"The Senate climate debate shifts into a higher gear this week as advocates look beyond the partisan gridlock that engulfed the Environment and Public Works Committee and onto the broader quest of finding 60 votes for floor passage."

"Next month, a new class of a dozen or more men and women will begin training in Long Island City, N.Y., to become home weatherization technicians. They are early recruits in a small army of workers being deployed in places around the country where there were only skeleton crews before."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has sent its final proposal on whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to human health and welfare to the White House for review, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told Reuters on Monday."

"Chrysler has disbanded a team of engineers dedicated to rushing a range of electric vehicles to showrooms and dropped ambitious sales targets for battery-powered cars set as it was sliding toward bankruptcy and seeking government aid."

"In a tradition dating back to medieval times, growers in Modena, Italy, are deep into the grape harvest, the first step in making their famed balsamic vinegar. ...Thousands of miles away, in California, signs in grocery stores warn shoppers about exposure to a dangerous metal in many balsamic and red wine vinegars. Although the amount of lead in vinegar is small, experts say regularly consuming it may pose a risk, particularly to children."

"Representatives of 400 federally recognized tribal nations from across the United States gathered at the Department of the Interior [Nov. 5] at the invitation of President Barack Obama for a conference the President called ... 'the largest and most widely attended gathering of tribal leaders in our history.'" The meeting included discussion of environmental and land rights issues.

"As the debate over the merits of Marcellus Shale development reaches a crescendo, an Ithaca researcher has culled a list of 270 files documenting wastewater spills, well contamination, explosions, methane migration and ecological damage related to gas production in the state since 1979."

EPA announced Thursday the Obama administration's appointment of four regional administrators. They are for Region 2 (NY, NJ, PR, VI, Tribal Nations), Region 3 (DE, DC, MD, PA, VA, WV), Region 6 (TX, LA, AK, NM, OK, Tribal Nations), Region, and Region 9 (CA, HI, AZ, NV, Territories, Tribal Nations).

"The House approved legislation Friday aimed at making chemical and water treatment facilities less vulnerable to terrorist attack."

Some Salinas Valley residents worry that the drift of pesticides sprayed on fields near schools may endanger children, despite some controls.

The Obama White House, faced with serious and mounting problems in the oceans, is creating a National Ocean Council that excludes the key agency responsible for most oceans programs, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrtion.

Within weeks, Minnesota state agencies will be releasing a study on the safety of atrazine, a weedkiller widely used by corn growers. The Minnesota results will come as the U.S. EPA undertakes yet another review of its own.

"As many as 25 percent of the American farmers growing genetically engineered corn are no longer complying with federal rules intended to maintain the resistance of the crops to damage from insects, according to a report Thursday from an advocacy group."

"Federal officials said Wednesday they have given marching orders to Maryland and other states that drain into the Chesapeake Bay to come up with detailed plans for reducing pollution plaguing the estuary, warning that states face development shutdowns or other as-yet unstated consequences if the water fails to get cleaner."

"Hundreds of gasoline spills, which contain carcinogens like benzene, are reported each year in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Countless others go unreported or unnoticed. Cleaning them up can run into the millions and take decades to complete."