National (U.S.)

The federal government today will be auctioning off leases to develop wind energy in offshore waters.

"Two new lawsuits are part of an effort to push EPA to regulate methane from agriculture, the country's biggest source of methane."

"Each year, contaminated food sickens forty-eight million Americans, of whom a hundred and twenty-eight thousand are hospitalized, and three thousand die." The federal food safety system under the Agriculture Department and other agencies fails to protect them."

"Oklahoma’s highest court is about to make a decision that could really shake up the way fracking companies do business in the state."

Labor unions and environmentalists say the ultra-secret Trans Pacific Partnership trade treaty could nullify U.S. laws meant to protet Americans. They oppose the administration's bid for "fast-track" authority to present it to Congress on a take-it-or-leave it basis."

"When a bobcat mother and her kitten curled up together on the UC Santa Cruz campus in early September, the kitten couldn't have known its mother was dying of rat poison."

"Three powerful accidents in recent years highlight weaknesses in the oversight of how natural gas providers maintain the largest pipelines in their networks, accident investigators said today as they issued more than two dozen safety recommendations."

"The Obama administration moved Tuesday to open up a vast stretch of East Coast waters to oil and gas drilling, a decision that could have a profound impact on the economic and environmental future of states from Virginia to Georgia. The move also adds a new dimension to the legacy of President Obama."

"The Obama administration on Tuesday will announce a proposal to open up coastal waters from Virginia to Georgia for oil and gas drilling, according to a person briefed on the plan."

"ANCHORAGE — Bitter reaction here to the Obama administration’s proposal to protect a huge portion of the Arctic goes beyond political divisions over oil and environmental policy, to questions about how Alaskans are perceived and respected in their sometimes awkward long-distance relationship with the rest of the nation, residents and political leaders say."