Environment

April 14, 2017 - The Trump administration unveiled plans to expand offshore drilling at last week's conference of the National Ocean Industries Association. Launched by Exxon in the 1970s to represent the offshore drilling industry, NOIA has been investing in politicians from Southeastern states where its members would like to do business.

February 7, 2017 - The industry has long argued that pipelines are the safest way to move oil and gas over long distances, but a new analysis by two watchdog groups raises questions about those claims.

February 3, 2017 - EPA civil rights investigators say they're concerned that North Carolina's hog farm regulations are discriminating against communities of color — and they have the attention of the state's new top environmental regulator.

January 10, 2017 - Last week the Obama administration denied all pending permits to conduct seismic testing for oil and gas reserves in the Atlantic Ocean, but pro-drilling politicians who don't represent directly affected coastal communities say they'll work to reverse the decision under Trump.

January 4, 2017 - Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte led an unsuccessful effort this week to roll back the powers of the Office of Congressional Ethics. The move came as the nation is about to have a GOP president with numerous potential conflicts of interest, but Goodlatte was also recently accused of his own financial conflicts regarding a natural gas pipeline planned for his state.

December 23, 2016 - In a year when it was hard to keep up with the onslaught of political news, Facing South helped to make sense of important developments and to share insights about the region. Catch up on our best reporting of 2016 with a roundup of our top stories of the year.  

December 20, 2016 - The president's long-anticipated announcement of a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic extends protections only as far as the Maryland-Virginia border. But environmental advocates say they will continue to fight against drilling anywhere along the Atlantic Coast.

December 16, 2016 - Opponents of opening the Atlantic coast to oil and gas drilling are pressing President Obama to enact a permanent ban. We look at the legal framework for such an action, and how durable it would be under a Trump administration.

December 15, 2016 - A Louisiana environmental health advocate says that if President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state, Exxon Mobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, does for the world what he's done for Louisiana, "God help us."

December 6, 2016 - A day after denying Energy Transfer Partner's plan to route the Dakota Access Pipeline under a river near Sioux lands in North Dakota, the Army announced hearings for another of the company's controversial projects: a 162-mile oil pipeline cutting through Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin, the largest U.S. wetlands and a last refuge for more than a dozen at-risk species.