"At the vast BNSF rail yard in Kansas City, Kan., dozens of trains stretch into the distance. You can feel them rumble. You can hear the roar of 4,400-horsepower diesel locomotives. And you can smell their exhaust."

"Trains heaped with coal pass through Richmond every week on their way to the city’s port. In Parchester Village, a largely black and Latino neighborhood in northwestern Richmond, residents say coal dust blows off the open mounds, covering the grass and coating their screen doors."

"It may be tougher to grease the wheels for highway spending without earmarks, but the leaders of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee have come up with the next best thing."

Efforts to keep the invasive Asian Carp from migrating upstream caused Congress to shut down Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock & Dam. That will end end 52 years of barge traffic on the northernmost stretch of the Mississippi River.

"A federal judge dismissed a challenge by two major railroads of a California law requiring the companies to have oil spill prevention and response plans and to certify their ability to pay for the cleanup should one occur."

"U.S. EPA [Friday] unveiled proposed regulations that would tighten fuel efficiency standards to significantly cut carbon emissions from tractor-trailer rigs and other heavy- and medium-duty vehicles by 2027."

"Four years ago, in August 2011, U.S. EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the first federal program to cut carbon emissions from the nation's biggest vehicles by raising the fuel standards those heavy-duty fleets must meet."

"U.S. environmental regulators are expected within days to propose rules to make trucks more fuel efficient, and trucking industry executives and lobbyists familiar with the process said the rules will probably call for boosting fuel efficiency by 2027 nearly 40 percent from 2010 levels."

"The Obama administration is set to announce that it will require new rules to cut emissions from airplanes, expanding a quest to tackle climate change that has included a string of significant regulations on cars, trucks and power plants."