"Americans could breathe more smog and toxic chemicals on summer days if regulators fail to get a handle on companies that use diesel-burning generators as a last line of defense against power outages, a coalition of state officials from the Northeast says in a new report."

"Energy-related carbon emissions fell 8 percent from the same period a year ago to 1.134 billion metric tons (1.25 billion tons), according to the latest monthly energy review by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) - the energy department's statistics arm."

"Ian Cheney had no idea that artificial light at night could be unhealthy when he began filming his new documentary, 'The City Dark.' His interest in what many call 'light pollution' stemmed purely from a passion for astronomy, he said, and a question: 'What do we lose when we lose the night sky?'

"MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Environmental activists are demanding an investigation into the alleged beating of a mountaintop removal mining protester by West Virginia state troopers."

"After a historic committee vote to advance legislation that would overhaul the country's chemical regulations, it remains unclear whether there is a path for the bill to clear the full Senate -- let alone the House -- before the end of the year."

"On Thursday, the wind industry convinced a key Senate committee that green can be good politics in red states as well as blue ones."

A recent EPA shutdown of its effort to gather basic information on livestock feeding operations may make it impossible for the agency to regulate water and air pollution from the manure they generate.

"The United States doesn’t yet face the critical shortage of power that has left more than 600 million people in India without electricity this week. But the U.S. grid is aging and stretched to capacity. More often the victim of decrepitude than the forces of nature, it is beginning to falter. Experts fear failures that caused blackouts in New York, Boston and San Diego may become more common as the voracious demand for power continues to grow. They say it will take a multibillion-dollar investment to avoid them."

A Senate Environment Committee hearing on climate science Wednesday only exemplified the political deadlock that keeps the United States from basing policy on established science.

"The lines are now drawn on a political hot button in Iowa: a lucrative tax break for wind energy. Mitt Romney is against it, President Barack Obama favors it — opposing stances that could have political and economic implications in Iowa, which has more wind energy jobs than any other state in the nation."