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"The latest science supports substantially tightening U.S. EPA's air quality standards for soot in order to safeguard public health and the environment, according to a draft report from agency scientists."

"Aides from the two House committees with jurisdiction over the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are working together to draft legislation to overhaul and authorize the agency for the first time, according to House Science Chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.)."

"The U.S. Senate approved a bill that extends the $1-a-gallon tax credit for biodiesel, which expired Dec. 31."

"The White House is finalizing rules on the first U.S. greenhouse gas emission standard for automobiles, which would raise average fuel economy 42 percent by 2016 in a bid to slash oil imports and fight climate change."

"Farmers say consolidation in the industry means they're forced to buy more costly seeds. But Monsanto, the world's largest seed firm, says competition 'is alive and flourishing.'"

They call it "wolf jail." Efforts to reintroduce the Mexican gray wolf to a New Mexico border area depend on whether the wolves play by the rules.

"Federal safety regulators recalled a line of Christmas-themed bracelets Thursday, expanding their effort to purge children's jewelry boxes and store shelves of items containing high levels of the toxic metal cadmium."

"A federal appeals court this week moved to allow uranium mining operations in Churchrock, a Navajo community just east of Gallup, New Mexico."

"The Obama administration is trying to dash rumors that it planned to ban recreational fishing in marine waters and the Great Lakes in the wake of a series of Internet posts warning that such a prohibition was imminent."

A former laborer at several nuclear power plants in the U.S. is now being held in Yemen as a suspected member of the same branch of al-Qaida that is linked to the failed Christmas bombing of a jet to Detroit.