The US and Mexico are joining forces to enhance conservation in the area around Big Bend, in Texas, and El Carmen in the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua and Coahuila.

"The Obama administration late last week quietly approved one of six major mountaintop removal permits that were said to be undergoing close scrutiny by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

"A U.S. court on Wednesday blocked an attempt by the Obama administration to overturn a Bush administration rule that made it easier for coal mining companies to dump mountaintop debris into valley streams."

"A federal judge let stand a Bush administration rule that makes it easier for companies involved in mountaintop coal mining to dump debris near streams."

"U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has sided with environmental groups on several challenges contending that permits issued to a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-fired power plant failed to properly account for air pollution."

"Part of the Nevada Test Site that hosted nuclear blasts in the past has been closed to avoid a costly cleanup of contaminated soils."

"Federal authorities in charge of the nation's biggest bust of artifact looting and grave-robbing are targeting more suspects ranging from those who do the digging to wealthy buyers in the lucrative black market of ancient Southwest relics."

"The Nevada lawmaker has a long history of opposing attempts to reform an antiquated federal mining law."

"State regulators violated the Alaska Constitution when they approved exploration permits for the proposed Pebble copper and gold mine without allowing the public to weigh in first, according to a civil lawsuit filed Wednesday."

"Coal operators in Southern West Virginia are not restoring large strip-mining sites to their 'approximate original contour,' despite a state policy change meant to require such reclamation, according to a previously unpublished federal government report."

"The Obama administration is proposing to allow up to 318 snowmobiles per day into Yellowstone National Park for the next two winters, cutting by more than half the 720 allowed last winter by the Bush administration."

"The environmental damage caused by mountaintop removal mining across Appalachia has been well documented. But scientists are now beginning to understand that the mining operations’ most lasting damage may be caused by the massive amounts of debris dumped into valley streams."

"In a modest victory for environmentalists, the Obama administration said Monday that it was designating nearly one million acres of Arizona land near the Grand Canyon off limits to new uranium mining claims for two years."

"The Corps is proposing to eliminate the use of its streamlined permit process -- in this case Nationwide Permit 21, or NWP 21 -- for the approval of surface coal mining in Appalachia."

"The National Park Service is proposing the extension of rules for boating on the Colorado River through part of Grand Canyon National Park to the landmark's entire 277-mile river corridor."