"A breaking investigation by EnergyWire appears to connect the dots between shadowy lobbying efforts by shale gas fracking company Range Resources, and the Obama EPA's decision to shut down its high-profile lawsuit against Range for allegedly contaminating groundwater in Weatherford, TX."

"President Barack Obama is leaning toward choosing Gina McCarthy, a top official in charge of air quality at the Environmental Protection Agency, to run the EPA in his second term, according to two sources familiar with the matter."

"The National Weather Service moved to fire one of its top managers Friday, four days after he was quoted in an article in The Washington Post lamenting that budget cuts and the threat of further reductions in March were forcing him to pare back a public safety service."

"The effects of the so-called sequestration budget cuts on the federal government are revealed in a Jan. 25 memo to National Park Service staff written by Park Service Director Jon Jarvis."

"Roy Derrick maneuvered his forklift with a pallet of neatly boxed expired produce and flowers and dropped it into an industrial compactor at Safeway's cavernous return center in Upper Marlboro. As the compactor hummed, compressed food and floral scraps spilled through a chute into a 40-foot trailer, one of five that would make the weekly trip to composting centers in Delaware or Virginia."

"WASHINGTON -- Critics want a halt to offshore Arctic drilling in the wake of Shell's latest mishap in the waters off Alaska but there's no sign the Obama administration and key members of Congress are backing off their support for drilling in the sensitive region."

"Citing shrinking mountain snowpacks as a result of climate change, federal wildlife officials are proposing to list wolverines as threatened under the Endangered Species Act."

"The U.S. government on Friday proposed adding wolverines, feisty but rare members of the weasel family, to the federal threatened and endangered species list because global warming is reducing the mountain snows the animals need for survival."

"U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize winner who shepherded an effort to help spur a clean energy U.S. economy, will step down after a tenure rocked by the failures of some costly government investments."

"The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - known by its critics as a 'corporate bill mill' - has hit the ground running in 2013, pushing 'models bills' mandating the teaching of climate change denial in public school systems."