"House appropriators [Thursday] cleared a $30.6 billion spending bill for the Energy Department and Army Corps of Engineers that could see a floor vote before August."

"Floodwaters around the South Dakota capital of Pierre are rising and they're about to get much higher. The dams along the Missouri River can't hold back a massive surge of water spurred by record rains in Montana."

"Union Pacific and the Environmental Protection Agency are ending their decade-long dispute over lead contamination in Omaha with a settlement that reduces the railroad's share of the cost to $25 million instead of the more than $200 million originally sought."

Reversing course, the Obama administration's Interior Department scuttled a policy that it had touted barely five months before as reversing the wilderness policies of President Bush.

"An oil and gas trade group has taken the rare step of challenging a U.S. EPA information request, saying the agency is seeking too much data as it revisits a George W. Bush-era analysis of refineries' cancer-causing emissions."

"Just in time for cookout season, some unsettling news arrives for guacamole and salsa lovers: Federal testing turned up a wide array of unapproved pesticides on the herb cilantro — to an extent that surprises and concerns government scientists."

"The Supreme Court decided [Tuesday] not to take up the question of whether U.S. EPA followed the correct procedure in effectively banning a pesticide that had been in use for years."

"We can’t know for sure what Thomas Jefferson would have thought of the arrests Saturday of five people who were dancing in his memorial. According to reports, they were grooving in silence to protest an earlier court ruling banning dance within the Jefferson Memorial."

"President Obama on Tuesday nominated John E. Bryson for commerce secretary, a choice that drew plaudits from business and environmental groups, reflecting his uncommon career in both worlds. But Senate Republicans threatened to block confirmation of the nominee over a trade dispute."

"Budget cuts proposed by House Republicans to the Food and Drug Administration would undermine the agency’s ability to carry out a historic food-safety law passed by Congress just five months ago, food safety advocates say."