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U.S. Sen. Lindesy Graham, a South Carolina Republican, is working with Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to craft a climate change bill. He faces the dual challenge of overcoming widespread GOP opposition and withstanding relentless attacks by Big Oil and allied energy interests. | 11/07/09 16:11:00 By - James Rosen
As an evangelical Christian living in Texas, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe found that many conservatives had questions about climate change based on things they'd heard on talk radio. So Hayhoe and her husband decided to answer the questions in a new book from religious publisher FaithWords, "A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-based Decisions." | 11/06/09 14:31:00 By - Renee Schoof
A small town in the northern Dominican Republic is seeing an epidemic of birth defects which local residents blame on coal ash from a Virginia power company that was dumped at a nearby port six years ago. The situation highlights the debate over coal ash, an unregulated byproduct of coal energy, which when processed and recycled is used in everything from cement to the foundation for golf courses. | 11/06/09 09:03:38 By - Frances Robles
The North Carolina Utilities Commission has denied an environmental bid to stop the expansion of a Duke Energy coal-fired power plant near Charlotte. | 11/05/09 15:35:47 By - Bruce Henderson
Southern Idaho reservoirs are heading into the winter with more water than average, but Paul Deveau doesn't want you to read too much into it. | 11/05/09 15:10:04 By - Rocky Barker
Shell, the giant oil company that hopes to open a new petroleum frontier for Alaska, says it will decide within months whether to risk sending a large fleet of vessels to drill for oil and gas in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas next summer. Shell spent more than $2 billion to obtain leases in the two seas and mobilized hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of equipment to Alaska. However, environmentalists and North Slope governments sounded the alarm about potential impacts on bowhead whales and the possibility of oil spills. Both sued successfully to block the drilling during the past two summers and more litigation to block next summer's drilling is likely. | 11/05/09 06:39:58 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
Warren Buffett leads a simple life. But when the revered business legend buys a train set, it's a $34 billion mega-deal. Coming along just as the economy has begun to recover, Buffett's bid on Tuesday to buy the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. amounts to an "all-in wager on the economic future of the United States," the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said in an announcement. | 11/04/09 12:46:16 By - Mark Davis and Randolph Heaster
California's energy officials are nearing a decision on a ban on new energy-hogging televisions. The first-in-the-nation regulations would phase in starting in 2011 and would set a cap on the amount of power a TV can draw. | 11/04/09 06:50:02 By - Jim Downing
German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an impassioned plea Tuesday to a joint session of Congress to work together on efforts to curb global warming and to help forge a binding climate-change deal at an international meeting next month. | 11/03/09 18:02:00 By - William Douglas
The U.S. Forest Service has been cited for water quality violations in logging and other work near Lake Tahoe. | 11/03/09 17:21:25 By - Matt Weiser
San Joaquin Valley lawmakers on Tuesday again voiced their discontent over the region's dry spell, this time by introducing a new bill to review several key water-delivery decisions. | 11/03/09 16:43:00 By - Michael Doyle
Energy industry giants are winding up their pitches for a North Slope gas pipeline next year, but Alaska and its critics remain at war over whether any of the hundreds of millions being spent now will result in a successful project. | 11/03/09 06:41:11 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
Ski resorts have taken up the fight against global warming. In California, one study shows that the Sierra snowpack could be just 20 percent of what it is today by the end of the century. | 11/02/09 11:05:37 By -
Many scientists say sea level could rise a meter or more if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current trends. Continuing development of low-lying Atlantic coastal areas will require wild areas to be abandoned and urban areas to be protected with expensive engineering projects. | 11/02/09 10:34:43 By - Curtis Morgan
As energy increasingly dominates the economy, a quiet little agency in Washington holds the responsibility for tracking the particles that conduct, fuse, blow, heat, combust and convert the earth, wind and water into the energy that makes our society run. | 11/01/09 06:00:00 By - Barbara Barrett
People living in a Kansas town contaminated for decades by abandoned lead and zinc mines could finally be getting a break. Both chambers of Congress on Thursday approved legislation to give the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to buy out Treece, Kan., and relocate its residents. | 10/30/09 07:24:36 By - Meredith Rodriguez
Without a new law requiring cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. could end up going empty-handed to the international climate talks in December. | 10/29/09 18:36:00 By - Renee Schoof
Farm state senators and others soon will get a taste of what their colleagues from Missouri already have piled high on their desks: thousands of letters from farmers urging them to vote against the climate and energy bill. | 10/29/09 14:45:00 By - Renee Schoof and David Goldstein
It's been six months since Attorney General Eric Holder was applauded for loosening the Bush-era clamp on government information and telling federal agencies that their records should be presumed public. So why is a report about a coal-waste spill that happened nine years ago in Eastern Kentucky still top secret? | 10/29/09 17:12:49 By -
Every day millions of people turn on their televisions to watch seldom-seen wildlife. Sunday afternoon Perry and Shari McCabe of Hutchinson only had to look out their back door to enjoy the up-close antics of four bobcats. Though plentiful in Kansas, bobcats are rarely seen. | 10/29/09 14:25:33 By - Michael Pearce
President Barack Obama visited central Florida and commissioned the largest photovoltaic solar array in the United States. | 10/28/09 09:56:00 By - James A. Jones Jr.
WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Tuesday laid out the scientific risks of inaction on global warming and went straight to his main point — the climate and energy bill starting its way through the Senate could help drive what he called "energy opportunity." | 10/27/09 18:19:00 By - Renee Schoof
A bitter feud over San Joaquin River restoration has cost the advocacy group Families Protecting the Valley its executive director, former Fresno Mayor Alan Autry, who resigned his position over the group's targeting of GOP Rep. George Radanovich. Autry says the largely Republican farmers who founded the group seem primarily intent on undermining the lawmaker. | 10/27/09 16:29:00 By - Michael Doyle and John Ellis
Florida is getting $200 million in stimulus money to create a ``smart grid'' for utility customers that should result in lower electric usage, government officials announced Tuesday morning. | 10/27/09 13:24:03 By - John Dorschner
Two influential water districts and several environmental groups said Monday they support key elements of water legislation under negotiation in California's Capitol. But the compromise is not good enough for Republican leaders, who said they still have "grave concerns" that the proposals would "create new layers of bureaucracy." | 10/27/09 06:59:42 By - E.J. Schultz
In a culture that resists carbon-emitting power plants but covets the latest gadgetry, televisions are stirring the most concern among energy conservationists. | 10/26/09 19:04:15 By - Rick Montgomery
A vast pool of molten rock in the continental crust that underlies southwestern Washington state could supply magma to three active volcanoes in the Cascade Mountains -- Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier and Mount Adams -- according to a new study that's causing a stir among scientists. | 10/26/09 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
A group of donors who have put up $7 million for a new residence for the University of Kentucky men's basketball team have required that "coal" be its middle name. About 20 students have signed a petition opposing the name, however, and they're expected to make their views known at a board of trustees meeting. | 10/24/09 19:56:25 By - Andy Mead
The Obama administration is launching a rapid, sweeping review of the way the federal government manages subsistence hunting and fishing in Alaska, Interior Department officials said Friday. State and federal rules create a confounding, overlapping system. | 10/24/09 18:14:47 By - Kyle Hopkins
The Environmental Protection Agency will put controls on the emissions of hazardous pollutants such as mercury from coal-fired power plants for the first time by November 2011, according to an agreement announced Friday to settle a lawsuit against the agency. | 10/23/09 18:27:00 By - Renee Schoof
You're driving around Kansas City in an electric car and notice its battery is nearly out of power. No problem. You head for the nearest public charging station for a fill-up. The scenario is closer to reality than you realize. With electric cars soon to hit the market, Kansas City Power & Light plans to have 10 charging stations in place by next summer. | 10/23/09 13:00:28 By - Steve Everly and Lynn Horsley
The nonprofit Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy rated the 50 states for energy efficiency. California was No. 1. The five doing the least on efficiency were Nebraska, Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota and Wyoming. | 10/23/09 12:09:51 By - Jim Downing
A Washington advocacy group with close ties to oil and natural gas companies started running ads Thursday on South Carolina radio stations, targeting Sen. Lindsey Graham for supporting taxes on carbon emissions. | 10/22/09 18:12:00 By - James Rosen
President Obama needs only a stroke of his pen to set an example for the world on climate change by establishing federal forested reserves to store carbon in perpetuity, a national environmentalist said Tuesday in Boise. | 10/21/09 15:01:05 By - Rocky Barker
The latest volley in the battle over Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's $536 million land deal with the U.S. Sugar Corp. was fired Tuesday in the form of a poll bankrolled by its strongest supporters. Commissioned by the Everglades Foundation, the poll took dead aim at the Florida Crystals Corp., a rival grower and leading critic of the deal. | 10/21/09 19:31:58 By - Curtis Morgan
After more than a century of rumors of mountain lions in Kansas, state wildlife biologists confirmed this week that a live mountain lion has been found in Kansas. A hunter snapped photos of what this week became the first verified, live mountain lion in the state since 1904. | 10/21/09 21:16:37 By - Courtney Looney
A panel of national scientific experts is raising serious concerns about the state-led, $5 million project to evaluate risks posed by Alaska's aging oil and gas infrastructure. The study, initiated by former Gov. Sarah Palin, was triggered by recent spills, leaks and corrosion on the North Slope. | 10/21/09 06:36:41 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
After failing once before, proponents of coastal oil drilling will target the Florida's state senate. | 10/20/09 09:58:54 By - Steve Bousquet and Shannon Colavecchio
A Walmart in California started an experiment: It won't provide free plastic bags anymore, and will sell reusable bags for 15 cents of 50 cents. | 10/20/09 09:51:39 By - Jim Downing
Generating electricity by burning coal is responsible for about half of an estimated $120 billion in yearly costs from early deaths and health damages to thousands of Americans from the use of fossil fuels, a federal advisory group said Monday. | 10/19/09 18:43:00 By - Renee Schoof
Alaska this week holds its lragest gathering of the state's indigenous people. They're expected to call for more subsistence hunting and fishing rights. | 10/19/09 10:27:37 By - Kyle Hopkins and Sean Cockerham
Sanjay Varshney, dean of the business school at California State University, Sacramento, has emerged as the leading source of dark forecasts in a recession-fueled debate over whether California's war on global warming will hurt or help its economy. | 10/19/09 06:59:14 By - Jim Downing
The White House Monday will release a plan to remove some of the obstacles that prevent middle-class Americans from getting energy audits and making their homes more energy-efficient. | 10/19/09 06:00:00 By - Renee Schoof
Then-Gov. Mike Easley urged people to save water and he imposed stiff restrictions, but his exclusive Old Chatham Golf Club kept pumping millions of gallons from a creek after the governor's office got involved. | 10/18/09 19:06:25 By - J. Andrew Curliss
The coal industry defends mountaintop-removal mining in Appalachia by saying reclaimed areas provide flat land for development, but there are plans to develop less than 3 percent of the land covered by surface-mining permits in Kentucky over the last decade. | 10/18/09 16:28:25 By - Bill Estep and Linda J. Johnson
