National (U.S.)

"After an eighth victim dies from the Sept. 9 San Bruno, Calif., explosion, senators introduce another bill that would require remote and automatic shut-off capability. The industry urges regulatory caution."

"The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday said it has formally committed $1 billion in federal stimulus money to the recently retooled FutureGen clean-coal project, beating a deadline to use the money or lose it and kicking off years of further work that could finally see the project completed."

"In a sign of growing bipartisan opposition to a proposed crackdown on air pollution from industrial boilers, 18 Senate Democrats have joined a slew of Republicans in asking EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to scale back the agency's plans."

"A large portion of fines that BP Plc may pay for its role in the worst oil spill in U.S. history should go toward fixing the damage caused to Gulf Coast states, a federal official said on Tuesday."

"A coalition of nine land trusts says it will reach a five-year goal of protecting 50,000 acres in Western North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains."

Travel writers -- paid by BP -- are visiting Florida's beaches in a white stretch limo and getting the word out that the oil is gone and beaches are open for tourism.

EPA last month denied a petition from a coalition of environmental groups to ban lead hunting ammunition, who claimed EPA could do it under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Now the environmentalists have filed a Freedom of Information Act request, seeking documents that could tell whether EPA bowed to pressure from the National Rifle Association in an effort to dispose of the issue before the November election.

"Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is set to present the Obama administration's coastal restoration plan in New Orleans. Perhaps no state is more anxious to see what's in the plan than Louisiana, which has lost hundreds of square miles of coastal land in the last century."

"The carefully cultivated socially liberal image of Ben & Jerry's ice cream has suffered a knock with a decision by the Vermont-based manufacturer to stop calling its food  "all natural" following pressure from a watchdog that questioned whether ingredients such as partially hydrogenated soya bean oil fitted the billing."