Al Armendariz, the new EPA Regional Administrator for Texas and surrounding states, comes from a background as an environmental activist.

"The nation's top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government's intelligence assets -- including spy satellites and other classified sensors -- as sensitive instruments that can assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests."

"Former San Joaquin Valley congressman Richard Pombo will formally announce his comeback bid Tuesday, igniting a heated competition to replace retiring Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa."

"Maryland advocates for a ban on a toxic flame retardant that accumulates in the environment and has been linked to cancer and brain development problems intend to pursue an earlier phaseout of the chemical than the timeline currently spelled out in a recent federal agreement."

"Many old factories around the country now sit dark and empty. But at a once-defunct Polaroid film factory in New Bedford, Mass., the lights are on again and a new industry is rising up inside the ruins of an old one."

"In Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, a new federal rule has fishermen angry. A ban on fishing for red snapper -- one of the most popular saltwater fish -- starts Jan. 4."

"Due to human activities, the world's animal and plant species are disappearing at a rate some experts put at 1,000 times the natural progression, the United Nations said January 1, marking 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity."

"After years of negotiations between environmentalists and industry groups, observers say efforts to reform a century-old law regulating mining may finally pick up steam in Congress."

"A team of international scientists has made a major breakthrough in the fight to save tasmanian devils from extinction."

"The infighting among the federal officials in charge of the Savannah River Site, a federally owned nuclear site in South Carolina that won one of the country’s biggest pots of stimulus money, is so severe that it threatens to undermine public confidence in their work, a federal watchdog warned Thursday."