"Lawmakers are primed for a fight over the future of a critical environmental conservation program."

"WASHINGTON -- A new government rule that promises to do more to protect streams near coal mining operations entered a critical stage this week, with coal industry lobbyists and environmentalists already lining up for battle."

"A conservation group found 36 U.S. national parks had moderate or worse levels of ozone pollution in a report card released on Tuesday, with four parks in California receiving the worst grades for health effects."

"Conservationists are praising a rare bit of bipartisan cooperation in Congress to fund a program for public areas and historic and wilderness lands."

"Scores of Native American demonstrators protested at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday against a proposed $6 billion copper mine in Arizona at a site that members of the Apache tribe say is sacred."

"Utah state officials have given the go-ahead for a tar sands mine under construction on the eastern flank of the state. They will, however, require the company to do water and air quality monitoring in a move environmentalists are calling a victory."

"Louisiana is in trouble. The Mississippi River Delta is disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 16 square miles a year, some of the fastest land loss on the planet."

"Below the center of Butte flows water tainted with poisons drawn from a mass of mining and smelting waste that has been a pollution problem for more than a century."

"The Interior Department on Thursday proposed a new rule aimed at protecting streams from the high level of pollution caused by a technique known as mountaintop removal mining."