"Any hope for Congress to reconvene with a sense of bipartisanship was quickly erased Wednesday morning as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) sharply criticized the announcement of a new climate deal between the United States and China."
"The average price of gasoline will be below $3 a gallon in 2015, the government predicted Wednesday. If the sharply lower estimate holds true, U.S. consumers will save $61 billion on gas compared with this year."
"BEIJING — When the presidents of China and the United States pledged on Wednesday to reduce or limit carbon dioxide emissions, analysts and policy advisers said, the two leaders sent an important signal: that the world’s largest economies were willing to work together on climate change."
"President Obama’s landmark agreement with China to cut greenhouse gas pollution is a bet by the president and Democrats that on the issue of climate change, American voters are far ahead of Washington’s warring factions and that the environment will be a winning cause in the 2016 presidential campaign."
"Hackers from China breached the federal weather network recently, forcing cybersecurity teams to seal off data vital to disaster planning, aviation, shipping and scores of other crucial uses, officials said."
"A week after a historic vote to ban hydraulic fracturing (or fracking — the controversial drilling method that forces oil and gas from shale formations with pressurized water, sand and a host of chemicals), Denton, Texas, has been told the state will continue to issue drilling permits within the city limits."
"MECCA, Calif. — The area around this town of date palms attracts two kinds of migrants — hundreds of humans who work the land, and millions of birds that stop to rest and gorge at the nearby Salton Sea. The sea is a 110-year-old, increasingly briny, shallow lake that covers 350 square miles but is dwindling fast."
"In an effort to halt dramatic declines in the cod population, federal officials overseeing the fishing industry on Monday announced unprecedented measures that effectively ban all commercial fishing of the region’s iconic species in the Gulf of Maine."
"Senate Democrats are considering bringing legislation to the floor during the lame-duck session that would approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, according to a report in Bloomberg. The report by Bloomberg, quoting a Democratic Senate aide, said Democrats are considering the vote as part of an effort to save Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.)."
"Americans recently passed a milestone when federal officials reported that water use across the nation had reached its lowest level in more than 45 years: good news for the environment, great news in times of drought and a major victory for conservation."