Rep. Devin Nunes rallies troops while he burns bridges with incendiary rhetoric and energetic maneuvering. Looking in the mirror, the 36-year-old Visalia Republican sees a congressman standing up for his constituents. | 10/18/09 06:00:00 By - Michael Doyle
A year from now, roughly 1,000 all-electric vehicles will be whispering around Washington state's Puget Sound as part of a federally funded project that eventually may lead to an electronic corridor stretching from Eugene, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C., where drivers could swipe a credit card and receive a 15-minute charge to speed them on their way. | 10/18/09 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
The death of Gordon Haber, who spent 40 years studying Denali National Park's wolves, was a blow to conservation groups that sought to expand protection for Alaska's wolves outside the park. | 10/17/09 15:53:23 By - Richard Mauer
There are plenty of luxury cars and shiny SUVs parked in Yosemite National Park, but it's no surprise to federal officials that the humble minivan is the vehicle of choice for bears who want a midnight snack. | 10/16/09 17:56:04 By - Mark Grossi
The House on Thursday approved a bill to boost San Francisco Bay Area water recycling, but only after lawmakers vented once more their unhappiness about San Joaquin Valley irrigation shortages. | 10/15/09 16:50:00 By - Michael Doyle
A beef industry executive and potential donor to Cal Poly forced the school to change a lecture by agriculture critic Michael Pollan, raising questions about academic freedom. | 10/15/09 11:43:42 By - Nick Wilson
Some Alaska ports of call have asked the Environmental Protection Agency to rethink -- or at least slow down -- its plans to impose stricter air quality requirements for cruise ships and other large oceangoing vessels. | 10/14/09 19:26:00 By - Erika Bolstad
San Joaquin Valley lawmakers failed Wednesday in efforts to turn a San Francisco Bay Area water recycling bill toward the Valley's advantage. | 10/14/09 18:54:00 By - Michael Doyle
More than 4,500 people gathered in Kentucky for a public hearing on proposed chnges to regulations that allow valleys to be filled in with debris from mountaintop mining. | 10/14/09 10:08:52 By - Dori Hjalmarson
There are a few upbeat findings in a new federal study of the assorted threats posed to the nation by Burmese pythons and eight other large exotic constrictors. South Florida ranks as ground zero for potential ecological damage from giant invasive snakes, according to the new risk assessment. | 10/14/09 07:15:14 By - Curtis Morgan
California legislative leaders say they intend to hold hearings on controversial water bills next week, a move that should appease complaints that the process has been too secret. A special legislative session on the subject is technically under way now, after being called Sunday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. | 10/14/09 07:01:11 By - Matt Weiser
Duke Energy has picked the first four sites for its $50 million solar rooftops program, which will install enough solar panels to power about 1,300 homes. | 10/13/09 19:39:14 By - Bruce Henderson
The nation's most powerful judges Tuesday plowed into a bitter dispute over water use between South Carolina and North Carolina, asking pointed questions of lawyers for both states. | 10/13/09 18:44:00 By - James Rosen
Crowds are expected and tensions are high in the Eastern Kentucky coal field surrounding a public hearing on changes to a 1982 federal regulation allowing streams to be filled with dirt and rock leftover from mountaintop mining. | 10/13/09 18:43:29 By - Dori Hjalmarson
Tucked away in a three-acre former vacant lot in Rosewood between an empty warehouse and an industrial laundry is an odd sight: an organic farm and fish hatchery. | 10/13/09 16:23:46 By - Jeff Wilkinson
The first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics also has bolstered the credibility of Alaskans who worked for decades to instill the concept of public ownership of the state's natural resources. | 10/13/09 14:06:35 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
ATV owners across South Florida have clamored for years for open land to ride without a hassle. Now, Miami-Dade Parks Department planners, in a joint proposal with Collier County, believe they've found just the spot. It's in the middle of the Everglades, on a site where Miami-Dade County decades ago envisioned a massive jetport before public and political outrage scuttled the project. Environmentalists and regulators are dubious. | 10/12/09 07:09:21 By - Curtis Morgan
Residents of the mine-waste polluted town of Treece, Kansas have about 60 percent more lead in their bloodstream than the average Kansan, according to the results of medical tests performed last month. | 10/09/09 07:08:25 By - Dion Lefler
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is firing back at the Environmental Protection Agency, which opposed her move last month to limit its ability to move forward with the regulation of some greenhouse gas emissions. | 10/08/09 19:31:16 By - Erika Bolstad
North Cascades National Park is a contradiction. To begin with, it's more than a singular park. It's part of a complex spread out over 1,069 square miles from Lake Chelan to the Canadian border that includes the Ross Lake and Lake Chelan national recreation areas. | 10/08/09 16:28:02 By - Jeffrey P. Mayor
A Senate Democrat who's been worried about the impact of impending climate and energy legislation on manufacturing said Wednesday that he'd back the historic legislation if it contains enough investment incentives and protection for American businesses. | 10/07/09 19:46:00 By - Renee Schoof
The Obama administration's Ocean Policy Council is calling for a coordinated approach to restoring fragile ocean areas, many of which have been damaged by decades of piecemeal management decisions by the federal government. | 10/07/09 16:30:00 By - Bridget Macdonald
These are the lazy, hazy spider days of autumn. Walk through the garden at night or early morning, and their webs cling to your face and clothes. Some creep into our houses and garages. | 10/07/09 16:21:23 By - Beccy Tanner
An analysis of data Progress Energy and Duke Energy submitted to state regulators shows all 13 coal-ash impoundments at coal-fired power plants in North Carolina have contaminated nearby groundwater. | 10/07/09 12:42:31 By - Bruce Henderson
President Barack Obama on Monday ordered the federal government -- the nation's largest energy user -- to cut its greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce its impact on the environment. Obama's edict is the first time a president is requiring the federal agencies to reduce their overall greenhouse gas emissions. | 10/05/09 19:32:00 By - Renee Schoof
The coal industry has started to take a more aggressive approach to protecting its interests in Kentucky and other states. It's starting a new public relations campaign to try to make people see coal in a positive light. | 10/05/09 10:47:27 By - Dori Hjalmarson
Some people in Sacramento think the city should take a closer look at plans to have a water bottling company start a plant that would draw water at a time when the city is in the third year of a drought. | 10/05/09 10:28:03 By - Jim Downing and Ryan Lillis
