Duke Energy lobbyists asked the GOP-controlled North Carolina legislator for a legal loophole protecting it from having to clean up coal-ash pollution, after environmentalists sued to force clean-up. The legislature obliged, and GOP Gpovernor Pat McCrory signed it.

"Amid calls to free up crude oil exports from the United States, debate is brewing among the refining industry over whether to support or oppose the proposal."

"Less than two years after passing major legislation aimed at reforming the government's much-criticized flood insurance program, Congress on Thursday sent President Barack Obama a bill to scale back many of the resulting big flood insurance premium increases faced by hundreds of thousands of homeowners. The measure would also allow below-market insurance rates to be passed on to people buying homes with taxpayer-subsidized policies."

"U.S. President Barack Obama and EU leaders meeting in Brussels this month will throw their combined weight behind tackling climate change, a document seen by Reuters says, in a show of developed world solidarity on the need for a new global deal."

"Four years after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, BP is being welcomed back to seek new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico."

"Internal emails between staff at North Carolina's environmental agency suggest state regulators were coordinating with Duke Energy before intervening in efforts by citizens groups trying to sue the company over groundwater pollution leeching from its coal ash dumps."

"An effort in Congress to modernize a patchwork system of state and federal laws governing chemical safety is generating debate between a bipartisan group of state legislators who say the update would rob states of the ability to regulate sometimes toxic substances within their own borders and businesses who say they need regulatory certainty to grow jobs and the economy."

Eighteen coal facilities in Ohio are operating with expired pollution-discharge permits under an agency where allegations of coal-industry influence arose during a personnel flap last year, an Associated Press review has found.

"Efforts to attach a measure fast-tracking natural gas exports to a Ukraine aid package by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) on Wednesday were stopped dead at a committee markup."

"Oh sure, the Tesla Model S may be the 'best car sold in America' per Consumer Reports, and it may be a Wall Street darling and perhaps the only electric vehicles for which demand exceeds supply. But that didn't stop regulators in New Jersey from ordering Tesla to shut down its stores by April 1 because the company doesn't use dealers like every other automaker."