After he finishes health legislation, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus will stake a claim of jurisdiction on the climate bill.

"In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses. However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment."

"The federal government, acting to protect endangered fish, is setting up new rules to limit where and when orchardists, farmers and others can use some common pesticides. ... The rules, coming from the Environmental Protection Agency, follow from a decision last year by the National Marine Fisheries Service to require limits on three common pesticides -- chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion -- in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California."

"Dozens of coal-mining permits proposed across Appalachia need much more scrutiny because of concerns they will illegally damage water quality, the Obama administration said Friday."

"Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s pick to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, was confirmed handily by the Senate just now by a vote of 57 ayes to 40 nays."

"Russia is surpassing Saudi Arabia in oil exports for the first time since the Soviet Union’s collapse as Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin exploits OPEC production cuts to gain market share."

"The federal government said Thursday that it would seek an unprecedented role as the environmental police of the Chesapeake Bay -- enforcing new rules on farmers and keeping a closer eye on state-level bureaucrats -- in an effort to halt the estuary's long decline."

"A federal lawsuit by two industry groups aims to halt the U.S. government and the state of California from moving ahead with new greenhouse gas emissions rules for cars and trucks."

"For hundreds of years, mariners have dreamed of an Arctic shortcut that would allow them to speed trade between Asia and the West. Two German ships are poised to complete that transit for the first time, aided by the retreat of Arctic ice that scientists have linked to global warming."