"The Great Recession put millions of homeowners underwater on their mortgages. Since then, the Congress has required periodic “stress tests” on large financial institutions to see whether they could withstand another economic blow."

"US air pollution rules could be hugely insufficient in preventing deaths, experts are concluding from a new study of the likely causes of death of 4.5 million veterans."

"Glimpsed from a kayak on West Neck Creek, this swampy piece of land, a pocket of red maple and loblolly pine tucked behind growing subdivisions, doesn’t look like the stuff of existential debate. But this is where Virginia Beach, squeezed between the clamor for new housing and the relentlessness of flooding worsened by climate change, decided to draw its line in the mud."

"Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday released draft legislation aimed at addressing climate change by extending and expanding tax breaks for renewable energy."

"A key Senate panel has voted to fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), a move that conservation groups see as a significant victory."

"A House committee approved legislation Nov. 19 to ban asbestos but allow certain chemical manufacturers to transition away from use of the cancer-causing mineral."

"Legislation that would create heftier penalties for unsafe pipeline operation and new requirements for gas and hazardous liquid pipelines made its way out of the House Energy committee on the strength of the Democratic majority Nov. 19."

"Two months after two men were arrested at an illicit marijuana farm on public land deep in the Northern California wilderness, authorities are assessing the environmental impact and cleanup costs at the site where trees were clear-cut, waterways were diverted, and the ground was littered with open containers of fertilizer and rodenticide."

"The export war between Western coal-producing states that want their coal to reach new markets and Pacific Coast states that don't want the pollution or climate consequences of shipping it played out in a federal appeals court on Tuesday. This time, the fight was over land near the Port of Oakland, California."