National (U.S.)

"In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found."

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated more than 187,000 square miles of on-shore barrier islands, denning areas and offshore sea-ice as critical habitat for the threatened polar bear under the Endangered Species Act."

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday it had closed 4,200 square miles/10,880 square kms of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico to royal red shrimping after a commercial shrimper discovered tar balls in his net."

Petrochemical companies are spending more money to influence government decisions on energy and climate.
 

"Now that the Cleantech Open –- the self-described Academy Awards of the clean-technology industry -– is over, we have some new, young companies to watch."

"A coalition of environmental and farmworker groups is urging California's Gov.-elect Jerry Brown to cancel the imminent approval of a controversial agricultural pesticide after he takes office, citing evidence that it is linked to cancer."

"Several Department of Energy agents tasked with transporting nuclear weapons got drunk while on duty, according to the agency's inspector general office."

"Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a broad-based initiative on Tuesday aimed at accelerating the development of offshore wind power projects on the Outer Continental Shelf along the nation’s Atlantic coast."

"The companies involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill made several risky decisions to save time -- and consequently money -- ahead of the disaster, according to a document that was pulled at the last minute from a presentation of the president's oil spill commission earlier this month."

Thanks to money and loopholes, gas drillers can dump radioactive waste from their Pennsylvania operations in a New York landfill.