"WASHINGTON — A bitterly divided House approved a sweeping California water bill Wednesday that puts the Senate on the spot and splits the drought-ridden state into several competing camps."

"Attorneys general in 21 states are backing an attempt to derail the Obama administration’s Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan, fearing that the government will use that authority to regulate wastewater in other watersheds, including the Mississippi River Basin."

"Four politically vulnerable Senate Democrats are urging U.S. President Barack Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, spotlighting the implications of an election-year decision that may influence which party controls the chamber."

"SACRAMENTO -- California Governor Jerry Brown, whose state is facing its worst drought in decades, harshly criticized on Monday an effort by Congressional Republicans to roll back environmental rules limiting how much water agencies can pump out of the fragile San Joaquin-Sacramento River delta in dry years."

"U.S. President Barack Obama still wants to hear from other federal agencies before deciding whether to accept the State Department's finding that the Keystone XL pipeline would have no major impact on climate change, his top aide said on Sunday."

"The lead federal agency investigating the West Virginia chemical leak is one that most Americans have probably never heard of. The Chemical Safety Board is an independent body, modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates plane crashes and the like. But critics say that the Chemical Safety Board is understaffed, underfunded and takes too long to finish its investigations, and that its non-binding recommendations are often ignored anyway."

"Long-delayed farm legislation easily cleared a procedural hurdle on Monday in the U.S. Senate, with final passage of the nearly $1 trillion bill expected as early as Tuesday."

"Naturally occurring radionuclides are widely distributed in the earth’s crust, so it’s no surprise that mineral and hydrocarbon extraction processes, conventional and unconventional alike, often produce some radioactive waste."