National (U.S.)

President Obama is beating a retreat from some of his strong environmental promises as the campaign season begins.

Energy Secretary Chu faces a grilling on the Solyndra loan today from a hostile House committee.

"U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said it may take similar skills to navigate Washington politics as it does to make advances in physics research, a field in which he won a Nobel Prize in 1997.

A special joint investigation by National Public Radio, the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News, the Investigative News Network, and others shows that hundreds of U.S. facilities have been violating their Clean Air Act permits for years without running into federal or state enforcement. In many cases, the pollution has made people sick, and sometimes local communities have taken up the job that federal and state agencies have failed at.

NPR Series Portal

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Transportation [Wednesday]formally unveiled their joint proposal to set stronger fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for model year 2017-2025 passenger cars and light trucks."

"BP, the biggest oil field operator on Alaska's North Slope, has failed to fix pervasive management and environmental safety problems and is a repeat environmental offender, federal prosecutors said in a new court filing this week."

"Shell Oil, ExxonMobil and Morgan Stanley are among the major oil and financial companies potentially on the hook for millions of dollars in civil fines tied to fraudulent renewable fuel credits — and that could be the tip of the iceberg."

"NEW ORLEANS -- BP has lost two big rulings in its fight to shield itself from potentially having to pay billions of dollars more in damages related to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history."

"Republicans have been attacking environmental regulations, arguing that they hurt the economy and that the costs outweigh the benefits. But four decades of data show they are wrong."

"Even clouds can suffer from inhaling air pollution, a new study finds, resulting in extreme rainfall patterns that appear to be altering climate across the globe."

"A Coast Guard admiral who led the government's response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster is taking over as the nation's chief overseer of offshore drilling safety, the Obama administration said Monday. Rear Adm. James Watson begins his post as director of the Interior Department's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Dec. 1."