President Obama's $3.8 trillion fiscal 2011 budget proposal, released Feb. 1, funds private nuclear plants, Great Lakes and Chesapeake cleanup, and acquisition of land for conservation. It cuts Yucca Mountain, fossil subsidies, and EPA. It still hopes to get revenue from cap-and-trade ... and affects the environment in myriad other ways.

"Jared Blumenfeld, the newly appointed director of the U.S. EPA's Pacific Southwest region, Region 9, is pledging to make life difficult for polluters, especially those who despoil the environment in underserved and vulnerable communities."

"The federal agency's internal investigation will run concurrently with a state and local inquiry into health and environmental issues facing Kettleman City, Calif."

"Climate change and clean energy programs, which the Obama administration has championed, are expected to remain priorities at U.S. EPA and the Energy Department in the president's fiscal 2011 budget request despite a request to freeze non-military discretionary spending for the next three years."

"Somewhere just after 12:30 p.m. on a cold Wednesday this month, the image of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as a Western pragmatist and wily political deal-maker evaporated in a cloud of heated rhetoric."

"President Obama has appointed the most progressive EPA chief in history — and she's moving swiftly to clean up the mess left by Bush."

"U.S. EPA during the first year of the Obama administration saw deep declines in the amount of penalties assessed against polluters and pounds of pollution slashed through enforcement activities compared with the previous year, according to data released by the agency last month."

"The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed spending more than $3 billion to settle claims dating back more than a century that American Indian tribes were swindled out of royalties for oil, gas, grazing and other leases."

"Federal stimulus funding has provided $242 million to Illinois to weatherize more than 25,000 homes, but poor oversight of that work puts the funding at risk and in some cases puts the residents of poorly weatherized homes in danger, an audit report warns."

"A sweeping new White House policy aimed at ousting special interests from federal advisory panels might sweep registered lobbyists off some U.S. EPA advisory panels."

"Advocates for coal miners said Thursday that they expect a new direction for the nation’s mine safety agency under its new chief, former miner and top union official Joseph Main. On a voice vote, the Senate confirmed Main on Wednesday night as the head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration."

"The Interior Department said Tuesday that it would investigate a decision made by the Bush administration to grant low royalty rates for oil shale development in the Rocky Mountains."

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson declares in an NPR interview: "EPA is back on the job working on behalf of the American people for public health, for environmental quality."

"The Obama administration is taking on Cheerios. And popular cold remedies and swimming pool drains and rhinestones on children's clothing."

"The Supreme Court won't review an appellate decision blocking the Interior Department from ending royalty waivers at times of high oil and gas prices for deepwater energy producers in the Gulf of Mexico."