Enbridge reaches $176M agreement for 2010 Michigan oil spill

In this July 29, 2010 file photo, a worker monitors the water in Talmadge Creek in Marshall Township, Mich., near the Kalamazoo River as oil from a ruptured pipeline, owned by Enbridge Inc, is vacuumed out the water. Enbridge Energy Partners will pay a $61 million penalty for the costliest inland oil spill in U.S. history under an agreement with federal officials.

NY attorney general rejects GOP lawmaker’s request on Exxon

New York's attorney general is rejecting a congressional committee chairman's demand for records about his investigation into whether Exxon Mobil misled investors about global warming. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and chairman of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, told Attorney General Eric Schneiderman he has until midnight Wednesday to provide documents the committee requested two months ago.

McClaughry: Good profit is not a bad thing

The mere existence on our planet of the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch drives Sen. Bernie Sanders to torrents of outrage. They, according to Sanders' imagination, are the secret owners of the Republican Party, the Tea Party , and a long list of organizations opposed to the Sanders agenda, such as the political action group Americans for Prosperity.

Talks on Zika bill fire up in Washington

Talks on Zika bill fire up in Washington Sen. Nelson says this is a political problem Check out this story on floridatoday.com: http://on.flatoday.com/28rbmjH An Aedes Aegypti mosquito is photographed on human skin in a lab of the International Training and Medical Research Training Center on January 25, 2016, in Cali, Colombia. WASHINGTON - Lawmakers are expected to start ironing out the details of a spending bill to combat Zika during the upcoming week, more than four months after President Obama first asked Congress for nearly $2 billion to fight the mosquito-borne virus linked to birth defects and paralysis.

AP Interview: Billionaire Koch Fed up With Politics as Usual

Billionaire Charles Koch, one of America's most influential conservative donors, said he is fed up with the vitriol of the presidential race and will air national TV ads that call on citizens to work together to fix a "rigged" economy that leaves behind the poor. Koch, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, described Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton as part of personality politics at its worst.

In Meme-Moriam

This weekend, America will pause to honor the thousands of men and women who fought and died to preserve ExxonMobil's First Amendment rights, and protect it from the tyranny of justice. The effort to cast Exxon as victim of a cabal between state Attorneys General, environmentalists, and other ne'er-do-wells followed reports by journalists from InsideClimate News , the Los Angeles Times , and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

GOP congressmen, NY attorney general in climate dispute

Republican members of Congress have accused New York's Democratic attorney general and his counterparts in 16 other jurisdictions of chilling free speech over climate change through their legal and political campaign to curb fossil fuel burning. Thirteen of the 21 GOP members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology said in a letter Wednesday that Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the others have been pushed by environmental activists "to use their prosecutorial powers to stifle scientific discourse."

UPDATE 1-Halliburton shareholder class action to settle for $100 million

The deal resolves a lawsuit in federal court in Dallas accusing Halliburton of misrepresenting its potential liability in asbestos litigation, its expected revenue from certain construction contracts and the benefits of a merger in 1998. Halliburton said the company itself would pay $54 million of the $100 million settlement, while its insurer would fund the rest.

U.S. reversal on transparency could sting Canadian, European oil companies

Canadian and European oil companies will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage to their American rivals if U.S. lawmakers scrap tighter transparency requirements on the industry, as expected, according to company executives, legal experts and trade groups. The U.S. Senate is poised to overturn the so-called "resource extraction rule", a regulation requiring U.S. natural resources companies to disclose taxes and other payments to foreign governments, in a vote that could come as early as Friday.