"Duke Energy said Wednesday it might close seven coal-fired units at its Carolinas power plants within five years as environmental regulations intensify."

"American farmers have been ridiculing a proposal by U.S. regulators to reduce the amount of dust floating in rural air."

"U.S. EPA won't meet its goal of releasing new nationwide standards for ground-level ozone this month, the agency told a federal court Friday."

"For 40 days, flares burned 500,000 pounds of toxic chemicals over BP's Texas City refinery. Yet residents didn't know until weeks later that the flare released 17,000 pounds of cancer-causing benzene."

"The Obama administration has decided to spend $1 billion in Recovery Act funds to build FutureGen 2.0, a clean coal repowering program and carbon dioxide storage network, in Illinois."

"Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry's standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come."

"The Obama administration is preparing to issue new fuel economy standards and the first-ever greenhouse gas limits for large trucks and buses."

"Recently retired Environmental Protection Agency environmental engineer Weston Wilson is best known for criticizing his employer’s 2004 finding that hydraulic fracturing poses little or no risk to domestic groundwater. Now, the Denver EPA whistleblower is encouraged by the agency’s interest in studying the natural gas development procedure’s potential impacts on air quality as well."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed new rules to ensure factories and power plants will be able to obtain permits they will need to emit greenhouse gases starting next year."

"The daily mortality rate in Moscow has doubled and morgues are overflowing amid an acrid smog caused by the worst heatwave in Russia's thousand-year history, officials said Monday."

"U.S. environmental regulators finalized rules on Monday aimed at cutting mercury emissions and other pollution from Portland cement manufacturing, the third-largest source of mercury air emissions in the country."

"Environmentalists are suing U.S. EPA over a rule that aims to regulate greenhouse gases from only the largest industrial sources, arguing that the agency exempts too many big polluters."

"FORT WORTH, Texas -- For nearly a year Christine and Tim Ruggiero have battled the powerful Texas oil and gas industry and the inertia of regulators responsible for protecting air quality and public health."

"In a sweltering summer in New York City back in 1999, Yolanda Baldwin was eight months pregnant with her first child. She lived across the street from a busy intersection and often wondered what the fumes might be doing to her unborn child. Now Baldwin and several hundred other mothers whose sons and daughters have been monitored for a decade have an answer: Before children even take their first breath, common air pollutants breathed by their mothers may reduce their IQs."

"The EPA says some communities in Louisiana face a 'moderate health risk' due to hydrocarbon fumes from the Gulf oil spill. Researchers will report air quality findings this week."