"It's been a busy week for anyone following the national debates over hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking,' the controversial method used to cut into shale rock to extract natural gas. In New Jersey, a strong bipartisan majority in both chambers of the legislature approved a bill banning fracking in the state as its neighbor to the north, New York, appeared ready to end its moratorium on the practice."

"A study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research estimates that the bottom-line cost of all the meteorological craziness is a staggering $485 billion per year in the U.S. alone, as much as 3.4% of the country's GDP."

"The owner of the West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 29 men last year kept two sets of books on safety conditions -- an accurate one for itself and a sanitized one for the government, federal regulators said Wednesday."

"After months of delays, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board plans next week to release its report on safety problems -- including a January 2010 phosgene leak that killed a worker -- at the DuPont Co. plant in Belle [WV]."

"There’s a ripple of unease among many scientists who study the warming of the planet these days. Some have faced harassment, legal challenges and even death threats related to their research, the American Association for the Advancement of Science reports."

"U.S. EPA [Tuesday] issued a final rule on how gasoline stations must label fuel with up to 15 percent ethanol content (E15), marking a step toward legal sale of the fuel and drawing criticism from several groups that said the labels will not do enough to prevent consumers from misusing it."

When some Baltimore residents worried about lead in remodeling dust tried to get help from state, local, and federal agencies, all they got was the run-around. Their experience shows the system for protecting people from lead-based paint is badly broken.

A new report by a nonprofit conservation group concludes that "National park cultural resources are often ignored and consistently underfunded, many natural resources are being degraded, and throughout the (National) Park System, conservation efforts are failing to keep pace with the forces that threaten resources."

"The fire that surrounds the nuclear lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico has grown to at least 61,000 acres -- large enough that its smoke can be seen from space – and concerns are now growing over what's in that smoke."

"A new study released Monday shows that exposure to a common ingredient in plastic bottles and packaging can cause male mice to act like females. The lead author of the study discusses its significance for humans."