"Environmental advocates and representatives from the oil-and-gas industry are flocking to the White House following the submission of a draft rule that would govern the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing on public lands."

"Limited data and unreliable estimates on air pollution from oil and natural gas production is hindering the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to police the drilling boom, the agency's internal watchdog said in a report released Thursday."

A surge in the use of fungicides is bringing higher crop yields; but experts warn that there is not enough monitoring of the emerging fungicide contamination of streams -- and that not enough is known about the health consequences.

"A former Texas state oil and gas regulator outlined in 2011 how two Range Resources Corp. wells outside Fort Worth could have leaked natural gas into the water supply of nearby homes."

Two retired outdoorsmen -- with help from water researchers -- are testing streamwater in western Pennsylvania. They are struggling to get EPA attention to chemicals they fear could be related to the fracking boom.

"Community advocates are outraged that a contaminated playground at a Newark public housing complex remained open, allowing children to be exposed to dangerous levels of lead."

"Fresh off a wave of success in the California Capitol last year, animal welfare groups are taking aim at a new target this year: hunting with lead ammunition."

"JUNEAU, Alaska — --The Alaska Senate on Tuesday approved a Parnell administration measure to roll back cruise ship wastewater standards that were approved by voters in 2006. The vote was 14-6."

"NORTH POLE, Alaska — In Krystal Francesco's neighborhood, known here as the 'rectangle of death,' the air pollution recently was so thick she could hardly see across the street. Wood stoves were cranking all over town — it was 40 below zero — and she had to take her daughter to the emergency room."

"SIMI VALLEY, Calif. -- NASA has agreed to an 'excessive and unnecessarily costly cleanup' of a former rocket test facility near Los Angeles that was the site of a partial nuclear meltdown in 1959, the space agency's watchdog said Thursday."