"A new wildfire burning through bone-dry grass, shrub and timber has forced the evacuation of dozens of homes in a mountain community in central California and more houses could be in the inferno's path, fire officials said on Saturday."
"The BP oil disaster cost the Gulf of Mexico's commercial fishing industry $94.7 million to $1.6 billion and anywhere from 740 to 9,315 jobs in the first eight months, according to a new study by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management."
"Officials in flood-stricken areas of West Virginia shifted their attention Sunday to repairing damage inflicted by the historic deluge that killed at least 25 people as it washed out homes, roads and bridges. Search and rescue operations continued in some pockets of the state."
"Federal government should have more active role in preparing for natural disaster and cyberattack, report argues."
"A fast-growing wildfire on Thursday destroyed at least 80 homes near the riverside community of Lake Isabella in central California, as a threat to populated areas from five other major blazes across the state diminished, authorities said."
"Firefighters across Arizona and New Mexico battled 31 wildfires on Wednesday, their efforts complicated by a relentless heat wave and bone-dry conditions. And in the Angeles National Forest, on the northern edge of Los Angeles, two fires kept more than 300 families from their homes as the fires threatened to merge into one."
Here are some recent Congressional Research Service reports relevant to the environment and energy beat, thanks to the Federation of American Scientists' Government Secrecy Project.
"Surging wildfires on Tuesday forced new evacuations of hundreds of homes across the West, while firefighters began beating back a pair of big adjacent blazes looming over suburban Los Angeles."
"Wildfire warnings were posted across parts of three Western U.S. states on Sunday as a heat wave baked the region in record, triple-digit temperatures, stoking flames in California from the coastal foothills outside Santa Barbara to desert brush near the Mexican border."
"Oregon has asked the Federal Railroad Administration to place an open-ended moratorium on oil trains traveling through the state, because preliminary findings of an investigation into the June 3 derailment in Mosier suggest inspectors might not be able to detect the problem that likely caused the crash."
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