"The largest mining company in Idaho's Silver Valley will pay $263.4 million plus interest to settle one of the nation's largest Superfund lawsuits -- one of the top 10 such settlements in history, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Monday."

"Tall smokestacks are one reason that emissions from coal-fired power plants are blown across state lines, making it more difficult for downwind states to clean up their air, a new Government Accountability Office study found."

"U.S. EPA raised significant concerns today with the environmental effects of a controversial $7 billion pipeline proposal, emboldening the plan's critics and upping the ante for political clashes over Canadian oil sands crude that risk derailing the project for good."

"Nearly 200 communities across the United States have been awarded new federal grants to clean up old contaminated industrial sites and transform them into new, job-creating developments."

"The Supreme Court decided [Monday] not to take up General Electric Co.'s legal campaign over how U.S. EPA exercises its authority to order companies to clean up hazardous waste sites."

"The Kentucky coal industry's compliance with U.S. surface mining regulations dropped sharply from 2008 to 2010, while the environmental impact of the violations has worsened, federal records show."