"A century-old fight about water from Oregon's Klamath Basin ended Thursday with signed agreements that assure farmers water and power to keep their crops green, and lay out the removal of dams that have blocked salmon from hundreds of miles of spawning grounds."
"The Interior Department is beefing up efforts to ensure companies are paying the royalties they owe from producing energy on federal lands."
"A new Office of Sustainable Communities is being created within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help communities take an integrated approach to making environmental, housing and transportation decisions."
"President Barack Obama's award of billions of dollars in federal nuclear loan guarantees to Southern Co. has angered environmentalists who say the president is embracing the energy powerhouse that worked aggressively to defeat a key climate change bill championed by his administration."
"An environmental contractor dramatically underreported the level of a cancer-causing chemical found in tap water at Camp Lejeune, then omitted it altogether as the Marine base prepared for a federal health review, an Associated Press review has found."
"The early optimism of environmental advocates that the policies of former President George W. Bush would be quickly swept away and replaced by a bright green future under Mr. Obama is for many environmentalists giving way to resignation, and in some cases, anger."
"Industry groups, conservative think tanks, lawmakers and three states filed 16 court challenges to U.S. EPA's "endangerment" finding for greenhouse gases before yesterday's deadline, setting the stage for a legal battle over federal climate policies."
The Trust for Public Land's updated online database includes mapping and a finer level of detail, such as information at the county and parcel levels, for some but not all states as yet.
USDA's first major national survey of U.S. organic farms includes 14,540 farms and ranches that cover 4.1 million acres in 50 states.
University of Virginia researchers find algae-based biofuel uses more energy and water and emits more greenhouse gases than other biofuel sources. However, algae has a high energy yield, and growing it wouldn't significantly affect food crops.
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