"The Senate on Thursday approved big budget increases for the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency as it passed a $32 billion spending measure for the budget year that starts next week."

"Texas' new plan to improve the Houston area's famously dirty air may not meet federal limits for smog."

"Water managers, environmental agencies and conservation groups have been talking about cleaning up Lake Okeechobee for decades. The water quality has only gotten worse. Much worse."

"An oil field review starting with a state inspector questioning the size of spill containment facilities on Alaska's North Slope has resulted in a hefty civil payment for a subsidiary of BP PLC."

"U.S. EPA has found 104 chemicals that might require regulations to keep them out of tap water -- the longest list of potential contaminants ever compiled by the agency."

"The United States needs to lead a global effort to protect people from new outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases that originate in animals, such as swine flu, AIDS and SARS, health experts said on Tuesday."

"The record rains of the past few days flooded out sewage treatment plants in Fulton, Cobb and Gwinnett counties [GA], dumping millions of gallons of untreated sewage into local waterways."

"Sunoco's use of deadly hydrofluoric acid at its Philadelphia refinery has come under scrutiny after a March accident that sent 13 contract workers to the hospital."

"In its latest bid to help finance the car of tomorrow, the Obama administration said it would lend more than $500 million to Irvine-based Fisker Automotive Inc. to develop a pair of plug-in hybrids."

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture's deregulation of genetically engineered RoundUp Ready sugar beets in 2004 was unlawful, a federal court in California ruled Monday."

"The Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday that it would require the nation’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases to start tracking their emission levels on Jan. 1 and report them to the government."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed a complaint against VF Corp, owner of the North Face brand, on Tuesday, claiming that more than 70 styles of shoes advertised as bacteria-killing by the company had not been registered with the agency."

Residents in Georgia and Alabama returned to waterlogged homes after flooding caused by torrential rains caused at least nine deaths.

"Pacific Gas & Electric, the big California utility, has pulled out of the United States Chamber of Commerce over what its chairman, Peter Darbee, termed 'fundamental differences' over the climate change issue."

"A possible amendment from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has the potential to handcuff U.S. EPA from exercising its full regulatory power [over greenhouse gases], a scenario that has sent shockwaves through the environmental community."