"Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will leave his post in March, an official at Interior and a senior administration official confirmed early Wednesday.

"WEATHERFORD, Texas -- When a man in a Fort Worth suburb reported his family's drinking water had begun "bubbling" like champagne, the federal government sounded an alarm: An oil company may have tainted their wells while drilling for natural gas. At first, the Environmental Protection Agency believed the situation was so serious that it issued a rare emergency order in late 2010 that said at least two homeowners were in immediate danger from a well saturated with flammable methane. More than a year later, the agency rescinded its mandate and refused to explain why."

"WASHINGTON -- Just before he and other environmentalists marched to the White House on Tuesday, climate change activist James Hansen warned he wouldn’t be able to be arrested with them this time. Hansen, a NASA scientist by day and an activist on his own time, had to be available for a press conference in the afternoon announcing that worldwide temperatures in 2012 were in the top 10 hottest ever recorded."

"WASHINGTON -- More than 10 weeks after Superstorm Sandy brutalized parts of the heavily populated Northeast, the House approved $50.7 billion in emergency relief for the victims Tuesday night as Republican leaders struggled to close out an episode that exposed painful party divisions inside Congress and out."

"Leaked documents reveal the government has sought to change proposals that could prevent deepsea drilling operations."

Do electoral politics and industry lobbying sometimes trump science when it comes to protecting people's health? In an unusual admission, a federal appeals court rules "Yes." And EPA agrees.

"An appeals court is siding with environmental groups that had challenged Environmental Protection Agency regulations on soot as too weak.

The three-judge panel ruled Friday that the EPA regulated soot of a certain size under weaker cleanup requirements than it should have.

Despite New York Times execs' assurances that abolition of Times' the environment desk will not affect its own coverage, it is already changing the conversation at other news media.

"Times says demise of the nine-person team, created in 2009, won't affect climate coverage."

KETTLEMAN CITY -- Maria Saucedo cried as she spoke of the two babies she has lost in Kettleman City -- one to birth defects and the other in a miscarriage. There's no proof, but she blames the toxic landscape surrounding her town. She and others who have suffered in Kettleman City say they live in a nasty soup of pollution. They make a compelling case."

"A grassroots indigenous movement is shaking up politics in Canada. It's called Idle No More. Like Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, it spread quickly through social media and it's now got the attention of Canada's leaders, thanks to the efforts of one chief from a tiny tribe whose hunger strike has galvanized the movement." ...

"BILLINGS, Mont. -- Opponents of a railroad that would open Montana's coal fields to new mining have asked federal officials to halt their review of the proposal, alleging it would be much larger than disclosed with impacts stretching to the West Coast."

"It was the kind of meeting that conspiratorial conservative bloggers dream about."

"Last week, federal lawmakers trumpeted the passage of the Drywall Safety Act of 2012 as a bipartisan victory for thousands of homeowners harmed by contaminated drywall."

"Representative Jack Kingston (R-GA), the incoming chair of the U.S. House of Representatives panel that controls the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has a long-standing reputation as a conservative budget hawk intent on reducing government spending. He's also known for being skeptical that humans are contributing to climate change and for rejecting Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. But although that record might make many scientists anxious, his reputation as an inside operator who understands the importance of funding research makes many science boosters breathe a little easier. "

"Controversial environmental activist Paul Watson has stepped down as head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society after being named in a U.S. court order preventing him from approaching Japanese whaling fleets."