Our news section, updated weekly, provides you with the latest news on environmentally related issues from newspapers, magazines, journals, and other media outlets worldwide. Be sure to check back weekly to get the latest information.

Administration Seeks a Quicker Increase in Fuel Standards
Houston Chronicle, April 23, 2008·
The Bush administration, acting as gasoline prices are setting records, proposed on Tuesday to raise car and truck fuel economy standards substantially faster than required by the energy law passed by Congress last December.

Earth Day tips: How to go green without going broke
Houston Chronicle, April 22, 2008·
What can the average green Joe or Josie, the ones who are lead to believe shrinking the footprint is their responsibility, realistically do?

Dynamic disciplines
Houston Chronicle, April 22, 2008·
To tackle environmental problems, professors at universities throughout Houston are reaching out to unlikely colleagues and breaking down barriers that separate academic disciplines.

ConocoPhillips to pay in pollution case
Houston Chronicle, April 7, 2008·
ConocoPhillips has agreed to pay a $1.2 million fine to resolve civil allegations that its Borger refinery in the Texas Panhandle violated federal limits for wastewater discharge hundreds of times from 1999 through 2006.

Blowing in the Wind
Boston Globe, April 9, 2008·
Wind power is making waves all over the world as an alternative to energy sources such as oil, gas, and coal. In Denmark, 20 percent of the country's electricity is generated by wind turbines. Texas leads the way in the United States, producing 2 percent of the state's electricity needs with wind power, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

Iceland's energy lessons
Newsweek, April 10, 2008·
Developed nations can learn some valuable lessons from Iceland about what happens when a society commits to the systematic development of renewable energy.

Bottling plants face opposition as fears grow over water supplies
Associated Press, April 9, 2008·
Plans to tap local water sources are being greeted with skepticism from New Hampshire to Florida to California, as many parts of the country face drought and dwindling water supplies.

Texans Beat Big Coal, and a Film Shows How
New York Times, April 5, 2008·
A year after an uproar over pollution forced a turnaround in plans for 19 new coal-fired power plants around the state, the battle has been recounted in a documentary, “Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars,” commissioned by Mr. Redford’s Sundance Preserve. It spotlights the unlikely coalition of ranchers, big-city mayors and environmentalists that stymied Gov. Rick Perry and spurred the record $45 billion takeover of Texas’s biggest electric company, TXU.

War of the Wells
Texas Observer, April 10, 2008·
Despite its own scientists' objections, state regulators are greenlighting a massive nuclear waste dump in West Texas.

War of the Wells
Texas Observer, April 10, 2008·
The Railroad Commission has failed to protect Texans from oil and gas drillers, so citizens are learning to fight back on their own.

Chemical Industry's Influence at EPA Probed
Washington Post, April 4, 2008·
A congressional committee is investigating ties between the chemical industry and expert review panels hired by the Environmental Protection Agency to help it determine safe levels for a variety of chemical compounds.

Chevron could lose billions over Ecuador suit
San Fransisco Chronicle, April 3, 2008·
A court-appointed expert in Ecuador has recommended that Chevron Corp. pay $7 billion to $16 billion if it loses a marathon lawsuit over oil-field contamination in the Amazon rain forest.

Dead zones regularly haunt coast
Houston Chronicle, April 4, 2008·
Low-oxygen waters known as dead zones have appeared as regularly as the tides along the Texas coast, according to a new Texas A&M University study.

Texas may sue EPA over clean air rules
Austin American Statesman, April 4, 2008·
Less than a month after the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would tighten smog standards, Texas could join a lawsuit to stop the change.

Texas, The CO2 State
Newsweek, March 28, 2008·
Texas produces more carbon emissions than most countries, but the state government and business community don't seem too concerned.

Group Seeks E.P.A. Rules on Emissions From Vehicles
New York Times, April 3, 2008·
In a new push to get the federal government to act on global warming, a coalition of states, cities and environmental groups took its fight to federal court on Wednesday.

As gasoline prices soar, Congress presses oil chiefs on profits
Houston Chronicle, April 1, 2008·
Top executives of the country's five biggest oil companies said Tuesday they know record fuel prices are hurting people, but they argued it's not their fault and their huge profits are in line with other industries.

Business Schools Teach Environmental Studies
U.S. News & World Report, April 4, 2008·
Companies of all types are starting to realize that operating in a way that doesn't compromise future generations can be good for the bottom line. And business schools are responding.

EPA signals go-slow global warming strategy
MSNBC News, March 27, 2008·
The government made clear on Thursday it will not be rushed into deciding whether to regulate emissions linked to global warming, as the Supreme Court directed nearly a year ago.

San Francisco plastic bag ban interests other cities
National Public Radio, March 27, 2008·
Texas' ambitious program to get old polluting cars and trucks off the road – one of the largest in the U.S. – may soon roll to a temporary halt.

Homebuyers take a shine to solar power
Houston Chronicle, March 22, 2008·
Rising utility costs inspire builders to design and sell energy-efficient houses.

State to stop voucher program for old cars
Channel 11 KHOU, March 22, 2008·
Texas' ambitious program to get old polluting cars and trucks off the road – one of the largest in the U.S. – may soon roll to a temporary halt.

Environmental Agency Tightens Smog Standards
New York Times, March 26, 2008·
A second company planning to build nuclear plants has established a partnership with a reactor vendor to play a major role in building reactors around the United States.

Environmental Agency Tightens Smog Standards
New York Times, March 13, 2008·
The Environmental Protection Agency announced a modest tightening of the smog standard on Wednesday evening, overruling the unanimous advice of its scientific advisory council for a more protective standard.

Government Suspends Lending for Coal Plants
Washington Post, March 13, 2008·
The Agriculture Department has suspended a low-interest lending program for rural electric cooperatives seeking federal assistance to build new coal-fired power plants, the department's Rural Utilities Service said in a letter to a congressional committee.