"Conservation groups said four species of native bumblebees are close to extinction and called on the federal government Tuesday to begin regulating the shipping of bees raised commercially as crop pollinators."

"The agency's environmental and health concerns about phthalates, PBDEs and two other chemical types marks a shift in federal policy and is sparking policy changes in advance of anticipated regulations."

"If CPS Energy, San Antonio’s City-owned utility, took a solitary human form, it would be a headless corpse bouncing gently under a white hospital sheet on its way to the morgue."

"Stormwater runoff can be one of the main ways that urban areas create pollution. In some cases it can dramatically suffocate marine life. It can also cause flooding. One small town in Maryland is on the receiving end of its region's runoff. ... It's trying to set a national example with its approach to solving the problem."

After getting major concessions in return for bare acquiescence on the House climate bill, the nation's main agribusiness lobby declared it will try to kill climate legislation altogether in the Senate, using conservative rhetoric about a federal "power grab" and expressing doubt about whether human activities are causing global warming.

"While President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget proposal is expected to sound a death knell for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the administration has so far failed to launch the blue-ribbon commission it promised almost a year ago to decide on a waste-disposal alternative."

"Frigid weather that has gripped swathes of the northern hemisphere this winter is unusual but does not undermine an overall global trend of warming, experts said on Monday."

"A $40 million federal stimulus project to drill up to 50 new wells in California moves forward despite drying aquifers and community complaints."

"It sounded like a good idea: Provide a little government money to convert wood shavings and plant waste into renewable energy. But as laudable as that goal sounds, it could end up causing more economic damage than good."

"A terrible economy curbed energy demand throughout the Unites States in 2009, slowing coal production in Wyoming for the first time in more than a decade."

"In the past dozen years, three new diseases have decimated populations of amphibians, honeybees, and — most recently — bats. Increasingly, scientists suspect that low-level exposure to pesticides could be contributing to this rash of epidemics."

"The Obama administration is engaged in an unusual internal spat as the White House and Environmental Protection Agency tussle over how to handle millions of tons of waste from coal-fired power plants."

"Senate climate legislation advocates are bracing for a floor battle this month over a Republican campaign that they fear could drag down efforts to pass a major global warming bill before the real legislative debate can start."

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Bayer CropScience has not properly maintained or tested the underground storage tank where it keeps roughly 200,000 pounds of methyl isocyanate, the deadly chemical that killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India, in 1984, state inspectors have alleged."

"LOS ANGELES -- Barred from using lead in children's jewelry because of its toxicity, some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium in sparkling charm bracelets and shiny pendants being sold throughout the United States, an Associated Press investigation shows."