National (U.S.)

"CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- A judge on Friday threw out Obama administration rules that sought to slow down expedited environmental review of oil and gas drilling on federal land."

"DuPont was ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to stop selling and recall its Imprelis herbicide, following thousands of complaints that the treatment kills trees."

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"A federal panel sketched out its first vision of a regulatory roadmap for the booming shale natural gas industry on Thursday, urging more transparency on the use of chemicals and more careful treatment of waste water."

"Ray C. Anderson, a leading green business advocate and founder of Interface, one of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers, died this week. He’d spent the last 17 years promoting the benefits of sustainable business practices, not only for protecting the environment but for boosting the bottom line."

"Rick Perry’s likely entry int

"A devastating drought deepened over the last week in many areas, spreading through more of the Plains and going into the Midwest as triple-digit temperatures baked already thirsty crops and livestock."

"About two dozen environmental groups launched a volley of legal challenges at nuclear regulators on Thursday in an attempt to stall action to extend the operation of aging reactors and to delay construction of more advanced nuclear designs."

On Horn Island, off the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, there are still mats of oil from last year's Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster. BP will be returning to clean them up.

"Millions of Americans have been ingesting them for years—perchlorate, hexavalent chromium, volatile organic compounds—not because they’re safe, but because they are among 6,000 toxins the EPA has not gotten around to regulating in municipal drinking water systems.

But after a change in administrations and a scathing review by the General Accounting Office, the EPA has begun to develop regulations to remove these chemicals from tap and bottled water—and industry has begun efforts to delay or prevent their implementation."

"Ready or not, the era of big data is coming to ecology. After years of discussion and debate, the United States is moving forward with an environmental moni­toring network that promises to help transform a traditionally small-scale, local science into a continental-scale group enterprise."