"The House approved a bill Wednesday that rewrites two decades of water law in California, wiping out environmental protections and dropping reforms of federal irrigation policy that have long irritated agribusiness in the Central Valley."

"When US President Barack Obama proposed a US$664-million cut in congressional funding for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in his 2013 budget request, he tried to ease the pain by replacing much of it with money from other sources. But only days after the 13 February request, a vote on Capitol Hill made clear just how vulnerable those substitutions are, suggesting that the US public-health agency is on increasingly shaky financial ground."

"Chicago's two coal-fired power plants will shut down sooner than expected under a deal to be announced today by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and environmental groups."

"Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) will introduce legislation Thursday mandating that power companies generate a major portion of the country’s electricity from low-carbon energy sources."

"An associate of the Heartland Institute, the thinktank devoted to discrediting climate change, taught a course at a top Canadian university that contained more than 140 false, biased and misleading claims about climate science, an expert audit has found."

"Plugging the leaks in water pipes and building new ones to keep up with a growing population could cost the United States $1 trillion over the next 25 years, according to an industry study released Monday."

"New Jersey faces serious water quality challenges, including sewage pollution, but upgrading old infrastructure can help address them, according to federal officials. On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its approval of New Jersey’s latest list of streams, lakes, rivers, bays and other waters that are considered impaired or threatened by pollutants."