A new study shows deer-related crashes reported to police hit a high last year across North Carolina, as new residents and increasing development gobble up habitat. | 10/05/09 13:00:43 By - Christopher D. Kirkpatrick
The world's largest wind farm officially got up and running Thursday, with all 627 towering wind turbines churning out electricity across 100,000 acres of West Texas farmland. | 10/02/09 14:54:56 By - John McFarland
This week marks a milestone in a 12-year effort to restore a large estuary on the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. Man-made dikes built al century ago have been removed, and the salt water of Puget Sound once again creates a watery landscape. | 10/02/09 12:04:59 By - John Dodge
Superintendent of Everglades National Park says contract to break open a dam and release water is an ilmportant step towards everglades restoration. | 10/02/09 11:51:30 By - Curtis Morgan
Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens on Thursday broke the public silence he has maintained since his election defeat in November, delivering a vintage pro-development speech to the Alaska Industry Support Alliance that steered clear of the issues that cost him his job. | 10/02/09 06:44:55 By - Richard Mauer
Ungainly in takeoff and landing, but graceful in flight, the brown pelican is familiar to Gulf Coast residents. And now it may be soaring to a point where it no longer perches on the endangered species list. | 10/01/09 19:54:33 By - J. R. Welsh
America's national parks are at risk of disappearing or being fundamentally changed as seas rise, glaciers melt, trees die and animal habitat changes as a result of climate change, according to a report Thursday from two environmental groups. | 10/01/09 17:16:00 By - Renee Schoof
Blocked more than 100 years by man-made dikes, the waters of Puget Sound returned to the Nisqually River estuary Wednesday, creating a watery landscape few if any people alive today have ever seen. | 10/01/09 16:56:32 By - John Dodge
The House on Thursday gave final approval to a $33.5 billion energy and water bill, a snap compared to a future Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta package some lawmakers now envision. | 10/01/09 16:42:00 By - Michael Doyle
Ending a decade of litigation over development plans for Yosemite Valley, federal officials gave up on Wednesday, agreeing to start from scratch. | 10/01/09 15:12:25 By - John Ellis
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and timber giant Sierra Pacific Industries on Wednesday evening announced the nation's largest forest carbon-offset project, meant to keep millions of tons of climate-warming gases out of the atmosphere over the next century. Some environmental advocates said it's a sign that the timber industry is poised to capitalize on a provision that allows clear-cutting on land enrolled in carbon-offset programs. | 10/01/09 07:02:29 By - Jim Downing
Both sides in last year's ballot box ruckus over mining — the most expensive election battle waged in Alaska history — may have to pay state regulators major penalties for campaign law violations. After months of investigation, state regulators are wrapping up their cases against the groups and individuals involved in the $12.5 million fight over Ballot Measure 4, which sought new limits on water pollution from large mines. | 10/01/09 06:48:31 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
Backed by a giant American flag and rows of young veterans and business executives, a group of Democratic senators unveiled an energy and climate bill Wednesday that they say will increase jobs and cut the billions spent on foreign oil. | 09/30/09 18:42:00 By - Renee Schoof
Audubon of Kansas, along with another group, Defenders of Wildlife, allege that the EPA ignored the concerns of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when it approved a plan to kill prairie dogs by using pesticides that are also dangerous to other wildlife. | 09/30/09 18:38:06 By - David Goldstein
Wearing sunglasses, California's junior Democratic senator, Barbara Boxer, made her way to a stage on the east lawn of the Capitol, then stood in front of a huge U.S. flag and waved to a throng of supporters as U2's "It's a Beautiful Day" roared through the loudspeakers. | 09/30/09 16:04:00 By - Rob Hotakainen
Florida Power & Light plans to build two more nuclear reactors at the Turkey Point nuclear power station east of Homestead. Environmentalists worry that the water that's required to cool the new reactors would overtax the local supply, and should be a bigger concern to residents than plans for new overhead power lines. | 09/30/09 15:29:52 By - Tania Valdemoro and Laura Morales
On a stage in front of the Capitol with a giant American flag behind them, a group of senators Wednesday unveiled a new climate bill that they say will increase jobs and reduce the billions spent on foreign oil. | 09/30/09 14:43:37 By - Renee Schoof
In a nod to residents of California's Central Valley and their increasingly angry congressional allies, the administration has agreed to seek an independent review by the National Academy of Sciences of the controversial measures now protecting fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. | 09/30/09 14:21:00 By - Michael Doyle
Mountaintop removal coal mining is moving up on the list of what Kentuckians identify as an environmental problem in the state, according to a new survey. | 09/30/09 13:25:36 By - Andy Mead
A Kansas conservation group has sued the Environmental Protection Agency over a plan to kill prairie dogs by using pesticides that are also dangerous to other wildlife. | 09/30/09 18:19:39 By - David Goldstein
Hoping to encourage residents to save water and help local businesses, Grover Beach, California, city leaders are offering rebates for residents who replace their grass lawns with drought-resistant gardens. | 09/29/09 16:44:31 By - Sona Patel
A sewer line in south Kansas City has spilled at least 3 million gallons of raw sewage into a tributary of the Blue River, state officials said Tuesday. | 09/29/09 14:55:58 By - Karen Dillon
A record-breaking drought in Guatemala, plus higher food prices and a drop in remittances, is raising concerns that malnutrition could spread throughout the country. | 09/29/09 10:27:37 By - Trenton Daniel
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will host an international climate summit this week in Los Angeles. | 09/29/09 10:06:14 By - Kevin Yamamura
Opponents of a proposed road through Alaska's Izembek Wildlife Refuge have enlisted the help of an environmental heavyweight: former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. If the department agrees to the road, it would the first authorized in a wilderness area in the 45-year history of the Wilderness Act, Babbitt warned, setting a "dangerous precedent." | 09/28/09 20:45:29 By - Erika Bolstad
