National (U.S.)

"NEW ORLEANS -- The Obama administration has released a report on how the Gulf Coast can be restored following the nation's worst offshore oil spill after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana in April 2010. The report from the White House's Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem Restoration Task Force comes out the same week Congress considers a bill designed to handle billions of dollars in Clean Water Act fines BP is expected to pay for the release of more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf."

"A California electric car maker that announced Friday that it was shutting its doors earned the support of a pair of Republican lawmakers who are at the center of the political battle on Capitol Hill over the Department of Energy's renewable energy loan program."

"U.S. EPA [Friday] released a reworked package of proposed rules to tackle toxic emissions from 201,000 of the largest boilers and incinerators nationwide, hoping to clear up complaints from manufacturing groups as the agency clamps down on the industrial boilers that are one of the largest U.S. sources of harmful air pollution."

The gas drilling boom is making at least one congressman rich.

Many landowners who sign leases with oil and gas companies as the "fracking" boom rolls through Texas, Colorado, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia think the lease terms pay them well and protect them from damage. Investigative reporters from the New York Times got the leases and read the fine print. They concluded that many of the leases victimize landowners.

"Exposure to atrazine, a commonly used weed killer, increases the risk of reproductive problems in a wide range of animals, says a new review study that analyzed research from around the world."

"Worries about fires, explosions and chemical releases prompted the federal agency in charge of workplace safety on Wednesday to expand a special inspection program focusing on the nation's chemical plants. Regulators believe the industry is particularly vulnerable to such hazards, meriting the closer attention."

"Yet some plants will continue to be shielded from the special inspections, despite past worker deaths, because of their status as 'model workplaces.'

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who once thought climate change was man-made and required action, has changed his position. He now denies the scientific consensus.

"Jon Jarvis, the director of the National Park Service, has said that its decision to scuttle a planned ban on small plastic water bottles at Grand Canyon National Park had nothing to do with opposition from the Coca-Cola Company. But a November 2010 e-mail released on Thursday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request tells a different story."

Felicity Barringer reports for the New York Times' Green blog December 1, 2011.