"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday released its newest definition for ambient air in a move critics say will ease burdens on polluting industries. On its surface, the guidance deals less directly with air quality than it does with fencing."

"On a soggy field in eastern North Carolina, Jason Tew and his crew of loggers are cutting trees and sorting logs into piles based on their size and the type of wood."

"EPA is poised to leave its national soot standards unchanged after a fractured advisory panel yesterday formally opted to recommend the status quo. While career EPA staff had tentatively concluded that the annual exposure benchmark is too weak to prevent thousands of premature deaths, a majority on the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee found otherwise."

"Invasive species — everything from rats to Burmese pythons — have spread to more than half of national parks, according to new research published this week, which also offers suggestions for stopping non-native animals while safeguarding native species into the future."

"Officials in the Florida Keys announced what many coastal governments nationwide have long feared, but few have been willing to admit: As seas rise and flooding gets worse, not everyone can be saved."

"A new Harvard University study for the first time links hospitalizations for common blood, skin and kidney ailments to short-term exposure to fine particulate matter from fossil fuel combustion and wildfires."

"Tariffs on solar panels implemented under President Trump have significantly harmed the U.S. solar industry, according to a new analysis released Tuesday."

"A debate over Montana landowners’ potential liability for toxic metals in their backyards, deposited over decades of smelting operations, dominated oral arguments involving the landowners, the U.S. EPA, and Atlantic Richfield Co. before the Supreme Court Dec. 3."

"The Trump administration is sending a new “surge” of rangers from US national parks such as Zion, Yosemite and the National Mall to patrol the southern border for crossings by illegal immigrants."

"Taxpayers could be forced to spend billions of dollars to bail out the federal government's flood program as private-sector insurers begin covering homes with little risk of flooding while clustering peril-prone properties in the indebted public program."