Exelon, the nation's biggest operator of nuclear power plants, said Monday that it's quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of the business group's lobbying against climate and energy legislation. Last week, two other large energy companies, Pacific Gas and Electric and PNM Resources, also quit the Chamber over objections to its stance on climate change. | 09/28/09 18:49:00 By - Renee Schoof
New plans show a striking new home for the Miami Science Museum. The downtown building will have an energy-efficient design with a series of layered outdoor terraces, a Gulf Stream aquarium and a clear canopy that would let natural light flow in. | 09/28/09 12:46:11 By - Andres Viglucci
An investigation by the Sacramento Bee finds that California's ink cartridge recycling program hasn't delivered on climate benefits. | 09/28/09 12:40:37 By - Tom Knudson
Public service announcements, fliers, and corporate-gift cards are all aimed at getting N.C. households to comply with a state law kicking in Thursday that bans plastic bottles from landfills. | 09/28/09 12:36:28 By - Lynn Bonner
Arctic coastal communities have begun their seasonal hunt of bowhead whales. | 09/28/09 12:35:44 By - Kyle Hopkins
Of the many engineering atrocities inflicted on the Everglades, the C-111 ranks high on the list. The canal was built in the 1960s for the Aerojet Corp., which was then building moon rocket engines so big they had to be barged. The rocket plant closed decades ago. Now, after years of delay, the South Florida Water Management District is poised to begin healing the unnatural wound with $25 million in projects. | 09/27/09 14:46:24 By - Curtis Morgan
In a nine-year effort that could cost up to $1.2 billion, California's long-neglected 350-mile San Joaquin River will be reconnected with the Pacific Ocean. Salmon, which once teemed in its waters, may again migrate from near Fresno to the ocean. | 09/27/09 12:49:31 By - Mark Grossi
After lagging behind other East Coast states in developing wind as an energy source, North Carolina is preparing to plunge in with a test program with one to three wind towers. Residents and business leaders, though, expressed concern about what large wind turbines might do to the ocean views sought by tourists. | 09/26/09 18:44:22 By - Lynn Bonner
The auto industry for decades worked to make cars as quiet as possible. With electric cars the near ultimate has been achieved virtually no noise at all. But we may have a problem. To be more specific, pedestrians may have a problem. And if you're a blind pedestrian used to hearing cars coming, there may really be a problem. | 09/26/09 14:58:32 By - Steve Everly
The Obama administration must now figure out whether to let scientists second-guess some key California water delivery decisions. Potential problems await, whichever way the administration moves. | 09/25/09 16:48:00 By - Michael Doyle
Residents of Treece, Kansas moved a step closer to being moved out of their lead-polluted town Thursday when the U.S. Senate approved an amendment to allow the Environmental Protection Agency to buy out and shut down the community. | 09/25/09 07:09:42 By - Dion Lefler
The hunt is on again for a California firebug, whose handiwork ripped through Los Angeles County over the past 30 days. The flames have reignited the passion of California lawmakers for a national registry of convicted arsonists — much like that for sex offenders. | 09/25/09 06:46:36 By - Marjie Lundstrom
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, wanted to limit for a year the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and other stationary sources of pollution. Murkowski objected to the agency's using the Clean Air Act to limit emissions, as required by a 2007 Supreme Court ruling. | 09/24/09 17:58:12 By - Erika Bolstad
As the United States begins spending $3.4 billion in stimulus money to seek a commercially viable way to capture carbon dioxide from coal burning and bury it underground, some energy experts say that doing some of the work as a joint project in China would cut costs and time. | 09/24/09 16:39:00 By - Renee Schoof
After decades of talk about cleaning up Florida's Lake Okeechobee, pollution has gotten much worse. | 09/24/09 15:35:32 By - Curtis Morgan
Farmers and ranchers who want to be good land stewards can get a little monetary help from Uncle Sam. | 09/24/09 14:15:37 By - Carol Reiter
A romantic marriage proposal on a Hilton Head Island beach Tuesday night had an unintended consequence -- the death of about 60 federally protected loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings. | 09/24/09 13:47:45 By - Daniel Brownstein
A Central Valley water amendment that failed Tuesday night in the Senate nonetheless succeeded in driving a wedge between Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and some key California farmers. Not to mention between Feinstein and Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia. | 09/23/09 17:11:00 By - Michael Doyle
Public service announcements, fliers, and in Raleigh's case, corporate-sponsored gift cards, are all aimed at getting North Carolina households to do their part in complying with a state law kicking in Oct. 1 that bans plastic bottles from landfills. | 09/23/09 15:17:20 By - Lynn Bonner
The feds confirmed what a lot of farm folks already knew. This is a disaster area. A declaration of disaster by the U.S. Department of Agriculture has opened the doors for Merced County farmers and ranchers to get low-cost loans because of drought losses. | 09/23/09 14:47:07 By - Carol Reiter
Boise's average temperature has risen nearly one degree in the last century, triggering a series of changes inIdaho rivers, forests, range and farmland. You don't have to believe - as most of the world's scientists do - that the change is caused by increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere brought on by human activities - to realize something is happening. | 09/23/09 14:17:40 By - Rocky Barker
The EPA says Kentucky regulators granted a permit for a new coal-fired power plant that lacks air pollution limits required by law. | 09/23/09 11:35:48 By - Andy Mead
Officials in Miami have started bulldozing dozens of stately old Australian pines along one of Miami's most scenic stetches. Many people are upset. | 09/23/09 11:32:29 By - By Curtis Morgan
Some quick facts about where plastic grocery bags come from, and where they go. And how they use energy: producing one standard plastic grocery bag consumes as much energy as running a 100-watt light bulb for one to two hours. | 09/23/09 11:25:42 By -
The Bellingham Housing Authority has been awarded a little over $9.9 million in federal stimulus money, which will be used to make three of its senior high-rise buildings in the city more energy- and water-efficient | 09/22/09 13:20:08 By - Kie Relyea
BP Exploration Inc. has paid $1.7 million to the state due to inadequate oil spill protection measures at Prudhoe Bay and other North Slope oil fields, state officials announced Tuesday. BP said Tuesday that it worked with DEC to find and fix the violations. | 09/22/09 21:44:23 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao of China - the leaders of the two countries that emit the most greenhouse gases - pledged at a United Nations summit Tuesday that their countries would take bold actions to protect the Earth's future climate from irreversible damages. | 09/22/09 18:44:00 By - Warren P. Strobel and Renee Schoof
