"Monsanto Co. is preparing to launch a genetically altered sweet corn, marking the global seed company's first commercial combination of its biotechnology with a consumer-oriented vegetable product."
"Environmentalists say the Environmental Protection Agency has shot down a request for new regulations to deal with the massive area of low oxygen that crops up every summer in the Gulf of Mexico due to the huge amount of nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizer, urban runoff and sewage systems that winds up in the Gulf."
"A federal appeals court [Tuesday] struck down a challenge filed by the Florida Department of Agriculture and several chemical companies and upheld a clean water settlement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and conservation groups."
"The Environmental Protection Agency should order companies such as Schlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co. to disclose the hydraulic fracturing chemicals used in U.S. oil and gas drilling, advocacy groups said."
"Canada's environment ministry will cut or reassign around 10 percent of its workers, unions said Thursday, prompting fears that services like weather forecasting and environmental protection will suffer."
"DuPont said it plans to stop selling and recall its widely used Imprelis herbicide after customers and several lawsuits complained that the treatment has killed thousands of trees."
"Shell cleared a major hurdle Thursday in its effort to begin a two-year drilling program in the Arctic Ocean next summer, receiving a conditional exploration permit from the federal agency that oversees offshore oil development."
"A U.N. report has criticized Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in a region of the Niger Delta which it says needs the world's largest ever oil clean-up, costing an initial $1 billion and taking up to 30 years."
"Raising its forecast, the U.S. government's weather agency on Thursday predicted the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season will produce 14 to 19 named storms, 7 to 10 of them becoming hurricanes."
"Drought worsened in the Midwest during the last week as record-high temperatures stressed the developing corn and soybean crops, while cotton and pastures eroded amid a historic drought in the southern Plains."
