"The Environmental Protection Agency released its much-delayed biofuel mandate on Monday, raising the amounts of biofuel that refiners are required to blend into conventional vehicle fuel from levels proposed in May."

"The cuts ushered in a five-year hiatus in peer-reviewed publication by its scientists and the era when the company first embraced disinformation."

"In April, Republicans newly in control of Congress celebrated their agreement on a plan to save $5 trillion — that’s trillion, with a 'T' — and balance the budget in a decade. 'We continue to get things done for the American people,' boasted the House speaker at the time, John A. Boehner. Yet as the year closes, Congress instead is planning to repeal one of the few spending cuts it has passed into law since approving that budget resolution: $3 billion over a decade from subsidies for crop insurers."

"The Environmental Protection Agency is taking steps to withdraw approval of a controversial new weed killer to be used on genetically modified corn and soybeans."

"America's beekeepers are having a rough time. They lost an estimated 42 percent of their hives last year."

It could be harder to prosecute corporate polluters, producers of tainted food, and other white-collar criminals if a Koch-backed bill to reform criminal justice goes through.

"Several environmental and health groups are moving to protect a new rule limiting ozone levels against a lawsuit."

"Companies that report their hydraulic fracturing chemicals to FracFocus have become less forthcoming since 2013, finds a study of 96,000 disclosures."

"A top House lawmaker’s confrontation with government researchers over a groundbreaking climate change study is provoking a national backlash from scientists, who say his campaign represents the most serious threat Congress has posed to scientific freedom."

"The last time the U.S. enjoyed a hemp revival was during World War II, when the country could no longer import cheap rope fiber from Asia. The effort, called Hemp for Victory, was promoted by the government even though plantings of hemp, a relative of marijuana, were tightly restricted. More than a half-century later, there is a new push to reestablish the ancient crop."