National (U.S.)

Half a mile below the surface, the muddy bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is covered in a layer of oil.

Over the past decade, coal-burning electric power plants have been increasingly replaced by gas-burning plants. While this has helped the environment, the utility companies are motivated largely by the chance to save money. Meanwhile, 10,000 congregations in 38 states, joined through Interfaith Power & Light, are acting to shift the nation toward cleaner power because they think it is the moral thing to do.

Opponents of genetically engineered salmon are warning the Food and Drug Administration not to approve it because they fear fish could escape from aquaculture pens and interbreed with wild stocks or out-compete them.

"It took a little muscle flexing, tough talk and a few threats, but the Environmental Protection Agency got what it wanted Monday: Most states in the Chesapeake Bay region submitted detailed plans to reduce the bay's pollution diet as part of a more aggressive effort to nurse its sickly waters back to good health."

"In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found."

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated more than 187,000 square miles of on-shore barrier islands, denning areas and offshore sea-ice as critical habitat for the threatened polar bear under the Endangered Species Act."

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday it had closed 4,200 square miles/10,880 square kms of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico to royal red shrimping after a commercial shrimper discovered tar balls in his net."

Petrochemical companies are spending more money to influence government decisions on energy and climate.
 

"Now that the Cleantech Open –- the self-described Academy Awards of the clean-technology industry -– is over, we have some new, young companies to watch."

"A coalition of environmental and farmworker groups is urging California's Gov.-elect Jerry Brown to cancel the imminent approval of a controversial agricultural pesticide after he takes office, citing evidence that it is linked to cancer."