"Over 3,000 square miles (7,770 sq kms) in Alaska would be protected as critical habitat for the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale, under a proposal issued on Tuesday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

Environmental groups have issued a new report listing top U.S. species threatened by climate change.

"BP Plc on Tuesday began cleaning up an oil spill from a leaky Alaskan pipeline, but said it has not determined what caused the leak or how much material spilled onto the snow-covered tundra."

Cleanup of polluting runoff from abandoned mines in Colorado and elsewhere is stalled by a legal paradox.

A USA TODAY probe reveals some of the reason why USDA officials did not recall meat they knew could be tainted with salmonella from school lunch programs. The story is based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

"The U.S. Supreme Court hears a major property rights case Wednesday, a case from Florida that pits the state's need to prevent beach erosion against the rights of property owners to keep ownership of the land at the water's edge."

"The Environmental Protection Agency has put off, until the middle of next year, any decision about whether to increase the amount of ethanol allowed into the nation’s fuel."

"The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season ended Monday without a hurricane landing on U.S. shores and with the fewest named storms in 12 years, according to the National Hurricane Center."

"The Department of Natural Resources' efforts to combat chronic wasting disease -- an illness that threatens Wisconsin's entire deer herd -- have had little effect after seven years and nearly $41 million in state and federal spending, data and interviews indicate."

"Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell has directed the agency's regions and research stations to jointly produce draft "landscape conservation action plans" by March 1 to guide its day-to-day response to climate change."

"Recycling centers across California are closing, and scores of troubled youths are being tossed from 'green' jobs onto unemployment rolls in the wake of Sacramento's raid on bottle deposit funds."

Hoping to please the farm lobby, Congress ordered the nation's gasoline refiners to blend more ethanol into the fuel Americans use. But fuel demand falling because of the recession and more efficient vehicles has made this impossible.

"A group of U.S. senators who could determine the fate of a climate bill received more than $20 million in campaign contributions over the past two decades from energy interests with a direct stake in pending legislation."

"Despite months of additional study and a self-imposed timetable, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration likely will not release its ruling Monday on the safety of bisphenol A, a chemical used in thousands of household products that has been linked to developmental and behavioral problems."

The giant evergreen forests of the American West could play a signficant carbon-storage role as the nation "bridges" to sustainable energy.