"Developers of the proposed Pebble mine don't deserve special protections for buying insider documents about the financial workings of project opponents and then using the records to pursue a case against those opponents with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, a California appeals court panel ruled [July 30]."

"The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to let oil companies continue to dump polluted wastewater on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. This includes chemicals that companies add to the wells during hydraulic fracturing, an engineering practice that makes wells produce more oil."

"NEW YORK -- All of the notices U.S. regulators received to vouch for the safety of common food additives between 1997 and 2012 were submitted by people who had a vested interest in the outcome of those assessments, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine on Wednesday."

"BP Plc said Monday it has discovered new evidence of fraud and conflicts of interest in the program that is paying billions of dollars to businesses and residents who claimed they were harmed by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill."

"Last week's much-touted White House meeting between Obama administration environmental leaders and West Virginia Democrats on coal was part of what advocates are calling an increasing dialogue between both sides of the contentious debate."

"In the past several years, a number of polls have documented the huge gap between liberals and conservatives when it comes to their acceptance of the science of climate change. Naturally, then, researchers have increasingly turned their attention to trying to explain this dramatic divide over what is factually true. And it wasn't long before they homed in on the role of conservative media in particular -- thus, a number of studies show that watching Fox News increases your risk of holding incorrect beliefs about the science of climate change."

"U.S. EPA has backed down from an ambitious target for cellulosic biofuel production, releasing a final rule today that requires refiners to blend 6 million gallons into the nation's supply of gasoline this year."

"State legislatures are pushing to stifle farm investigations, and some news associations are fighting back."

"An independent government inquiry into the State Department's choice of a private contractor to steer the latest Keystone XL environmental review could remain open through this fall, raising the specter of a further delay in a final decision on the contentious pipeline project that President Obama vowed in March to rule on before 2014."

"Keystone XL pipeline is under scrutiny as State's inspector general probes conflict of interest charges surrounding a review of Keystone XL."