"U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy today struck back at EPA critics in a forceful address to scientists that defended agency actions on climate change, air quality issues and safe drinking water."

People in northern Mississippi and Alabama huddled in hallways and basements as a string of tornadoes ripped through their states Monday, a day after another line of storms killed 16 people to their west."

"Newly licensed marijuana growers in Washington state may find themselves without a key source of water just as spring planting gets under way."

"Hedge fund manager turned environmentalist Tom Steyer is challenging fellow billionaires, Charles and Davide Koch, to a debate on the Keystone XL pipeline."

"For the first time since Duke Energy’s defunct Eden, N.C., coal plant leaked thousands of gallons of coal ash into the Dan River nearly three months ago, the public is getting a look at how the nation’s largest electric utility company may change its containment of coal ash, a substance environmentalists say is one of the biggest threats to rivers and groundwater across the country."

"North Dakota this week confirmed the discovery of a new radioactive dump of waste from oil drilling. And separately, a company hired to clean up similar waste found in February at another location said it had removed more than double the amount of radioactive material originally estimated to be there."

"Automakers on average have reduced the greenhouse gas footprint of their model year 2012 passenger vehicles even below the levels required by U.S. EPA's new tailpipe emissions rules, according to a new report released today by the agency."

"The Department of Transportation is planning on sending a 'comprehensive' package of proposals regarding rail shipments of crude oil to the White House for its review [this] week."

"CHICAGO -- John Goihl, a hog nutritionist in Shakopee, Minnesota, knows a farmer in his state who lost 7,500 piglets just after they were born. In Sampson County, North Carolina, 12,000 of Henry Moore's piglets died in three weeks. Some 30,000 piglets perished at John Prestage's Oklahoma operation in the fall of 2013."