"The shareholder fraud lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general against Exxon Mobil has entered its second week, and on Wednesday a star witness took the stand: Rex Tillerson, the company’s former chief executive and a former secretary of state in the Trump administration."

"Monday’s surprise move by General Motors, Toyota and other auto giants to back President Trump in his fight with California over pollution rules came after days of White House pressure to support one of the administration’s biggest efforts to weaken climate regulations."

"A solvent widely used in industrial settings and found in automotive and other consumer products poses too great a risk of harming both workers and consumers, the EPA said Oct. 29."

"The Justice Department may end a nearly 30-year practice of letting companies make amends for pollution-related violations by performing environmentally beneficial projects, a department official told Bloomberg Environment."

"Murray Energy, the U.S. coal company whose founder's "wish list" was a virtual template for the Trump administration's rollback of federal environmental and climate regulations, filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday."

"President Trump was persuaded to keep a number of troops in Syria partly so the United States could have some of its oil. But the idea of seizing petroleum in the war-torn country presents a big barrel of problems."

"Federal officials yesterday asked the Supreme Court to keep records related to Endangered Species Act decisions under lock and key. The government said a lower court's ruling that certain draft documents should be publicly disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act could have a chilling effect on discussions around federal decisionmaking."

"Tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have already chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California are spreading north to Oregon, sending the delicate marine ecosystem off the shore into such disarray that other critical species are starving to death."