"WEST ALLIS, Wis.--Plans to develop an open-pit iron mine in northwestern Wisconsin are the latest flash point in a growing national debate that weighs the prospect of new jobs against concern about environmental damage."

"HELENA, Mont. -- Montana wildlife regulators suspect more and more people are faking disabilities to take advantage of privileges granted to disabled hunters, so they want to remove one of those perks in hopes of curbing abuse."

"The Virginia General Assembly is expected to vote next year on whether to lift a 30-year moratorium on uranium mining in the state."

"Millions of cattle graze on public lands all over the West and have done so for more than a century. But a new complaint filed by an environmental group charges that despite Clinton-era moves to examine and diminish the impact of grazing in the arid West, Interior Department employees have blocked the use of federal data on the impact in regional scientific studies.

"Jon Jarvis, the director of the National Park Service, has said that its decision to scuttle a planned ban on small plastic water bottles at Grand Canyon National Park had nothing to do with opposition from the Coca-Cola Company. But a November 2010 e-mail released on Thursday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request tells a different story."

Felicity Barringer reports for the New York Times' Green blog December 1, 2011.

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- CONSOL Energy has signed on to a legal settlement that marks the first time a coal company has agreed to clean up conductivity pollution associated with a valley fill, an environmental group lawyer said Wednesday."

"Weary of plastic litter, Grand Canyon National Park officials were in the final stages of imposing a ban on the sale of disposable water bottles in the Grand Canyon late last year when the nation’s parks chief abruptly blocked the plan after conversations with Coca-Cola, a major donor to the National Park Foundation."

"LAUREL, Mont. — State workers on Tuesday set fire to an oil-tainted logjam on an island along the Yellowstone River, the last of dozens of debris piles smeared with crude from an Exxon Mobil pipeline break that dumped 42,000 gallons of oil into the waterway."

"WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration cautiously offered up more areas in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coast to oil and gas drilling Tuesday but didn't go far enough to satisfy Republicans pushing to greatly expand drilling as a way to create jobs and wean the country off foreign oil."

"Back in February, the Parnell administration told a judge that Cook Inlet beluga whales didn't need the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act because the state was perfectly capable of protecting them itself, in part because of the Alaska Coastal Management Program. But in a notice belatedly filed in the case Friday, the Alaska attorney general's office acknowledged the state had lost that conservation and enforcement tool four months ago."

"ELDORADO -- Gold prospectors chasing $1,600-an-ounce flecks in river bottoms east of Charlotte also might be sucking life out of the streams, experts say."

"The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled its road map for solar energy development, directing large-scale industrial projects to 285,000 acres of desert land in the western U.S. while opening 20 million acres of the Mojave for new development."

"WASHINGTON -- A new fast-track planning effort could shave years off the next phase of Everglades restoration, putting more fresh and clean water into the central and southern portions of Florida's 'River of Grass' more quickly."

"The US Department of Interior plans to integrate the responsibilities of two sub-agencies with diverse portfolios overseeing surface mining, federal land management, oil and natural gas royalty collection and hard-rock mining, among other areas, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday."

"New uranium mining claims on 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon will be blocked for 20 years under a decision the Bureau of Land Management announced Wednesday."