A pair of solar farms proposed for the Panoche Hills of western Fresno County and eastern San Benito County could become the biggest installations of their kind in the world. | 09/22/09 15:25:57 By - Tim Sheehan
One of the things most people don't realize, or think about, is that the average prison inmate in the United States flushes the toilet in his cell about 30 times a day — far more often than a person out in the world. That makes the invention of a highly secure toilet that uses just one gallon of water per flush a major development. | 09/22/09 11:39:59 By - Donald Bradley
Environmentalists say they're disappointed in a proposal by Sen. Lisa Murkowski to force the Environmental Protection Agency to hold off for a year on regulating so-called "stationary" emitters of greenhouse gases, such as power plants. | 09/22/09 06:37:50 By - Erika Bolstad
Grizzly bears in eastern Idaho, Montana and Wyoming were returned Monday to federal protection under the Endangered Species Act by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy. The ruling reverses a decision made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2007 that transferred control of grizzly bears to the states. | 09/21/09 15:41:41 By - Rocky Barker
Discoveries in West Miami-Dade have scientists worried about a new, potentially more troublesome species of python — the African rock python — establishing itself in the Everglades. | 09/21/09 07:06:52 By - Curtis Morgan
Global climate change affects national security, a former four-star general and assistant commandant of the Marine Corps told about 150 people gathered Thursday at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. | 09/18/09 12:56:44 By - Patrick Donahue
In his first trip out of state since he replaced Sarah Palin as Alaska's governor, Sean Parnell urged the Obama administration to consider the state's perspective as it weighs whether to allow oil exploration to go forward in Arctic waters. The Obama administration is reviewing a Bush-era proposal on oil, gas leases. | 09/18/09 06:44:04 By - Erika Bolstad
A three-year pilot project using an aquatic beetle to tackle a milfoil infestation in Capitol Lake is off to a good start. | 09/17/09 15:23:25 By - John Dodge
A bill meant to deter fraud in California's nation-leading organic farming industry is headed to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk. The bill increases penalties for violations of organic fertilizer standards, expands state regulators' inspection authority and raises as much as $416,000 annually for enforcement through new fees on fertilizer makers. | 09/17/09 06:51:19 By - Jim Downing
It's a hot topic, especially in the cold Arctic. How do oil and gas developers do business and have positive relationships with Alaska Natives who own a large chunk of the land and natural resources in the state, but need that land to remain unpolluted and wildlife-rich to preserve their way of life? | 09/17/09 06:46:55 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order Tuesday on utilities' use of renewable energy. It assigns the California State Air Resources Board the task of charting how utilities arrive at using at least 33 percent renewable energy by 2020. He's poised to veto two bills that would limit out-of-state power purchases. | 09/16/09 12:04:38 By - Susan Ferriss
In a case closely followed by environmental and business interests, a rewritten plan for restoring endangered and threatened wild salmon runs on the Columbia and Snake rivers in Washington state and Idaho includes studying the possibility of breaching four major hydroelectric dams if other steps don't reverse the decline. | 09/15/09 17:16:00 By - Les Blumenthal
The U.S. and China should be able to agree on energy cooperation projects that reduce greenhouse gases and lead to a successful outcome at international climate talks in Copenhagen in December, two U.S. climate insiders said Tuesday. | 09/15/09 16:37:00 By - Renee Schoof and Margaret Talev
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will take charge today of how California utilities meet a goal that one-third of their power be generated by renewable energy by 2020. | 09/15/09 06:49:21 By - Susan Ferriss
Costs of home solar are coming down, and utility rates are going up. That may be the beginning of growth in home solar power in Sacramento. | 09/14/09 10:11:15 By - Jim Downing
The California Board of Forestry has adopted new rules on logging near streams and has rejected protections sought by by National Marine Fisheries Service and the state Department of Fish and Game. A federal fisheries official said the new rules likely would push the state's imperiled salmon and steelhead closer to extinction. | 09/14/09 10:05:10 By - Matt Weiser
Government officials and a private company are working on plans to build a power plant run on biomass in the Lake Tahoe Basin. | 09/14/09 09:51:54 By - Ed Fletcher
Two transmission line projects, considered vital to the West's future power needs, can't seem to find the path of least resistance. | 09/13/09 08:40:03 By - Rocky Barker
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that 79 applications for surface coal-mine permits in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Tennessee might violate the nation's Clean Water Act and require closer scrutiny. The EPA's action was an abrupt shift from the Obama administration's approach in May, when it blocked only six of 48 permits. | 09/11/09 18:54:00 By - Renee Schoof
Since early August, icebreakers from the two countries have criss-crossed icy areas of the Beaufort Sea, measuring how far the continental shelf extends into the Arctic. The farther the shelf extends, the larger the swatch of the Arctic sea floor over which the United States and Canada can assert exclusive control of minerals and resources there. | 09/11/09 17:31:23 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
Federal regulators will take a closer look at nearly 50 requests for surface coal-mining permits in Eastern Kentucky because of the potential for the operations to hurt water quality, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday morning. | 09/11/09 15:48:51 By - Bill Estep
While the cellular industry dismisses such fears and the federal government essentially declares cell phones safe, the Environmental Working Group thinks the radiation emitted by the devices can cause brain cancer and other illnesses. | 09/11/09 07:22:25 By - Scott Canon
El Nino, a local warming of surface waters in the Pacific Ocean that affects atmospheric circulation, has helped keep the hurricane season normal so far. | 09/11/09 10:19:24 By - Curtis Morgan
Washington state's only coal-fired power plant would reduce mercury and nitrogen oxide emissions under a proposed agreement. The plan, however, does not spell out any reduction of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. | 09/11/09 10:29:34 By - John Dodge
