Environment

September 7, 2016 - Kelcy Warren chairs Energy Transfer Equity, the Dallas company behind the petro pipeline being fought by Indian tribes who say it's desecrating sacred land in North Dakota and putting water supplies at risk. Warren is a major contributor to Republican political causes, but will his influence help his project succeed?

August 25, 2016 - The North Carolina utility giant and other fossil-fuel interests are contributing to a national super PAC that's using divisive social issues like abortion and religion to boost the election chances of U.S. Senate candidates who reject the science of human-caused global warming.

August 19, 2016 - Environmentalists say the Obama administration's plan to hold an offshore oil and gas lease auction in Louisiana next week is "rubbing salt in the wounds" of a state struggling to recover from historic floods that have been linked to climate change.

August 11, 2016 - Following revelations that several protesters at a fossil fuel lease auction in Colorado were undercover law enforcement agents acting on information from the oil and gas industry, an environmental group has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the federal agencies responsible for leasing to learn more about surveillance of climate activists.

July 29, 2016 - This week 69 state lawmakers from the Carolinas and Georgia, both Democrats and Republicans, sent a letter asking the Obama administration to block seismic testing permits for oil and gas deposits off the East Coast. They joined hundreds of other local communities, elected officials, business groups and scientists opposed to offshore exploration and drilling.

July 7, 2016 - The utility initially requested a $50 million bond from two climate watchdog groups challenging the planned construction of a $1 billion gas plant near Asheville. Now Duke is asking for almost triple that amount in a move with serious implications for democracy.

July 1, 2016 - An environmental group wants the N.C. Ethics Commission to investigate whether the McCrory administration withheld information about a dinner meeting with Duke Energy officials and used state resources to benefit his re-election campaign. It's not the first ethics complaint filed against McCrory — or the first involving his relationship with the utility.

June 10, 2016 - A North Carolina-based climate advocacy group filed a complaint this week with the Environmental Protection Agency's Inspector General charging that the EPA is covering up underreporting of the natural gas industry's emissions of methane, an especially potent greenhouse gas.

June 9, 2016 - Two climate watchdogs will now have a chance to continue their appeal of North Carolina regulators' decision allowing Duke Energy to build a $1.1 billion fracked gas power plant thanks to an order handed down this week by the state appeals court rejecting a $10 million bond requirement from the nonprofit groups.

May 26, 2016 - In recent weeks, the company got the N.C. Utilities Commission to require an unprecedented $10 million bond from grassroots groups seeking to block construction of a fracked gas plant and lobbied N.C. lawmakers to get a coal ash bill that watchdogs have blasted as a "bailout" and a "sweetheart deal."