EPA officials in New York had to postpone a planned hearing on the impact of the natural gas drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing. The reason: the large number of passionate people planning to attend or demonstrate.

"A month after the Deepwater Horizon disaster began, scientists from the University of South Florida made a startling announcement. They had found signs that the oil spewing from the well had formed a 6-mile-wide plume snaking along in the deepest recesses of the gulf. The reaction that USF announcement received from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agencies that sponsored their research: Shut up."

"The opponents of Pebble, the giant copper and gold prospect in Southwest Alaska, have asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency to invoke its potent and rarely used power to block the potential mine. But U.S. Rep. Don Young late last month filed legislation seeking to strip the EPA of that authority."

"Farmers and other pesticide users would not need to secure Clean Water Act (CWA) permits before spraying over water under Senate legislation offered late last week in response to a pivotal federal court ruling."

"More than three weeks after BP capped its gushing oil well ... wildlife officials are rounding up more oiled birds than ever as fledgling birds get stuck in the residual goo and rescuers make initial visits to rookeries they had avoided disturbing during nesting season."

"U.S. environmental regulators finalized rules on Monday aimed at cutting mercury emissions and other pollution from Portland cement manufacturing, the third-largest source of mercury air emissions in the country."

"Almost 1,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC is pressing ahead with a $3.8 billion expansion of the largest refinery in the Midwest -- and facing off with environmental groups over controls aimed at preventing a gusher-style release of chemicals into the air."

"Marine services and shipbuilding companies that benefit from deepwater oil drilling will face off against the federal government in court again Wednesday over the government's ban on offshore drilling."

"Union workers at the nation’s only uranium conversion plant, in Metropolis, Ill., have erected 42 crosses nearby in memory of workers who died of cancer. Twenty-seven smaller crosses symbolize workers who have survived the disease."

The Minerals Management Service -- now reorganized into three separate agencies -- began in 1997 nearly giving away public resources to oil companies as favors in a party that lasted until the BP gulf oil spill.