"WASHINGTON -- More than 10 weeks after Superstorm Sandy brutalized parts of the heavily populated Northeast, the House approved $50.7 billion in emergency relief for the victims Tuesday night as Republican leaders struggled to close out an episode that exposed painful party divisions inside Congress and out."

"WASHINGTON -- Just before he and other environmentalists marched to the White House on Tuesday, climate change activist James Hansen warned he wouldn’t be able to be arrested with them this time. Hansen, a NASA scientist by day and an activist on his own time, had to be available for a press conference in the afternoon announcing that worldwide temperatures in 2012 were in the top 10 hottest ever recorded."

"WEATHERFORD, Texas -- When a man in a Fort Worth suburb reported his family's drinking water had begun "bubbling" like champagne, the federal government sounded an alarm: An oil company may have tainted their wells while drilling for natural gas. At first, the Environmental Protection Agency believed the situation was so serious that it issued a rare emergency order in late 2010 that said at least two homeowners were in immediate danger from a well saturated with flammable methane. More than a year later, the agency rescinded its mandate and refused to explain why."

"Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will leave his post in March, an official at Interior and a senior administration official confirmed early Wednesday.

Despite New York Times execs' assurances that abolition of Times' the environment desk will not affect its own coverage, it is already changing the conversation at other news media.

Do electoral politics and industry lobbying sometimes trump science when it comes to protecting people's health? In an unusual admission, a federal appeals court rules "Yes." And EPA agrees.

"An appeals court is siding with environmental groups that had challenged Environmental Protection Agency regulations on soot as too weak.

The three-judge panel ruled Friday that the EPA regulated soot of a certain size under weaker cleanup requirements than it should have.

KETTLEMAN CITY -- Maria Saucedo cried as she spoke of the two babies she has lost in Kettleman City -- one to birth defects and the other in a miscarriage. There's no proof, but she blames the toxic landscape surrounding her town. She and others who have suffered in Kettleman City say they live in a nasty soup of pollution. They make a compelling case."

"Times says demise of the nine-person team, created in 2009, won't affect climate coverage."

"It was the kind of meeting that conspiratorial conservative bloggers dream about."

"BILLINGS, Mont. -- Opponents of a railroad that would open Montana's coal fields to new mining have asked federal officials to halt their review of the proposal, alleging it would be much larger than disclosed with impacts stretching to the West Coast."