The State Department's environmental impact statement for the Keystone XL pipeline has been the focus of a spin war among economic and political interests with a stake in the decision. The news media fell in line with the industry narrative that it "cleared the way" for the pipeline, ignoring the factual errors in the report. Media critics at the left-leaning Media Matters ask why the mainstream media failed to note Reuters' expose of the EIS' overstatement of rail traffic offering an alternative route for the oil.

The story about wolves, elk, and the Yellowstone ecosystem has been told and retold by U.S. news media. The gist is that the reintroduction of wolves restored balance in overgrown elk populations -- which in turn allowed restoration of aspen groves which the elk had been overbrowsing. But new evidence suggests the story isn't really true -- or that a true understanding of the ecosystem is far more complex. That in turn raises issues about how U.S. news media cover the environment.

"WASHINGTON — In the summer of 2010, it was Harry Reid, the Senate’s Democratic leader, who squelched his party’s efforts to pass a climate change bill, declaring it could never attract enough votes to pass. In the years since, he has rarely spoken publicly about the issue. But on Monday night, an impassioned Mr. Reid took to the Senate floor to kick off a nearly 15-hour climate-change talkathon by about 30 Senate Democrats, part of a campaign by a new Senate 'climate caucus' to make it a politically urgent issue."

"Records show GE was warned about health threats of PCBs decades before anti-dredging campaign."

One of the few journalists covering First Nation protests against fracking in New Brunswick -- and regularly arrested for doing so -- saw charges against him dropped for a third time in February. Now the Canadian Association of Journalists asks whether the RCMP are trying to intimidate journalists.

"An aging Enbridge pipeline that runs across Ontario has had at least 35 spills — far more than reported to federal regulators — but many municipalities along its route have never been informed of the incidents, a CTV W5 investigation reveals."

"The head of nuclear safety for the cleanup of the former nuclear weapons site at Hanford, Wash., was fired Tuesday after allegations she made over several years that the construction project was ignoring serious safety problems."