"Roy Derrick maneuvered his forklift with a pallet of neatly boxed expired produce and flowers and dropped it into an industrial compactor at Safeway's cavernous return center in Upper Marlboro. As the compactor hummed, compressed food and floral scraps spilled through a chute into a 40-foot trailer, one of five that would make the weekly trip to composting centers in Delaware or Virginia."
"WASHINGTON -- Critics want a halt to offshore Arctic drilling in the wake of Shell's latest mishap in the waters off Alaska but there's no sign the Obama administration and key members of Congress are backing off their support for drilling in the sensitive region."
"Citing shrinking mountain snowpacks as a result of climate change, federal wildlife officials are proposing to list wolverines as threatened under the Endangered Species Act."
"Two new bills introduced in the Montana legislature would usher in a zero-tolerance policy for wild bison, potentially opening the way for a return to the shoot-on-sight practices of years past."
"When red knots descend on the beaches of Delaware Bay this spring famished from their marathon flight toward the Canadian Arctic from the tip of South America, the rosy-breasted shorebirds may find slim pickings instead of the feast of horseshoe crab eggs they count on to fuel the rest of their migration."
California's Monterey Shale formation holds a vast reserve of oil -- on the verge of being tapped -- that could rain riches and controversy on the state.
"The U.S. government on Friday proposed adding wolverines, feisty but rare members of the weasel family, to the federal threatened and endangered species list because global warming is reducing the mountain snows the animals need for survival."
"Duke Energy will close two of its oldest coal-fired power plants, Riverbend west of Charlotte and Buck in Rowan County in April, two years ahead of schedule."
"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Long-term forecasts for coal production in West Virginia and the rest of Central Appalachia continue to show major declines are underway -- and still to come -- for the region's mining industry."
"U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize winner who shepherded an effort to help spur a clean energy U.S. economy, will step down after a tenure rocked by the failures of some costly government investments."
