"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."

"The Association of American Railroads said on Thursday that major railroads delivered 434,042 carloads of crude oil in 2013, an increase of 83 percent from 2012."

"Worker and consumer safety advocates are vastly outgunned by lobbyists for pesticide manufacturers."

"The truck that caught fire a half mile underground at a southeastern New Mexico nuclear waste dump was 29 years old, improperly maintained and operating without an automatic fire-suppression system, according to a report to be released Friday."

"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."

"The energy giant raised the cash it needed to survive by slashing royalties it paid property owners to drill on their land."

"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."

"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."

"A $5bn facility to capture carbon and pump it underground could provide a lifeline for the dirtiest of fossil fuels, but many remain unconvinced"