Eleven years ago, author, filmmaker and alternative-fuel advocate Josh Tickell came to the Capitol in a vehicle that ran on used vegetable oil — the cooking fluid of choice for french fries. He was back in Sacramento on Wednesday, driving a modified Toyota Prius running on a fuel mixture that includes 5 percent algae-based biofuel. | 09/10/09 06:55:39 By - Mark Glover
Water managers reached a tentatiave deal with a contractor after scuttling work on a reservoir that is not needed as a result of the Florida governor's land deal with U.S. Sugar. | 09/10/09 12:34:41 By - Curtis Morgan
The Navy has selected a site bordering a federally protected whale nursery stretching from Savannah to Sebastian for an undersea warfare range, where ships, submarines and aircraft outfitted with powerful sonar can practice hunting subs. | 09/09/09 18:03:04 By - Curtis Morgan
Crazy ants, so named because they move in all directions rather than in a straight line, first surfaced in Houston seven years ago. Now the ants have been seen in San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley, alarming researchers who say the ants are so voracious they force other wildlife to flee. | 09/09/09 16:49:00 By - Bill Hanna
An investigation shows Charlotte, N.C., revised its traffic estimates downward, which helped keep federal highway dollars flowing. EPA rules that road-building plans complement effots to clean the air have been ineffective. | 09/09/09 11:36:05 By - Steve Harrison
The fallout continues at the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, as one lobbyist resigns and two staffers are put on leave. | 09/09/09 11:26:55 By - Mary Ellen Klas
Some San Luis Obispo County residents hope to make the case that three large solar plants proposed for the Carrizo Plain reflect a flawed state policy on renewable energy and will permanently damage the valley and its wildlife. | 09/09/09 10:59:15 By - David Sneed
America's national security is at risk unless Congress and the Obama administration end partisan wrangling and agree on legislation to reduce U.S. contributions to climate change, a bipartisan group of former presidential advisers, cabinet members, senators and military leaders said Tuesday | 09/08/09 16:21:00 By - Renee Schoof
As California looks for an answer to its water shortages, much of the debate focuses on dams. | 09/08/09 10:08:39 By - Matt Weiser
Environmental pressures are mounting on Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway's proposed freight center in Johnson County, Kansas, with experts saying it would contribute to the region's already serious air pollution problems. | 09/08/09 07:24:00 By - Brad Cooper
With ice vanishing from Arctic seas, ships are now venturing north further than they generally have. Last week showed the result. A crew member of one vessel fell ill more than 1,000 miles from the nearest Coast Guard station even as two German cargo ships escorted by a Russian ice breaker entered the Arctic bound from Japan to Europe, saving thousands of miles, 400 tons of fuel and nine days of travel time. | 09/06/09 13:08:46 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
Slow increases in global temperature could cut the yields of some of the world's key crops nearly in half, a North Carolina University scientist says. | 09/04/09 10:56:36 By - Jay Price
The Arctic was cooling for 1,900 years because of a natural change in Earth's orbit, according to a study published Thursday in Science magazine. The orbit hasn't changed, adding evidence that warming is caused by burning fossil fuels, the study concludes. | 09/03/09 14:17:00 By - Renee Schoof
A study from Duke Medical School found former construction workers at the Department of Energy's Hanford nuclear reservation had higher risks of death from some forms of cancer. | 09/03/09 10:23:37 By - Annette Cary
A task force in Kentucky looking at biomass and biofuels sees economic benefits for farmers and forest owners. | 09/03/09 10:11:34 By - Bill Estep
The five-story-tall engines on oceangoing vessels burn some of the dirtiest oil — bottom-of-the-barrel bunker — and churn out a substantial amount of the air pollution in American port cities, coastal communities along shipping lanes and places hundreds of miles inland. | 09/02/09 17:04:00 By - Renee Schoof
A group of powerful legislators and busines groups _ including oil companies _ have been working to win approval to drill for oil off Florida. | 09/02/09 09:26:38 By - Mary Ellen Klas
White House officials visited Kansas City and said it's inner city effort to weatherize houses, add bus rapid transit and sustainable energy was a model for the nation. | 09/02/09 09:45:21 By - Lynn Horsley
A U.S. bankruptcy judge in Texas has concluded that Grupo Mexico should regain control of Asarco even though it had been accused of gutting the century-old mining/smelting company and the federal government and 11 states Washington opposed the reorganization plan. | 09/02/09 04:09:44 By - Les Blumenthal
Hunters have started shooting wolves in Idaho as hunting season opens. A federal judge is weighing whether to close it. | 09/02/09 09:35:11 By - Rocky Barker
State regulators have found dangerous levels of selenium in water and fish near coal mines in Eastern Kentucky, but they have not required mine operators to monitor for the mineral, environmental groups charged Tuesday. | 09/01/09 14:44:53 By - Andy Mead
The Big Meadow wildfire may extend the drive into Yosemite National Park for some visitors, but officials don't think it will keep people away for the Labor Day weekend. | 09/01/09 14:32:46 By - Denny Boyles
Residents of Treece will be tested for lead poisoning next week, in response to concerns expressed to high-level federal officials who recently visited the contaminated southeast Kansas community. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency will install air monitors to check for airborne lead and other possible contaminants. | 09/01/09 07:12:39 By - Dion Lefler
Alaskans are starting to get heated up over climate legislation pending in Congress. Friends and foes in Anchorage this week are taking their ideas and concerns on the public circuit, with an anti-bill rally on Monday and a pro-bill roundtable discussion scheduled on Wednesday. | 09/01/09 06:38:20 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
As the state prepares to close 100 state parks, visitors to one of them say they'd rather pay more than see it close. | 08/31/09 15:03:09 By - Lisa Millegan
A federal "cash for appliances" program is likely on its way to a store near you before the end of the year. Comparatively unnoticed in the economic stimulus package approved by Congress earlier this year was a $300 million program offering rebates to buyers of more energy-efficient appliances and other products with the the Energy Star label. | 08/31/09 06:52:34 By - Mark Glover
It is among the nastiest substances on earth: more than 14,000 tons of highly radioactive waste left over from the building of the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. As the Obama administration and Senate leaders move to scuttle a proposed repository for the waste in Nevada, the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state — along with federal facilities in Idaho and South Carolina — could become the de facto dump sites for years to come. | 08/30/09 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
