When assessing an environmental issue, it may be useful and appropriate to evaluate its links with human deaths and illnesses.

For many reporters, eco wine can be an intensely local story. While not every state has vineyards, viticulture has spread way beyond California in recent decades.

EPA reopened five libraries September 30, 2008, after fighting its own scientists, enforcement lawyers, open-information groups, and eventually Congress for two years in an unsuccessful effort to keep them closed.

More details of White House efforts to silence science at EPA emerged at a September 18, 2008, hearing of a House Energy investigations panel.

Deep Throat's advice was never more needed: "Follow the money." Those reporters who want to follow Deep Throat's advice now have tools undreamed of in Woodward and Bernstein's hey-day.

Reporters on "Main Street" need not feel hindered in covering action on Capitol Hill. Here are more tools for Outside-the-Beltway reporters who want to keep an eye on Congress.

A forthcoming report by the Union of Concerned Scientists — expected the second week of October 2008 — will provide the most extensive documentation to date of federal agency press policies and their impact on environmental reporting.

A useful roundup of links and leads for reporters researching the published literature on medical and some environmental health topics is available online at LLRX.com.

The FOIA logs of agencies covered by environmental reporters offer fascinating insight into their workings — and some good story ideas.

Reporters trying to cover fisheries issues may soon find decisions happening faster than they can cover them.