Weekly News Roundup for August 21, 2015

These are some of the stories we’ve been following this week.

• A Texas lender has sued a number of Tampa Bay appraisers for damages associated with foreclosure losses, claiming that the appraisers violated appraisal standards and overevaluated homes before 2008.

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  Oil pipeline pumping station, northeast Colorado, courtesy of Greg Goebel, CC BY-SA 2.0.

  The United States’ oil transportation and refining infrastructure is aging and unable to keep up with demand. That keeps gas prices higher, as we’ve discussed before, and it could lead to more oil spills.

• Attorneys general from 15 states petitioned a federal court to block President Obama’s clean power plan, which requires each state to submit a plan detailing how they will reduce power plant emissions by 32% by 2030.

• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed rule that would reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by requiring new technologies at future wells.

• Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf commissioned a recent report that proposes more than two dozen safety measures that could be implemented by the railroad industry or states to reduce the risks associated with oil trains.

• The Corpus Christi City Council recently passed a new ordinance with stricter guidelines for payday and auto title loan businesses to fight predatory lending.

• A legal battle over possible contamination from an abandoned underground oil storage tank has lasted for decades.

• A taxpayer-funded $22 million port development along downtown Detroit’s riverfront doesn’t draw cruise ships as anticipated.

• A Maryland federal jury awarded Lord & Taylor $31 million for lost profits and store renovations after determining that the proprietors of the Washington D.C.-area White Flint Mall had broken its lease contract by emptying the mall around the retailer to build a new development.

• More than 70 homeowners are exploring their eligibility to participate in a construction defects class action lawsuit filed against the manufacturer of HardieTex cladding. The claims period expires in December.