"The construction permits are in and the financing is ready to go, but some of the Chicago area's biggest sources of toxic air pollution still might not be cleaned up anytime soon."

"Lake Isabella Dam is just one acute example of a widespread problem: Of the nation’s 85,000 dams, more than 4,400 are considered susceptible to failure, according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. But repairing all those dams would cost billions of dollars, and it is far from clear who would provide all the money in a recessionary era."

"Americans remain largely in the dark about their true exposure to a number of radioactive contaminants that could be in their drinking water. Surprisingly, it’s because of intentional decisions by the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal government office that is supposed to protect the nation from contaminated water."

"Early [Saturday] morning, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a funding bill that environmentalists say amounts to the biggest attack on clean air and clean water in recent history."

"The retirement of Sen. Jeff Bingaman — the low-key New Mexico Democrat known for his ability to strike centrist deals with Republicans — raises questions about the long-term impact his departure will have on the development of energy policy in future Congresses."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released draft staff reports Thursday on the proposed Yucca Mountain repository but omitted any conclusions about whether the site would be safe for storing radioactive waste."

"New evidence unearthed by investigators shows that in some key moments before the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, BP leaders were disengaged from critical tests and recognized major problems, but they failed to communicate their concerns or take corrective action."

"As the players here remake the nation’s vast regulatory system, they have been grappling with a subject that is more the province of poets and philosophers than bureaucrats: what is the value of a human life?"

Voting largely along party lines, House Republicans loaded a stopgap funding measure with amendments that would block EPA climate rules, gut landscape conservation, stymie EPA rulemaking on coal ash, prevent preservation of national monuments, stop the "Greening the Capitol" program, quash a Chesapeake Bay cleanup, de-fund a National Park in former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district, hamstring EPA's effort to control mercury air pollution, and fire President Obama's climate negotiator and policy "czars." The House could pass the spending measure today, sending it to the Senate on a take-it-or-leave it basis, with GOP leaders threatening a government shutdown if the Senate does not comply.

"Rising sea levels in hundreds of cities along U.S. coastlines will lose about 10 percent of their land area by 2100, finds new research led by University of Arizona scientists."