"After three hours of debate, the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee today voted 15-5 to send its 1,100-page, five-year farm bill to the full Senate floor."

"Twenty-four plaintiffs, including a dozen police officers who rushed to the scene of a November train derailment in Paulsboro, sued on Monday, alleging that the rail company's negligence caused the derailment, and that it downplayed the dangers of a chemical spill and failed to protect responders."

"Farmers must pay Monsanto each time they plant the company’s genetically modified soybeans, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, rejecting an Indiana farmer’s argument that his un­or­tho­dox techniques did not violate the company’s patent."

"A domestic natural gas boom already has lowered U.S. energy prices while stoking fears of environmental disaster. Now U.S. producers are poised to ship vast quantities of gas overseas as energy companies seek permits for proposed export projects that could set off a renewed frenzy of fracking."

"Lipstick can give your lips color, sheen and texture, but may also put you at risk of ingesting potentially toxic metals, University of California, Berkeley researchers say."

"Genetically engineered crops that could sharply increase the use of two powerful herbicides are now unlikely to reach the market until at least 2015 because the Department of Agriculture has decided to subject the crops to more stringent environmental reviews than it had originally intended."

"BOISE, Idaho (AP) — After another dry winter across much of the West, fire officials are poised for a tough wildfire season that will be even more challenging because federal budget cuts mean fewer firefighters on the ground, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Monday."

"RALEIGH — Fish in one of North Carolina’s largest watersheds are more polluted by an industrial contaminant than previously reported, and state health officials have failed to expand warnings against eating PCB-contaminated fish, according to a new study."

"CONVERSE COUNTY, Wyo. --  It happens about once a month here, on the barren foothills of one of America's green-energy boomtowns: A soaring golden eagle slams into a wind farm's spinning turbine and falls, mangled and lifeless, to the ground."

"EWELL, Md. -- Superstorm Sandy barely laid a glove on Smith Island last fall, to hear residents tell it. Though storm-driven flooding damaged hundreds of homes in Crisfield and the rest of Somerset County, only a couple islanders got any water in their homes from the surging Chesapeake Bay."

"NEW BRAUNFELS, TX — Off a dirt road connected to ever-flowing Interstate 35, a little metal sign on a wooden fence is the only indication of what lies ahead. Nearby, Buckley Powder, a mining and construction supply company, stores large quantities of ammonium nitrate, the source of the explosion at a fertilizer depot that killed at least 14 people and injured hundreds more last month in West."

"Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) on Thursday released her draft 2013 farm bill."

Many Americans still lack clean tap water -- but federal and state governments can't provide it, for a number of reasons.

"Researchers at Johns Hopkins University said they found levels of arsenic in chicken that exceeded amounts that occur naturally, and warned that they could lead to a small increase in the risk of cancer for consumers over a lifetime."

"In the wake of a massive US Department of Agriculture report highlighting the continuing large-scale death of honeybees, environmental groups are left wondering why the Environmental Protection Agency has decided to approve a 'highly toxic' new pesticide."