Furniture stores and architectural firms get a lot of samples – of fabric, tiles, and carpet. Those samples can pile up. Usually, they get thrown in the trash. But, in some cities, they are starting to make unused design samples available to artists and art teachers. The Environment Report's Julie Grant has more.

"Government scientists figure that one out of five male black bass in American river basins have egg cells growing inside their sexual organs, a sign of how widespread fish feminizing has become."

"A coalition of environmental groups says U.S. EPA is 26 years tardy in limiting toxic metal discharges from coal-fired power plants and is threatening to sue the agency if it does produce the rules."

"Interior Secretary Ken Salazar launched the Obama administration's first coordinated response to the impacts of climate change Monday, which he said would both monitor how global warming is altering the nation's landscape and help the country cope with those changes."

A bill to allow offshore oil leasing and a bill to ban BPA in baby bottles both died in the California legislature as it adjourned.

"Drug-resistant staph bacteria have been found on public beaches in Washington state, and beaches in other states may harbor the superbug too."

"The Tennessee Valley Authority said Monday that it would spend $43 million on economic development projects in Roane County, Tenn., the site of a huge coal ash spill at one of the authority’s power plants last December."

"In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses. However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment."

This week, California state parks officials are expected to release a list of up to 100 California parks that will be closed to save money, and the impacts will be felt far and wide.

After he finishes health legislation, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus will stake a claim of jurisdiction on the climate bill.

Lawyers for a long-established sustainable forest products label are challenging the legitimacy of another label backed by the paper and timber industry.

"Some dairy farmers are investing in machines that turn gases from cow poop into usable energy. The technology keeps potent climate change gases out of the atmosphere. But ... some California farmers are getting into trouble with air pollution officials."

Intensified monitoring for toxics in the air around certain schools has only raised more questions about health effects -- and some lawsuits.

NY state Senator Thomas Moran (R) played a critical role in passage of a $5-billion green jobs and energy bill for the state.

"Dozens of coal-mining permits proposed across Appalachia need much more scrutiny because of concerns they will illegally damage water quality, the Obama administration said Friday."