"More than four years after Hurricane Katrina, the single-story brick rancher in Pontchartrain Park where Lisa Perez Jackson grew up stands empty. ...The storm's toll on Jackson's childhood house and on New Orleans, particularly the Ninth Ward where she was raised, has intensified her quest for what's known as environmental justice."

"An offline Florida power plant is providing a warm-water refuge for several hundred manatees who like the Sunshine State's human residents are shivering in record low cold temperatures."

"A coalition of oil companies, car and engine manufacturers and fuel sellers told the Obama administration on Thursday not to increase the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline based on inadequate test data."

"A team of scientists says the environmental damage from mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia is so widespread, the mining technique should be stopped."

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed a stricter standard for smog-causing pollutants that would bring substantial health benefits to millions of Americans while imposing large costs on industry and local governments."

"The U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Apache Nitrogen Products, Inc. entered into a $5 million consent decree to remove toxic nitrates and perchlorates from groundwater and to monitor the progress. at the Apache Powder Superfund Site, near David [Arizona]."

"West Virginia regulators are going to stop processing surface mining permits that propose to dump waste rock and dirt into streams while they develop new guidelines that force coal operators to reduce water quality impacts downstream from valley fills."

"Nearly half of global money managers are making investment decisions without factoring in risks or opportunities associated with climate change, according to a survey released on Wednesday by a coalition of environmentalists and investors."

A regulatory application for a major mid-Atlantic electric transmission line may be withdrawn because of flagging demand projections -- a result not only of the economic slump, but also of energy conservation.