"Gov.-elect Larry Hogan promised Maryland farmers Monday that his 'first fight' in office would be against costly new farm pollution regulations, even as environmental groups released new data showing many Eastern Shore chicken farms could be fouling the Chesapeake Bay."

"The state hopes to save its rapidly disappearing coastline with a 50-year, $50 billion plan based on science that’s never been tested and money it doesn’t have. What could go wrong?"

"Every year coal-burning power plants generate not only electricity, but a staggering amount of leftover coal ash that contains heavy metals unhealthy to humans. Yet due in part to intense industry lobbying, there are no federal regulations on its disposal. It's left to the states to oversee some of the most powerful utility companies in the country."

"Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, encouraged by whopping awards and settlements in other states, could join what one analyst calls a 'nationwide cascade' of litigation against the oil industry for its use years ago of a gasoline additive that has contaminated groundwater across the state."

"California Republicans are going to have the chance to show their constituents that sending more water to the state's parched farmers and residents remains a priority for them, even after bicameral negotiations fell through last month."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants the federal appeals court in New Orleans to overturn an order that forces the EPA to decide whether federal rules are needed to curb the flow of pollutants into the Mississippi River. The pollutants ultimately feed a low-oxygen "dead zone" along Louisiana's coast each spring."

"Macklemore rolls up in his signature old black Cadillac, sporting black Ray-Bans and big boots."

"Lake Powell is at historic lows, offering kayakers new channels to explore but raising the alarm about water."

"Scientists up and down the West Coast are monitoring what appears to be a large-scale die-off of young Cassin’s auklets, small seabirds whose breeding grounds include a colony in the Farallon Islands west of San Francisco."