Environmental Politics

"LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Black dust from the giant coal ash heap across the street from Kathy Little's Louisville home swirls in the wind, coating her windows, her car, and blows indoors to settle on the furniture. The ash blanketing Little's property is a byproduct of a nearby coal-burning power plant. Since it's full of fine particles of arsenic, chromium and other metals, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering classifying the ash as a hazardous material."

"WASHINGTON -- Oil and gas companies will have to capture toxic and climate-altering gases from wells, storage sites and pipelines under new air quality standards issued on Wednesday by the Environmental Protection Agency. The rule is the first federal effort to address serious air pollution associated with the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which releases toxic and cancer-causing chemicals like benzene and hexane, as well as methane, a powerful greenhouse gas."

The New York Times' Felicity Barringer interviews Sierra Club head Michael Brune about environmental politics, money, and President Obama.

"President Barack Obama pushed Congress Tuesday to give oil market regulators more muscle to deter price manipulation by speculators, the latest White House response to determined Republican attacks on administration energy policies amid high gas prices at the pump."

"President Barack Obama will receive endorsements Wednesday from the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Clean Water Action and Environment America, according to an environmental political operative and a House Democratic source."

"With a manila envelope labeled 'TOP SECRET' propped up in front of him, state Rep. Lon Burnam, a Fort Worth Democrat, called on the Texas Attorney General to allow the public release of confidential information related to a West Texas radioactive waste dump owned by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons."

"Wading into a decade-old controversy, former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman has urged current EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to close loopholes in a 2006 chemical security law 'before a tragedy of historic proportions occurs.'"

"Soaring gasoline prices have members of Congress and their opponents running scared all across the country -- and trying to seize the advantage."