"WASHINGTON -- Leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees are optimistic that the long-overdue U.S. farm bill will pass, although the House of Representatives vote set for Wednesday could be the more difficult hurdle."
"The U.S. Forest Service considers allowing hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in George Washington National Forest in Virginia, stirring concern about risks to drinking water in the Washington, D.C., area."
"Environmentalists say swaths of Southeastern woodlands are being cut down for 'green' energy efforts across Atlantic."
"Whipping winds look set to hinder a wildfire that forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes on the outskirts of Los Angeles."
"The fire danger in many parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties is 'about as high as it can be,' a meteorologist warned Tuesday."
"Scientists who gathered decades of measurements from hundreds of thousands of trees all over the world are punching a hole in the common assumption that large, old trees are biologically pretty much over the hill.
"The record cold U.S. temperatures may have a silver lining - killing off some tree-eating forest pests that have spread dangerously as the general climate warms up, scientists said."
"BLUE ANCHOR, N.J. — 'Heads up!' Deep in the woods, the whine of chain saws pierced the fall air, and Steve Garcia shouted a warning to fellow loggers as a 40-foot pitch pine crashed to the ground. He was chopping down trees to save the forest as part of New Jersey’s effort to beat back an invasion of beetles."
"A conservation group is calling a bill proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) a 'nightmare for Oregon's forests.'"
"The first fine-scale mapping of global forest cover shows the rate of forest loss in the tropics has increased over the past 12 years. The use of remote sensing satellite data to chronicle changes in global land cover is not new. But in a paper published online this week in the journal Science, researchers provide an exceptionally detailed accounting of gains and loses in global forest cover from 2000 to 2012."
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