"An advertising campaign that previously pushed the phrase 'clean coal' launches new spots this week focused on jobs and low-cost power, the latest offering in a three-year, nearly $120 million effort to sell Congress and the White House on coal's future. Increasingly, there are signs that it is working."

"When the computer-age took off in the 1990s, lots of people thought we'd use a lot less paper. But that hasn't happened."

"The Obama administration is proposing a grant program that could start zoning marine areas for offshore projects."

"Faced with stiff resistance from ranchers and farmers, the Obama administration has decided to scrap a national program intended to help authorities quickly identify and track livestock in the event of an animal disease outbreak."

"In this special Grist series, we’ll be looking at where synthetic nitrogen comes from and what our reliance on it is doing to our health and to the health of our waterways and climate. We’ll also be looking at ways in which synthetic nitrogen can be used more wisely—and, as much as possible, phased out."

"Twenty-two electric utility facilities with coal ash impoundments have written action plans to make them safer. But on Thursday, as the U.S. EPA made these plans public, the agency also released engineering assessments of 40 more coal ash impoundments showing they have the 'high' or 'significant' potential to cause loss of human life, environmental damage, or damage to infrastructure."

Researchers are hoping to find new medicines underwater in corals and sponges.

"A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Thursday introduced legislation aimed at slashing emissions of sulfur dioxide, mercury and nitrogen oxide from smokestacks including coal-fired power plants."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that ethanol and other renewable fuels must account for 8.25 percent of total gasoline and diesel sales in 2010 to meet Congress' mandate that nearly 13 billion gallons of renewable fuels be produced this year."

EPA is reopening its review of the possible health effects of the widespread herbicide atrazine. A new focus is on several studies linking the hormone-mimicking weedkiller to birth defects and other risks in newborns.