"Government officials in the Northern Mariana Islands violated ethics rules when they handed an almost $400,000 contract to the [island commonwealth's] former Commerce secretary's new company, according to the Department of Interior's inspector general."

"Flaring of natural gas from wells is on the upswing in Texas and North Dakota as oil and gas producers rush to develop new shale plays, and critics are not happy about it."

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was warned from multiple sources early in the year that major flooding was likely on the Missouri River. But by the time officials moved to 'evacuate' upstream reservoirs in anticipation of snowmelt, they were hampered by downstream flooding that prevented them from releasing more water, internal emails show."

"A new report says groundwater contamination from coal ash has been found at Gallatin and eight of the nine other Tennessee Valley Authority fossil power plant sites where testing is being done."

"A giant underwater 'dead zone'in the Chesapeake Bay is growing at an alarming rate because of unusually high nutrient pollution levels this year, according to Virginia and Maryland officials. They said the expanding area of oxygen-starved water is on track to become the bay’s largest ever."

"New study finds that as warming heats up oceans and melts Arctic sea
ice, buried POPs are being re-released into the environment"

"Radiation fallout from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant poses a growing threat to Japan’s food chain as unsafe levels of cesium found in beef on supermarket shelves were also detected in more vegetables and the ocean."

"To call the Interior and Environment spending bill the House will debate this week partisan would be an understatement."

"Two months before completion of a health risk study on Velsicol pollution in South Chattanooga, state regulators say the company doesn't need to do any more cleanup but should put a deeper layer of dirt on its former pesticide and herbicide manufacturing site on Central Avenue."

"Poverty in Appalachia is concentrated in the communities around mountaintop removal mines, and people living in those areas suffer greater risk of early deaths, according to a new scientific paper by a West Virginia University researcher."