"A partisan standoff over Senate global warming legislation clouded the start of the Environment and Public Works Committee's markup of the sweeping proposal today with just one Republican in attendance."

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the United States Tuesday to agree to binding climate goals, telling U.S. lawmakers in a speech to Congress there was 'no time to lose' in the fight against global warming."

"Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will go ahead and mark up climate legislation in her committee Tuesday, she announced Monday morning, even if the Republicans try to block her."

"A huge fire has been blazing at an oil rig in the Timor Sea since Sunday, after an attempt by the oil company to kill a leaking well. The West Atlas rig is located directly above the Montara well head platfrom, which has been leaking oil and gas since August 21."

"Protection for polar bears' shrinking icy habitat is the subject of a proposed rule sent to the White House by the Interior Department."

"The Energy Department must reconsider California's energy- and water-saving standards for residential washing machines, a federal court ruled [last] week."

"The 2009 edition of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species was released today, and the news isn't good: 17,291 species out of 47,677 assessed species, or 36 percent, are threatened with extinction."

"The Interior Department will leave in place George W. Bush-era changes to a rule designed to protect streams from mountaintop-removal coal mining until 2011, according to court documents filed by the Obama administration Friday."

"More than 60 years after scientists assembled the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico."

"Americans consume over $4 billion of soy foods each year because of their many health benefits. But new studies suggest that eating large amounts of soy's estrogen-mimicking compounds might reduce fertility in women, trigger early puberty and disrupt development of fetuses and children."