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Senate Republicans, led by James Inhofe (OK), are saying they will block any effort by the United States to honor the financial pledges, negotiated at last year's Copenhagen talks, to help developing countries reduce their greenhouse emissions and adapt to climate change.

"Seven months after the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the troubled federal agency that oversees offshore drilling has been revamped, renamed and given a new leader with a mandate to turn what critics called an industry lapdog into an effective watchdog. But there's at least one big change the agency hasn't made: fixing its deeply flawed inspection program."

"Since summer, signs of severe food insecurity — droughts, food riots, five- to tenfold increases in produce costs — have erupted around the globe. Several new reports now argue that regionally catastrophic crop failures — largely due to heat stress — are signals that global warming may have begun outpacing the ability of farmers to adapt."

"In what promises to be one of the most impressive innovations to come out of the Cancun climate talks, the philanthropic arm of Google is launching a new technology platform Thursday that will allow worldwide monitoring and measurement of changes in the earth's environment."

"The Obama administration on Wednesday reversed its plans to expand offshore drilling along the Atlantic coast and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico in a retreat prompted by last summer's oil spill."

"Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's announcement about a 'cautious' approach to offshore oil development opens the door to leasing new waters in the Arctic after 2012 and clears the way for full review of a proposed new exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea as early as next summer."

The food-safety bill passed Tuesday by the Senate does not cover meat, poultry, or eggs and does not sort out overlapping federal agency jurisdictions.

"Despite promises of transparency, the US Environmental Protection Agency has refused to release a contractor study that apparently outlines less harmful alternatives to the Arch Coal's Spruce Mine mountaintop-removal project EPA is currently considering for a permit in West Virginia."

"Oil and gas operators could economically capture nearly half their flared or vented natural gas on federal land to boost government royalties and reduce heat-trapping emissions, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released yesterday."