In a major victory for public health and the environment, President Obama took final action on the Keystone XL pipeline and rejected the risky project on Nov. 6. The move comes after pipeline company TransCanada tried to game the system earlier in the week by asking the Obama administration to suspend the company's permit application. The administration denied that request, which was seen as an attempt to delay a final decision on Keystone XL until after Obama was out of office.

In a Forbes opinion piece last week Christi Craddick, one of Texas’ three elected members of the Railroad Commission, the public entity responsible for regulating the oil and gas industries, asked that presidential candidates spell out their national energy plan – and suggested that Texas would serve as a good model. In her words, “Texas has developed a globally renowned model that allows industry to flourish in an environmentally responsible way.”

A new lawsuit is urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require pesticide companies to disclose all of the hazardous ingredients in each product. The case, filed by the Center for Environmental Health, Beyond Pesticides, and Physicians for Social Responsibility, points out that the EPA already has the authority to require industry to disclose hazardous pesticide additives, even if they're not designated as the main, "active" ingredients in a product.

A decade ago, U.S. trade negotiators began to discuss a sweeping international agreement between the United States, China, Japan, and nine other Asian nations. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will establish the rules that govern 40 percent of the world’s economy. It is commonly referred to as a trade deal, but trade is a small portion of the pact. Trade rules constitute just five of the treaty’s 29 chapters.