National (U.S.)

In Appalachia, where coal is king, the terribly destructive method of mountaintop removal mining is common. Environmentalists have been reluctant to use one of their most powerful weapons -- the Endangered Species Act -- to fight it. The reasons involve legal loopholes and politics.

News Web sites that allow reader comments are experiencing "climate spam" -- generic, marginally relevant comments on climate news stories denying that human activities are causing climate change or the need to do anything about it. The same comments are posted verbatim on multiple sites. The comments repeat the talking points of PR firms paid by fossil fuel industries -- and they are anonoymous.

"U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has ordered her staff to fully cooperate with the investigative efforts of the agency's internal auditors, a stark reversal from the agency's policy under the George W. Bush administration."

"The deadly bacterium, responsible for recent pistachio and peanut recalls, can live in many wild animals and in almost any climate. and it's thriving in our modern lifestyle."

"The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the united states in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say."

The Obama EPA, like the Bush EPA, is cleaning up fewer Superfund hazardous waste sites -- saying the remaining sites are getting harder to clean up. Unline Bush, however, Obama is seeking to reinstate the lapsed tax on petrochemical companies that originally funded the cleanup of abandoned sites.

"Three major glaciers in Alaska and Washington state have thinned and shrunk dramatically, clear signs of a warming climate, according to a study released Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey."

"LONG BEACH -- More than a year after California was rebuffed in federal court for pursuing emission rules on freight ships, federal authorities are pushing to adopt similar restrictions that could prevent up to 33,000 premature deaths annually in the U.S. and Canada."

"Seeking to put the nation back in the lead on an important technology, the Obama administration awarded more than $2 billion in grants on Wednesday for manufacturing advanced batteries and other components for electric cars."