Southwest (AZ NM OK TX)

"Citing financial worries, the State of Arizona has backed out of a broad regional effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the West through a cap-and-trade system."

"A New Mexico neighborhood offers a case study in the successes, and failures, of the environmental justice movement."

"DALLAS -- Crews worked Sunday to protect two sensitive wildlife areas after a crude oil spill shut down parts of a major southeast Texas port, state Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said."

"Forget blackjack tables or roulette wheels. Tribal lands could generate wealth through solar, wind, and geothermal energy."

"Children in Texas are more likely to miss school when certain types of air pollution increase -- even when the levels are below the limit set by the federal government, a new study says."

"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."

"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."

"The U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Apache Nitrogen Products, Inc. entered into a $5 million consent decree to remove toxic nitrates and perchlorates from groundwater and to monitor the progress. at the Apache Powder Superfund Site, near David [Arizona]."

Al Armendariz, the new EPA Regional Administrator for Texas and surrounding states, comes from a background as an environmental activist.

"Thousands of people in the heart of Frisco [Texas] are exposed to toxic lead pollution from a battery recycling plant that wants to expand production."