"The Senate backers of legislation to strengthen the government's open records laws are hoping to pass their bill on the floor in the coming week."

As the Flint water crisis was being discovered, Michigan environmental officials tried to manipulate exemptions in the state's freedom of information law to keep secret emails that should have been subject to disclosure.

"In a pair of hearings at the House Oversight Committee, top officials involved in the Flint, Mich., drinking water crisis are slated to discuss the causes and aftermath of the lead contamination." Witnesses include Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.

"A federal jury ruled on Thursday that Cabot Oil & Gas Co must pay more than $4.2 million in damages to two families in northeastern Pennsylvania who said the company's fracking operations contaminated their ground water."

"Many large Canadian companies are financing legal action and lobbying against President Barack Obama’s climate change plan, putting the public and their investors at risk, said a new report released on Monday by an investment services organization."

"In her job at the Savannah River Site nuclear weapons plant in South Carolina, Sandra Black was responsible for looking into concerns raised by employees about everything from health and safety to fraud, abuse, harassment and retaliation."

"The federal government is sending a group of formerly endangered bears back into the wild with fewer protections."

"A court in Japan ordered one of only two nuclear power plants operating in the country to shut down on Wednesday, citing insufficient safety measures put in place after meltdowns at a facility in Fukushima five years ago."

"Duke Energy has appealed the state’s $6.8 million fine involving the Dan River coal ash spill, calling the action “entirely arbitrary and capricious” and requesting “dismissal of the ... civil penalty in its entirety.”"

"Four EU states force delay of a vote to renew the licence for glyphosate, which has been found to be ‘probably carcinogenic’"