Latest Pollution Headlines

All the headlines from our Pollution Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Texas Environmentalists Plan Pollution Lawsuit Against Valero

May 23 2019 // Three Texas environmental groups have notified Valero Energy Corp. of plans to file a lawsuit under the U.S. Clean Air Act for pollution at the company’s Port Arthur, Texas, refinery, the organizations...

EPA Begins Rewrite of Rules on Costs, Benefits of Environmental Regulations

May 23 2019 // The Trump administration is planning to write new rules for how it weighs the human costs and benefits of environmental regulations, a move that could make it harder for future presidents to stiffen limits on pollution and...

Sand-Bag Barrier in Mississippi Overwhelmed by River Flooding

May 23 2019 // Floodwaters overwhelmed a miles-long sandbag barrier over the weekend, drenching another community in the southern end of the Mississippi Delta.Volunteers, prisoners and others had stacked 100,000 sandbags and more than...

AGCS Offers Crisis Management Response Services with Its Pollution Liability Cover

May 22 2019 // Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) announced it is offering expanded emergency response services as part of its Environmental Impairment Liability (EIL) coverage when pollution and/or contamination events...

Chemical Multinationals Must Stop Cutting Corners in Sourcing: Report on China Blast

May 22 2019 // A prominent Chinese environmental group has called on chemicals multinationals to stop “cutting corners” by outsourcing business to Chinese suppliers that violate safety regulations after an investigation into...

West Virginia Fines Pipeline Builder $266K for Environmental Violations

May 21 2019 // The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and Mountain Valley Pipeline have agreed the latter will pay $266,000 for environmental violations dating back to April 2018. The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the...

WCD’s Spessard Joins Beazley to Head Expanded Environmental Claims Team

May 20 2019 // Specialist insurer Beazley has hired Cal Spessard to head the team responsible for handling claims arising from the company’s environmental liability business.Spessard joins Beazley from environmental risk management...

Violations of IMO 2020 Emissions Rules for Shipping Could Hit Insurance Cover

May 20 2019 // Tougher rules on sulfur emissions from ships will come into effect next year in the biggest shake-up for the oil and shipping industries for decades.United Nations shipping agency the International Maritime Organization...

Bayer’s Strategy on Roundup Litigation Rests on EPA Glyphosate Finding

May 17 2019 // Bayer AG plans to argue that a $2 billion jury award and thousands of U.S. lawsuits claiming its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer should be tossed because a U.S. regulatory agency said the herbicide is...

California Jury Blames Roundup for Couple’s Cancer, Awards $2 Billion

May 13 2019 // A California jury on Monday awarded more than $2 billion to a couple who claimed Bayer AG’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer caused their cancer, in the largest U.S. jury verdict to date against the company in...

Plaintiffs’ Attorney Urges $1 Billion Damages Award in Roundup Trial

May 9 2019 // The jury in Bayer AG’s third Roundup weedkiller trial was urged by a plaintiffs’ lawyer to consider socking the company with $1 billion in damages as punishment for covering up the health risks of the herbicide...

Mining Giant BHP Faces $5B Damages Claim over 2015 Brazil Dam Disaster

May 8 2019 // Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP is facing a landmark, $5.0 billion damages claim in England for being “woefully negligent” in the run-up to a 2015 dam failure that led to Brazil’s worst environmental...

Sniffing Out Particles, Singling Out Pigs: Food Industry Urged to Embrace Robots, AI

May 6 2019 // E.coli in beef. Metal shavings in bread crumbs. Contaminated water on vegetables. The food industry has its share of quality control scandals and their insurers have had their share of claims.Some believe food would be a...

Texas Senate Panel Weighs Input on Stronger Storage Tank Regulations

May 2 2019 // Weeks after a massive fire at a Houston-area petrochemical storage facility garnered national attention, a panel of state lawmakers heard dueling testimony Monday night on a bill that would strengthen state oversight of...

Pollution Charges Filed Against Texas Petrochemical Facility That Burned

May 1 2019 // Water pollution charges have been filed against a company that owns a Houston-area petrochemical storage facility where a large fire that burned for days in March caused chemicals to flow into a nearby waterway.The Harris...

Weed Killer Chemical Glyphosate Is Not a Cancer Agent, Says EPA, Contradicting Juries

May 1 2019 // The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday that glyphosate, a chemical in many popular weed killers, is not a carcinogen, contradicting recent decisions by U.S. juries that found that it caused cancer in...

Wisconsin Explosion Prompts Call for Updates to Chemical Study

Apr 30 2019 // The U.S. Chemical Safety Board wants federal regulators to re-examine a 1993 study on hydrofluoric acid after an explosion at a Superior oil refinery last year.The board sent a letter Wednesday to the U.S. Environmental...

Washington D.C. Plans to Confront Climate Change by Retrofitting Flood-Prone Buildings

Apr 29 2019 // Washington is announcing a goal of retrofitting or removing all of its flood-prone buildings by 2050, the first major U.S. city to set such a policy.The proposal is part of a broader plan to protect Washington, which is...

Bayer Seeks Dismissal of $78M Roundup Glyphosate Verdict or New Trial

Apr 25 2019 // Bayer AG on Wednesday asked a California appellate court to throw out a $78 million judgment it was ordered to pay to a school groundskeeper who claimed the company’s weed killers gave him cancer.In a filing in...

Lawyers Expect Wave of Litigation Targeting Popular Heart Drugs

Apr 24 2019 // Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against drug makers and sellers over widely prescribed generic heart medications tainted with potential carcinogens, the first claims in what some lawyers expect to be a wave of...