"Industry representatives have repeatedly visited the White House to discuss pending regulation of coal ash, raising suspicions that industry may be influencing the rule. In December, amid these meetings, EPA announced it was backing away from its earlier pledge to propose coal ash regulations by the end of 2009."

"Texas state regulators have detected elevated levels of the cancer-causing chemical benzene near Dish, raising fears that drilling more than 12,000 gas wells across the Barnett Shale could be a health hazard."

The New York Times' Green Inc. and Wheels blogs round up news from the Detroit Auto Show. The news is all about electric vehicles. Several foreign makers may beat U.S. firms to market or undercut them on price.

"China has begun operating what is, by several measures, the world's fastest rail line."

"The treeless ecosystem of mosses, lichens, and berry plants is giving way to shrub land and boreal forest. As scientists study the transformation, they are discovering that major warming-related events, including fires and the collapse of slopes due to melting permafrost, are leading to the loss of tundra in the Arctic."

"The agency's environmental and health concerns about phthalates, PBDEs and two other chemical types marks a shift in federal policy and is sparking policy changes in advance of anticipated regulations."

After getting major concessions in return for bare acquiescence on the House climate bill, the nation's main agribusiness lobby declared it will try to kill climate legislation altogether in the Senate, using conservative rhetoric about a federal "power grab" and expressing doubt about whether human activities are causing global warming.

"If CPS Energy, San Antonio’s City-owned utility, took a solitary human form, it would be a headless corpse bouncing gently under a white hospital sheet on its way to the morgue."

"While President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget proposal is expected to sound a death knell for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the administration has so far failed to launch the blue-ribbon commission it promised almost a year ago to decide on a waste-disposal alternative."

"Stormwater runoff can be one of the main ways that urban areas create pollution. In some cases it can dramatically suffocate marine life. It can also cause flooding. One small town in Maryland is on the receiving end of its region's runoff. ... It's trying to set a national example with its approach to solving the problem."

"Frigid weather that has gripped swathes of the northern hemisphere this winter is unusual but does not undermine an overall global trend of warming, experts said on Monday."

"A $40 million federal stimulus project to drill up to 50 new wells in California moves forward despite drying aquifers and community complaints."

"It sounded like a good idea: Provide a little government money to convert wood shavings and plant waste into renewable energy. But as laudable as that goal sounds, it could end up causing more economic damage than good."

"The futuristic anti-whaling protest boat struck by a Japanese harpoon vessel near Antarctica finally sank on Friday, prompting Australia to voice official concern about safety in the remote Southern Ocean."

"Senate climate legislation advocates are bracing for a floor battle this month over a Republican campaign that they fear could drag down efforts to pass a major global warming bill before the real legislative debate can start."