"The Obama administration on Wednesday announced plans to beef up federal strip-mining inspections and reviews of mining permits issued by state regulators like West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection."

"A federal appeals court panel on Tuesday upheld a 2005 court decision that effectively halted the development of what would have been one of the nation's largest landfills near Joshua Tree National Park."

Since the 2008 Farm Bill capped the program for re-establishing native grasses on lands once swept bare by erosion like the Dust Bowl, some 3 million acres have been taken out of "conservation reserve."

"Congress approved legislation Thursday that includes $475 million to restore the Great Lakes by combating invasive species, cleaning up highly polluted sites and expanding wetlands."

Incoming head of the National Park Service Jonathan Jarvis "knows the park service's problems are epic. Its maintenance backlog is $8 billion, for one, and it is seeking more money from Congress to fill potholes, improve ranger living quarters, and build more visitor centers and campgrounds."

"The National Park Service has approved a plan to restrict the number of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park to fewer than half last winter’s limit."

"A new study for the federal Minerals Management Service concludes that the construction of pipelines related to oil and gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf of the Gulf of Mexico 'can cause locally intense habitat changes, thereby contributing to the loss of critically important land and wetland areas.'"

"'Climate disruption is the greatest threat ever to America's national parks,' warns Stephen Saunders, president of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and principal author of a new report released Thursday that identifies the 25 U.S. national parks, lakeshores, seashores and monuments most at risk of global warming."

"The Obama administration on Wednesday moved to curtail the practice of mountaintop mining to extract coal, angering mining companies that said the move threatens thousands of jobs."

"In what is being touted as the world's biggest dam-removal project, an agreement was reached Tuesday to remove four dams on the Klamath River and restore a 300-mile migratory route for California's beleaguered salmon."

"This fall may prove to be a watershed moment for the parks," as a six-part PBS series by Ken Burns highlights their glories and their problems -- air pollution, a changing climate, and needed upkeep among them.

"Bureau of Land Management's proposal for the West Mojave 'does not contain a reasonable range of alternatives' to limit off-road-vehicle routes in the sensitive habitat, the ruling states."

"Opponents of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic are making a last-ditch effort to convince the Obama administration to impose the same kind of moratorium on oil and gas development that it did on major commercial fishing in the Far North."

"Two-thirds of the world's major deltas, home to nearly half a billion people, are caught in the scissors of sinking land and rising seas, according to a study published Sunday."

"SAN FRANCISCO -- In a ruling with national implications for public lands, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today overturned the federal government's approval of a land exchange with mining giant Asarco, Inc."