tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be secretary of the interior committed travel fraud when he was a member of the elite Navy SEAL Team 6, according to three former unit leaders and a military consultant."

"President Obama announced on Tuesday what he called a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along wide areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic Seaboard as he tried to nail down an environmental legacy that cannot quickly be reversed by Donald J. Trump."

"Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's criminal investigation of the Flint water crisis moved a step closer to the highest levels of state government Tuesday as he brought felony charges against two former emergency managers who reported to former Treasurer Andy Dillon and were appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder."