"HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- Patriot Coal has agreed to phase out mountaintop removal and other forms of strip mining, in a move Patriot officials say is in the best interests of their company, its employees and the communities where it operates."

"Citing gross negligence and what it called the company's profits-first culture, the federal government on Thursday announced it had entered into a settlement with BP of all criminal claims stemming from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, fining the company a record $4.5 billion and securing 11 felony pleas from the company for the 11 people killed in the April 2010 blast."

"Georgia tops all other states for the amount of power it generates from coal-burning units that are “ripe for retirement” because they aren’t cost-effective, according to a Union of Concerned Scientists report."

"Federal officials Wednesday warned people not to come in contact with the water or eat any fish or shellfish from Newark Bay and the lower Passaic and Hackensack rivers because contamination levels remain dangerously high after Hurricane Sandy crippled a key sewage treatment plant."

"Among air experts, it's an open secret: federal and state officials grossly undercount a crucial type of air pollution, often by an order of magnitude and particularly in areas like Houston with its major concentrations of petrochemical plants."

"LAKE WYLIE, N.C. -- For more than a year, one Charlotte environmental group has warned of what could happen if coal ash ponds leak into local lakes. Now, they say, it’s happening."

"A collapse in upcoming global climate negotiations in Doha could lead to a 'wild west' approach to reducing carbon emissions, an Australian environmental think tank says."

"Research to be released Thursday shows that West Coast refineries continued to produce gasoline even though Americans were told they were temporarily shut down, leading to price spikes in May and October, McClatchy Newspapers reports."

"BP and the U.S. government portrayed in public a united front as a runaway well spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. But they privately sought to withhold potentially critical information from each other, possibly slowing efforts to solve the crisis, according to new testimony."