"With the muzzling of scientists, Harper’s obsession with controlling the message verges on the Orwellian."

"Dan Rather called it 'the most watched load of garbage in the memory of man.' It was 1987. A small town businessman had what seemed like a promising idea, to transport New York trash by barge to a landfill in North Carolina, where it would be converted into methane to heat homes. And then the news media latched on to the story."

"The Environmental Protection Agency announced new safeguards Friday to prevent conflicts of interest or bias from tainting its science, including efforts to assess the dangers of toxic chemicals."

"The United States has failed to take action to mitigate climate change thanks in part to the large number of religious Americans who believe the world has a set expiration date."

"CANBERRA -- Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus will argue Australia’s whaling case against Japan in a three week hearing before the International Court of Justice in the Hague beginning on June 26."

"The founders never expected to live in the desert; the Constitution's primary mechanism for divvying up shared water doesn't work."

"Three Los Angeles council members want the city to pull pension money from the investment firms that own Tribune if they sell the Los Angeles Times to buyers who don’t support 'professional and objective journalism.' Councilman Bill Rosendahl says: 'Frankly what I hear about the Koch brothers, if it’s true, it’s the end of journalism.'"

"More than 50,000 high-polluting diesel engines have been cleaned up or removed from U.S. roads in a federal program designed to reduce smog and greenhouse gases, according to a new Environmental Protection Agency report to Congress. While industry and environmental officials call the program a landmark success, it is now threatened with a 70 percent cut in funding under the Obama Administration’s new budget."

"A little-noticed change in U.S. EPA air policy has turned a national pollution-monitoring network that has been providing data to researchers for 22 years into a regulatory tool, leaving states scrambling to figure out the implications."

"Senator Barbara Boxer said on Tuesday she plans to investigate the explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant earlier this month that killed 15 people and injured scores more."