FWS Proposes To Expand Hunting at 10 Wildlife Refuges

August 3, 2011–Hunting, under certain conditions, is already allowed at more than 300 of the 553 sites in the National Wildlife Refuge System. Contact local environmental, animal rights, and hunting groups for opinions for or against these proposals that would allow additional species to be killed at 10 refuges in 8 states.

BP Blowout

July 15, 2011–

Central U.S. Is Home to Miscanthus Biomass Crop Projects

July 6, 2011–The US Dept. of Agriculture is providing financial support for farmers to grow the grass in four project areas in four states. The goal is to substantially increase production of the crop, and USDA estimates about 4,000 jobs will be created.

Plastics: All Kinds of News

June 22, 2011–Are you looking for a story of interest to consumers, retailers, manufacturers, lawyers, politicians, health officials, and editors of the business, politics, health, energy, science, and environment beats? Here are some starting points for coverage of plastics issues. Once you delve into this topic, other angles and sources will emerge.

Plastic Bag Industry Tries To Silence Critics

June 15, 2011–The New York Times' Felicity Barringer tells the story of Andy Keller, 38, who dresses up in bags as "Bag Monster" to promote his reusable "ChicoBag," invoking the ire of three plastic bag manufacturers in South Carolina.

41 New Trails Span About 650 Miles

June 8, 2011–Just in time for summer, 41 new segments of the US National Recreation Trails system in AL, AR, CT, FL, IL, IN, KS, MA, MD, MI, MN, NJ, NM, OK, PA, TN, and WV, covering about 650 land and water miles in 17 states, are open for business. These are part of a much larger system of about 1,100 trails spanning 13,000 miles.

BP Blowout Anniversary: "What's Under Elmer's Island?"

April 20, 2011–Denial of news media access to Gulf beaches has been an issue since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. There's tussling over access to (and interpretation of) scientific information on possible impacts of the spill on the Gulf ecosystem. And The Guardian obtained >30,000 pages of BP in-house memos FOIA'd by Greenpeace, which suggest BP was working hard to influence the results of the research it was paying for.

Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America

April 15, 2011–

BP Still Keeps Media from Covering Damage on Gulf Coast

April 6, 2011–The intrepid Mac McClelland, who covered the spill and secrecy at its peak for Mother Jones, went back to see if anything had changed. But BP's cops tried to stop her.

Nonfederal Rangeland Often in Poor Shape

October 13, 2010–USDA and USGS researchers found about one of every five acres of rangelands in 17 western states, as well as portions of Louisiana and Florida, has some degree of degradation of at least one factor (soil and site stability, hydrologic integrity, and biotic integrity).