Public

Congress created a cap-and-trade plan for air pollution from the nation's aging fleet of power plants 20 years ago. In its time, it was successful in cutting pollution, but today, tattered by politics and lawsuits, its future is uncertain.

"An Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis study has found mercury contamination in soil downwind from a coal-fired power plant in Indianapolis, supporting the notion of localized mercury hot spots."

"Shrimp boats that fish in the Gulf of Mexico without the required turtle-excluder devices are killing more sea turtles than is allowed under the Endangered Species Act, the advocacy group Oceana said in a report Tuesday."

"Federal regulators knew potentially contaminated bark and wood chips were being sold from a Superfund site in the asbestos-tainted town of Libby, Mont., for three years before they stopped the practice, according to a letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus."

"Health and environmental groups have mounted a campaign against Bath & Body Works, urging the retailer to stop selling its line of 'Summertime Scent' soaps that contain triclosan, a chemical categorized as a pesticide."

"A Pennsylvania homeowner and an Indiana golf course company have filed a class-action lawsuit against DuPont charging that the chemical giant was either negligent or reckless in putting a new weedkiller on the market."

"Members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission appeared divided Tuesday over how to proceed with a staff proposal that calls for nuclear power plants to be better prepared for blackouts and natural disasters."

"Documents and interviews reveal that one Pa. water utility has already leased its watershed to gas drillers — and many others are being courted."

"In the face of drastic funding cuts and a hostile political environment, U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has told her top deputies to rank which of their programs they deem to be essential and which could fall on the budgetary chopping block."