To comply with air pollution laws, midwest energy companies built tall smokestacks to displace pollutants. This one at Indiana’s Rockport Generating Station is 1,038 feet high, just 25 feet shorter than the Eiffel Tower.
Don Sniegowski
Trump administration officials argue that states can regulate more effectively than the federal government. But without leadership from the top, federalism may allow red states to avoid acting.
In Montana and Idaho, endangered gray wolves are no longer safe outside national parks.
Ronnie Howard/Shutterstock.com
Legislation designed to protect wildlife is being rolled back or ignored in all sorts of ways in all sorts of places, according to a new global database of attacks on green tape.
The outdoor retail industry is moving its lucrative trade show out of Utah after disputes with state officials over land conservation.
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
President Trump says environmental regulation kills jobs. To fight back, conservation advocates need to show that protecting the environment can produce jobs and local benefits.
Union workers supporting coal energy (right) face off against environmentalists in Pittsburgh, 2013.
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
Most Americans care about the environment, but they didn't vote that way this year. Two political scientists urge the movement to build better connections with blue-collar workers and immigrants.
Do environmental regulations help or hurt the economy? Democrats and Republicans sharply disagree. Six of our experts consider whether we have too much or too little regulation.
What’s in that bottle? And is it safe?
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Congress has passed a long-overdue update of a key law regulating hazardous chemicals. But a legal scholar says the new law does not go far enough to reduce chemical exposure risks.
Acid drainage from surface coal mining site, North Lima, Ohio.
Jack Pearce/Flickr
As coal energy loses market share, major U.S. coal companies are filing for bankruptcy. One multi-billion-dollar question: will taxpayers be forced to pay for cleaning up abandoned mines?
Ministers considering new coal mines need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
The granting of a mining lease to the Carmichael coal project, despite the huge potential greenhouse emissions, shows that ministers need to consider the wider consequences of their approvals.
The Hazelwood fire burned for 45 days in 2014.
AAP Image/Incident Control Centre Hazelwood
Two years after Morwell was blanketed in smoke from the Hazelwood fire, environmental charges have been laid against the mine's operators. But the process should be more open and democratic - and quicker.
Justice scale and flag.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office/Wikimedia
Many observers have called for criminal prosecutions in Flint, Michigan's water crisis. A law professor with experience in federal and state government reviews the laws that may have been broken.
The biggest source of mercury in the U.S. continues to be coal power plants.
booleansplit/flickr
Politicians rail against the EPA, but economic analysis shows the health benefits of mercury controls – including both higher IQ and heart health – are worth billions of dollars a year.
Tap water in Flint’s hospital on October 16.
Joyca Zhu/Flint Water Study
If Flint, Michigan were an affluent suburb, would residents have been exposed as long to drinking toxic water? Pioneering scholar Robert Bullard calls Flint's crisis a classic case of environmental discrimination
Hot on the tail of the VW emissions scandal, Australia will next year tighten diesel emissions standards.
EPA/Julian Stratenschulte/AAP
Diesels typically have good fuel economy, but hot on the heels of the Volkswagen affair, Australia is set to tighten the rules for diesel car emissions - which will put a dent in engine performance.
Power of the pen: Obama signs executive order to reduce greenhouse gases from government.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
The EPA said it will regulate emissions from airplanes – the latest in a string of environmental and climate regulations Obama has used to bypass the Republican-led Congress.
Car makers pay close attention to the emissions regulations in the countries they export to.
Everett Kennedy Brown/EPA/AAP
Unlike many countries, Australia does not have mandatory greenhouse emissions standards for cars - meaning that manufacturers are free to sell their least efficient, most polluting vehicles here.
Monitoring fishing vessels could be a growth industry in the tiny Pacific island nations that govern the world’s largest tuna fishery.
AAP Image/Xavier La Canna
A tiny handful of Pacific island nations control more than 50% of the world's tuna fishery, and their efforts to monitor international fishing vessels are set to become a major source of jobs.
Under a Greens-PUP deal, the senate inquiry into the Queensland government will investigate coal seam gas approvals granted under the previous Queensland government.
Jeremy Buckingham/Flickr
The Greens have secured a deal with the Palmer United Party (PUP) and Labor that effectively kills the federal government’s plan to hand its environmental approval powers to the states under its “one-stop…
Tony Abbott may have planted a few trees, but he’s also sought to bury many of Australia’s environmental safeguards.
Britta Campion/AAPImage
Before the 2013 election, Tony Abbott gave us fair warning that he would turn the clock back on the environment. As promised, his government has devoted itself to short-term economics and the sort of hardline…
Under federal law, coal seam gas projects must be approved by the environment minister if they could have a significant impact on water.
Jeremy Buckingham/Flickr
The Palmer United Party (PUP) has added to the Coalition’s headaches in the Senate by announcing this week it would seek to remove the so-called “water trigger” from the government’s “one-stop shop” for…
Are Queensland’s cassowaries being let down by Canberra’s officialdom?.
Dave Kimble/Wikimedia Commons
What do school chaplains and cassowaries have in common? Both highlight the degree to which federal governments struggle to devolve quality public decision-making to the right level. Our schools and our…
Senior Lecturer, Sustainability and Urban Planning, School of Global Urban and Social Studies; Co-leader, Climate Change and Resilience Research Program, Centre for Urban Studies, RMIT University
