"Federal authorities are planning to scale back a Bush-era push to open 2 million acres of public lands in the Rocky Mountain region for commercial oil-shale development — with support from Colorado agricultural, municipal and recreation industry leaders."

"The millions of gallons of chemical-laced wastewater that fracking produces must flow somewhere, and Ohio is trying not to be that place."

"HONG KONG -- On Midway atoll in the North Pacific, dozens of young albatross lie dead on the sand, their stomachs filled with cigarette lighters, toy soldiers and other small plastic objects their parents have mistaken for food."

"Proposed new beach pollution regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, meant to protect public health, instead would continue to allow lots of people to get sick, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC."

"BLACKWELL, Okla. — Blackwell Zinc Co. paid one of the best wages in Kay County before environmental problems and contamination concerns closed it in 1974. Now some residents here are entitled to one last payday — this time for damages caused by the smelter operation."

"The prickly pear cactus may not sound like a trendy cash crop, but it could become a phenomenon among farmers on the arid west side of the San Joaquin Valley."

"Sea currents act like a conveyor belt, depositing trash on a remote stretch of sand in an ecologically rich region of coral reef and mangrove forests. Locals can only pick up the pieces, bit by bit."

"Nitrogen fertilizers have been crucial to feeding the increasing number of mouths on earth, but the pollution they leave behind has real consequences that have costs of their own."

"Industrial agricultural has significant socioeconomic and environmental costs, although scientists are bringing solutions."

"UXBRIDGE, Canada -- Hundreds of thousands of shale gas wells are being "fracked" in the United States and Canada, allowing large amounts of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, to escape into the atmosphere, new studies have shown. Shale gas production results in 40 to 60 percent more global warming emissions than conventional gas, said Robert Howarth of Cornell University in New York State."

"In a belated attempt to soothe public suspicion about shale-gas drilling, state regulators increasingly are forcing natural gas producers to disclose the chemicals used to hydraulically fracture natural gas wells."

"President Obama, denouncing a 'rushed and arbitrary deadline' set by congressional Republicans, announced Wednesday that he was rejecting a Canadian firm's application for a permit to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline, a massive project that would have stretched from Canada's oil sands to refineries in Texas.

"HANFORD SITE, Wash. – Seven decades after scientists came here during World War II to create plutonium for the first atomic bomb, a new generation is struggling with an even more daunting task: cleaning up the radioactive mess."

"New York's emerging plan to regulate natural gas drilling in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale needs to go further to safeguard drinking water, environmentally sensitive areas and gas industry workers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has informed state officials. The EPA's comments, in a series of letters [1] this week to the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, are significant because they suggest the agency will be watching closely as states in the Northeast and Midwest embrace new drilling technologies to tap vast reserves of shale gas."

"The longtime head of the citizens advisory committee that has oversight of the state's parks and forests was fired Friday by the Corbett administration, a termination that council members say was illegal and raises concerns about reduced public accountability of Marcellus Shale gas drilling in state forests."