"The Obama administration has moved another step closer to blocking the largest mountaintop removal permit in West Virginia history, with a veto recommendation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional administrator."

The American chestnut, which was virtually wiped out by an exotic blight, may be making a comeback.
 

"New government data show forests play a key role in offsetting U.S. industrial emissions, but the ability of Western lands to sequester carbon is shrinking as the planet warms."

"Four years after redrawing its levee-design assumptions to ensure that the failures of Hurricane Katrina were never repeated, the Army Corps of Engineers  has embarked on a study that threatens to relax the new, more stringent standards in ways that would reduce costs — and result in less protection in some areas."