EPA and Justice Department officials in the Obama administration are putting more emphasis on environmental justice  -- an effort to reduce the greater hazards faced by poor and minority communities. But that job is not easy, especially in the face of industry resistance.

"Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is introducing a plan today that would allow bison in Yellowstone National Park to travel north outside the park boundaries into Montana's Gardiner Basin during winter months."

"The Pew Environment Group says the Grand Canyon is especially at risk. Critics of the mining say an 1872 law gives companies 'carte blanche.'"

"Wild rice is sacred to the Ojibwe of Minnesota, but that may not be enough to protect it from the promise of jobs that a new copper-nickel mining industry would bring to the state."

"The Tennessee Valley Authority has agreed to shutter 18 coal-fired units at three power plants and make major improvements at 10 other sites, in a deal that's being called one of the largest pollution reductions agreements in the nation's history."
 

"Scuffles between protesters and security guards marred BP's first annual shareholder meeting since the Gulf oil spill Thursday, as investors registered their disapproval with sizable protest votes against company directors."

The fiscal year 2011 budget deal just passed by Congress slashes funds for weather satellites. That may hurt the bottom lines of small and large businesses from farming to shipping and insurance that depend on accurate weather forecasts. It is also wasteful of taxpayer funds, since the temporary budget cut is just show, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and laid-off workers in the program will need to be hired back at greater cost. It may also mean that people will die in weather disasters.

Some 10,000 young activists descend on Washington, DC, this weekend to train, network, lobby, and demonstrate on climate change in an event called Power Shift. On dirty energy, they suspect President Obama has goe over to the dark side.

"With everything Big Oil and the government have learned in the year since the Gulf of Mexico disaster, could it happen again? Absolutely, according to an Associated Press examination of the industry and interviews with experts on the perils of deep-sea drilling."