The discovery of the bug comes at a time when invasive whiteflies and red bay ambrosia beetles are threatening South Florida's landscaping and avocado farming industry, but entomologists are saying there isn't enough information about the South African visitor to know whether the bug's presence could be damaging. | 08/30/09 04:09:10 By - David Smiley
A coalition of sportsmen groups, businesses and conservation groups are asking Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to reject a plan from the final months of the Bush administration that would open roughly 1 million acres in the Bristol Bay region to potential mining and oil and gas leasing. Alaska's Bristol Bay watershed is home to some of the world's most productive salmon streams. | 08/27/09 05:42:49 By - Elizabeth Bluemink
A U.S. Senate tour of Alaska's climate change hot spots has been postponed so that participating senators may attend the funeral of their Democratic colleague, Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. | 08/26/09 22:03:55 By - Erika Bolstad
Tumwater Collision has joined a small, but growing, number of auto collision repair shops in the state that have switched to waterborne paints to reduce air pollution escaping from their shop. | 08/25/09 14:30:39 By - John Dodge
After the discovery of a "farm-raised" coral spawn, Florida researchers have hopes of reversing the decline of two reef-building species. | 08/24/09 07:10:29 By - Curtis Morgan
After two centuries of an epic infestation, Alaska's Rat Island finally may merit a name change. The island, part of a national wildlife refuge in the sprawling Aleutian chain, appears to be pest-free for the first time since rats overran it after a Japanese sailing ship wrecked there in the late 1700s. | 08/24/09 06:00:00 By - Erika Bolstad
Highly invasive mussels are lurking on the Northwest's doorstep, threatening to gum up the dams that produce the region's cheap electricity, clog drinking water and irrigation systems, jeopardize aquatic ecosystems and upset efforts to revive such endangered species as salmon. | 08/23/09 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
DuPont plans to invest $55 million in North Carolina to increase production of materials used in solar panels. | 08/21/09 12:34:31 By - Alan M. Wolf
California officials have released a public health goal for how much chromium 6 creates a health risk in water. The industrial metal is popularly known as the "Erin Brockovich chemical." | 08/21/09 12:27:31 By - Susan Ferriss
A glitch in a sonar station used to count salmon means that more fish were making it upriver than estimated. However, that's not much comfort for fishermen in Western Alaska who depend on fish for food and income and have endured restrictions on fishing. | 08/20/09 18:37:47 By - Kyle Hopkins
So your car isn't a clunker? And you're not buying a new home? But maybe your air-conditioning unit is on the fritz. Or your small business needs new equipment or office furniture. Perhaps you have always wanted solar panels. Then there is a tax break waiting for you, too. | 08/20/09 15:51:41 By - Nirvi Shah
Hurricane Bill, the season's first major hurricane, weakened slightly on Thursday, but could get stronger again by the end of today or Friday. | 08/20/09 11:07:24 By - Curtis Morgan
In quick succession Wednesday, opening speakers at the Coal-Gen industry conference in Charlotte delivered sober messages tempered by can-do optimism. Chief among them: legislation working its way through Congress to cap emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas of which coal power is a major source. | 08/19/09 20:39:43 By - Bruce Henderson
Sen. Sam Brownback said Monday he doesn't expect cap-and-trade legislation to be passed this fall by the Senate. | 08/19/09 16:21:00 By - Rick Plumlee
Has Earth's fever broken? Official government measurements show that the world's temperature has cooled a bit since reaching its most recent peak in 1998. That's given global warming skeptics new ammunition to attack the prevailing theory of climate change. | 08/19/09 16:03:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Rep. Jim McDermott says he's no Don Quixote. But for the fifth time the Seattle lawmaker has introduced legislation that likely will go nowhere, puts his Democratic colleagues from Washington in an awkward position and sharpens the focus on Snake River dam breaching just as the Obama administration prepares its salmon recovery plan. | 08/19/09 16:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
Hurricane Bill has become a Category 4 storm. Forecasters see it veering away from the East Coast and heading to Bermuda. | 08/19/09 10:36:40 By - Curtis Morgan
After years of work, California still cannot make good on a promise of clean water for all. Residents in the Central Valley continue to rely on groundwater tained by pesticides, nitrates, industrial chemicals and arsenic. | 08/19/09 10:31:53 By - Susan Ferriss
Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson called on the state's powerful oil regulatory agency Tuesday to open hearings into allegations that Exxon Mobil Corp. improperly plugged and sabotaged oil wells in a South Texas county after failed negotiations to reduce royalty payments. | 08/19/09 07:47:07 By - Dave Montgomery
Pierre Saget of Benton City and seven of his neighbors are getting new fish screens for their irrigation intakes on the Yakima River with help from Benton Conservation District and a $42,000 grant from the Salmon Recovery Funding Board. | 08/18/09 15:21:51 By - John Trumbo
Progress Energy plans to shut down three coal-fired power plants in Wayne County, N.C., and build a natural gas-fueled plant at the site. The $900 million project would increase the amount of electricity produced at the site while reducing pollution, the Raleigh-based utility announced Tuesday. | 08/18/09 15:11:35 By - Alan M. Wolf
North Carolina's large energy companies say they need more time than a state law gives them to make electricity from pig and chicken manure. | 08/18/09 13:25:59 By - Alan M. Wolf
Drained swamps created farm land in North Carolina, but some remain. | 08/18/09 13:20:46 By - David Bracken
The federal Cash for Clunkers program is getting a lot of trucks and sport-utility vehicles off the road, but it hasn't made best-sellers out of the Prius or other gas-efficient hybrids. Much to the chagrin of public-interest groups, a fair number of U.S. consumers are turning right around and buying new light trucks with their credits from the Car Allowance Rebate System, or CARS. | 08/18/09 06:42:36 By - Mark Glover
Texas has a new science-based approach to conservation that includes climate change. Studies indicate that by 2100, temperatures in Texas could rise by 3 degrees in the spring and about 4 degrees in other seasons. Precipitation could drop by 5 to 30 percent in the winter, according to The Earth Institute at Columbia University. | 08/17/09 13:39:30 By - Anna M. Tinsley
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