Part 1: "Whose Interests Is Maine’s DEP Commissioner Serving?"

"For two years, public servant Patricia Aho has overseen Maine's environmental protection. But whom does she really serve? A seven-month investigation by the Telegram points to her former corporate clients. ... Overseen by a former chemical industry lobbyist, Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection resists regulations on substances that may be harmful to children and fetuses."

"New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday announced a $20 billion plan to prepare for rising sea levels and hotter summers expected as a result of climate change in the coming decades."

"The Bloomberg administration on Monday issued new warnings about New York City’s vulnerability to climate change, offering updated data to encourage businesses, residents and perhaps even future mayors to better prepare against hotter weather, fiercer storms and increased rainfall."

"With smoke and tar from faulty light fixtures leaking into New York City public school classrooms at alarming rates, the Bloomberg administration said on Tuesday that it would cut in half the time it needed to replace them."

"Residents of Manhattan will not just sweat harder from rising temperatures in the future, says a new study; many may die."

"Senator Tom Libous, a champion of fracking in the New York Legislature, is blocking a bill that would delay drilling for natural gas for at least two more years. Passage of the measure would harm the prospects of a real-estate company founded by Libous’s wife and run by a business partner and campaign donor."

"Billions of gallons of raw sewage and contaminated stormwater surge every year into the waterways and onto the streets of New England, as a 40-year-old pledge to clean America's lakes, rivers and streams remains unfulfilled."

"Nearly 800 hazardous waste sites are located in Erie, Niagara and Cattaraugus counties, and the majority of them are a threat to the largest source of fresh water in the world – the Great Lakes."

"PORTLAND, Maine -- Ocean temperatures have been higher than normal in the Gulf of Maine, creating worries among lobstermen that there could be a repeat of last spring's early harvest that resulted in a market glut, a crash in the prices fishermen get and a blockade of Maine-caught lobsters in Canada."

"A federal jury on Thursday found Tonawanda Coke Corp, accused of years of illegal air pollution, guilty of violating federal clean air regulations and found its environmental manager guilty of hiding plant deficiencies from U.S. regulators."

"AKWESASNE — A $20 million settlement may remedy nearly 60 years of environmental pollution to the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation."

"WASHINGTON — A coalition of energy companies, environmentalists and Pennsylvania-based philanthropies announced Wednesday the creation of a center that would provide more stringent standards for fracking and natural gas development in the Eastern United States."

Powerful Atlantic storms threaten long-settled areas on a Massachusetts barrier island.

"They have thwarted the poisons. They have evaded the traps."

"New York’s Assembly approved a two- year ban on the natural-gas drilling method known as fracking, after two previous attempts to block the practice failed and with the state Senate taking a different approach."