"As the players here remake the nation’s vast regulatory system, they have been grappling with a subject that is more the province of poets and philosophers than bureaucrats: what is the value of a human life?"

Voting largely along party lines, House Republicans loaded a stopgap funding measure with amendments that would block EPA climate rules, gut landscape conservation, stymie EPA rulemaking on coal ash, prevent preservation of national monuments, stop the "Greening the Capitol" program, quash a Chesapeake Bay cleanup, de-fund a National Park in former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district, hamstring EPA's effort to control mercury air pollution, and fire President Obama's climate negotiator and policy "czars." The House could pass the spending measure today, sending it to the Senate on a take-it-or-leave it basis, with GOP leaders threatening a government shutdown if the Senate does not comply.

"Rising sea levels in hundreds of cities along U.S. coastlines will lose about 10 percent of their land area by 2100, finds new research led by University of Arizona scientists."

"David Cameron has ordered ministers to carry out the government's biggest U-turn since the general election by abandoning plans to change the ownership of 258,000 hectares of state-owned woodland."

"Climate change could put trillions of investment dollars at risk over the next 20 years, a global study released on Wednesday said, calling for pension funds and other investors to overhaul how they allocate funds."

"Extreme rainstorms and snowfalls have grown substantially stronger, two studies suggest, with scientists for the first time finding the telltale fingerprints of man-made global warming on downpours that often cause deadly flooding."

"Environmental groups said Wednesday that a 1,700-mile oil pipeline planned between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico posed safety risks and should be delayed."

"Japan has suspended its annual whale hunt in the Antarctic for now after a hardline anti-whaling group gave chase to its mother ship and it may call the fleet back home, a government official said."

"President Barack Obama [Wednesday] announced the administration's action plan, under the America's Great Outdoors initiative, to achieve lasting conservation of the outdoor spaces that power our nation's economy, shape our culture, and build our outdoor traditions."

"The United States' reliance on coal to generate almost half of its electricity, costs the economy about $345 billion a year in hidden expenses not borne by miners or utilities, including health problems in mining communities and pollution around power plants, a study found."