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"Consumer, environmental and anti-nuclear advocates said Monday they will fight proposed state legislation allowing Duke Energy to more easily pass costs of a new nuclear plant on to N.C. customers."

"Duke wants N.C. lawmakers to allow it to recoup nuclear pre-construction and financing costs without filing a lengthy general rate case. The bill would instead let utilities adjust rates annually to recover those costs, something South Carolina, Georgia and Florida already allow."

"Dozens of residents in Prichard’s Eight Mile community [Ala.] have sought medical help due to symptoms they believe are related to exposure to mercaptan, the chemical that Mobile Gas spilled in the neighborhood in 2008."

"Some bomb-sniffing dogs trained to help fight terrorism are turning their olfactory attention toward a different scourge: Burmese pythons in Florida's Everglades National Park."

"A decade after landmark toxic-air monitoring prompted a city crackdown on chemical emissions, a new analysis shows significant improvement in some areas — but still cause for concern in neighborhoods near western Louisville’s Rubbertown industries."

"Residents waiting to learn whether their property was contaminated by an insecticide manufacturing plant in their Park Hill neighborhood want to know why it took officials about 25 years to begin testing the soil in and near what has become the city's newest Superfund toxic waste site."

A coal-fired power plant in Georgia has neighbors worried about the consequences of its ash-disposal pond.

"Critics say the measure allows public school teachers to challenge the topics without fear of sanction. Gov. Bill Haslam expresses misgivings about the law."

"ATLANTA -- Clean air advocates and environmental groups won a victory Monday when the utility consortium Power4Georgians agreed to cancel its proposal to build a coal-fired power plant near Fitzgerald in Ben Hill County, Georgia."