National (U.S.)

"Hardly anyone has heard of them, but millions of pounds of glymes are used every year to make household products. Now time is running out for glymes -- at least when it comes to new uses in consumer products. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it plans to clamp down on these little-known ingredients used by a broad array of industries, including manufacturers of lithium batteries, inkjet cartridges, paints, prescription drugs and microchips."

"Monsanto Co. is preparing to launch a genetically altered sweet corn, marking the global seed company's first commercial combination of its biotechnology with a consumer-oriented vegetable product."

"Environmentalists say the Environmental Protection Agency has shot down a request for new regulations to deal with the massive area of low oxygen that crops up every summer in the Gulf of Mexico due to the huge amount of nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizer, urban runoff and sewage systems that winds up in the Gulf."

"The Environmental Protection Agency should order companies such as Schlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co. to disclose the hydraulic fracturing chemicals used in U.S. oil and gas drilling, advocacy groups said."

"DuPont said it plans to stop selling and recall its widely used Imprelis herbicide after customers and several lawsuits complained that the treatment has killed thousands of trees."

"Shell cleared a major hurdle Thursday in its effort to begin a two-year drilling program in the Arctic Ocean next summer, receiving a conditional exploration permit from the federal agency that oversees offshore oil development."

"Raising its forecast, the U.S. government's weather agency on Thursday predicted the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season will produce 14 to 19 named storms, 7 to 10 of them becoming hurricanes."

"Drought worsened in the Midwest during the last week as record-high temperatures stressed the developing corn and soybean crops, while cotton and pastures eroded amid a historic drought in the southern Plains."

Oil and gas executives have long claimed that there is no case in which hydraulic fracturing has contaminated a drinking water aquifer. But such a case exists. And one of the biggest bars to enumerating suspected additional cases is the oil and gas industry's refusal to allow disclosure of them -- a condition of court settlements with landowners.

"Conservation groups working across the Gulf of Mexico are supporting a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would direct to five Gulf states the billions of dollars in fines that may be imposed on BP and other companies found responsible for the last year's oil spill."