"Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States -- from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners -- nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision."

"Virginia banned smoking in most restaurants a month ago -- and not all of them mind. North Carolina follows suit."

Despite a 60-vote Democrat majority, climate change legislation faces an uphill fight in the Senate. Are more offshore drilling and subsidies for nuclear plants the key?

"The Obama administration may issue an order that would expand the National Environmental Policy Act's scope to prevent global warming. The move could open up new avenues to challenge projects."

"The infighting among the federal officials in charge of the Savannah River Site, a federally owned nuclear site in South Carolina that won one of the country’s biggest pots of stimulus money, is so severe that it threatens to undermine public confidence in their work, a federal watchdog warned Thursday."

"After years of negotiations between environmentalists and industry groups, observers say efforts to reform a century-old law regulating mining may finally pick up steam in Congress."

"The federal Environmental Protection Agency told New York State on Wednesday that it had major concerns about how proposed hydraulic drilling for natural gas would affect public health and the environment, and urged it to undertake a broader study of the potential impact."

"A coalition of former governors, congressmen, scientists and others sent the Obama Administration their proposed Chesapeake Bay restoration strategy, a plan much tougher than the one being developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

Dust is everywhere, is likely to increase, and will cause unknown environmental impacts.

"Environmental groups gathered along the Delaware River Wednesday to call on the Delaware River Basin Commission to protect the Delaware from toxic chemical contamination related to natural gas drilling."

"The Obama administration announced Wednesday it might write rules to limit the manufacture, processing and use of C8 and related perfluorinated chemicals, but would not propose any such regulations until at least 2012."

"To ensure that the most vulnerable Americans are better protected from exposure to lead, the U.S. EPA is proposing to revise the monitoring requirements for measuring airborne lead."

"To quote a famous line from a famous movie, "It's the only thing that lasts" — land, that is. No wonder, then, that many see land as their legacy, something to pass down to future generations when they die. A landowner in Michigan wants to use death itself — her own — to leave a legacy that's unusually personal."

"EPA Administrator Lisa Perez Jackson and Sen. David Vitter, R-La., reached a Christmas Eve accord that will give the National Academy of Sciences a role in the EPA's review of the risks of formaldehyde, and allowed the Senate to confirm Paul Anastas as the EPA's director of research and development."

This season marks the 110th year for the Audubon Society's Christmas bird count, which has been the basis of hundreds of scientific publications about changing bird ranges linked to global warming and habitat change.