"Environmental groups believe a large favor was handed to corporations, billionaires and the campaigns they fund when U.S. Supreme Court justices decided Wednesday to strike down overall limits on campaign contributions."

"The Tennessee branch of Americans For Prosperity (AFP) — funded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch — has been working with lawmakers opposed to mass transit projects in the state."

"Faced with public outrage about gritty black dust blowing through Chicago’s Southeast Side, Mayor Rahm Emanuel talked of forcing towering mounds of petroleum coke out of Chicago and outlawing new piles with costly regulations. But the fine print of a zoning ordinance unveiled Tuesday by the Emanuel administration opens the door for greater use of the high-sulfur, high-carbon refinery byproduct in the city."

"Draft regulations that would place tough new limits on emissions from the nation’s existing power plants has moved to the White House, according to records posted Tuesday by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)."

"Duke Energy is asking a judge to prevent citizens groups from taking part in any enforcement action that would make the company clean up nearly three dozen coal ash pits across North Carolina."

"MOSCOW — Even as American and Russian diplomats groped toward a settlement that would halt further Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Gazprom, the Russian energy company, stepped up the economic pressure on Tuesday by sharply raising the price it charges for natural gas."

"A United Nations report that concludes climate change is negatively affecting every continent arrived with a predictable thud Monday in Washington. Democrats and the Obama administration saw the report as more evidence that leaders must take quick, decisive action on the issue, while skeptics, including much of the Republican Party, held fast in their position that the science is wrong."

"The New York Times led Monday’s paper with an ominous headline potentially affecting everyone on Earth: 'Panel’s Warning On Climate Risk: Worst Is To Come.'"

Politically, coal and chemicals are sacred cows in West Virginia.

"WASHINGTON — For more than a century, federal scientists have worked on Pivers Island near the historic town of Beaufort, N.C., and the beaches of Emerald Isle studying the ocean, and the fish, turtles and dolphins of its sea grass estuaries and rocky reefs."