"WICHITA -- Years of drought are reshaping the U.S. beef industry with feedlots and a major meatpacking plant closing because there are too few cattle left in the United States to support them."
"U.S. federal prosecutors have been asked to take legal action over safety and environmental violations discovered on one of two drillships Royal Dutch Shell used last year in Arctic waters off Alaska, officials said on Monday."
"Earth's increasingly hot, wet climate has cut the amount of work people can do in the worst heat by about 10 percent in the past six decades, and that loss in labor capacity could double by mid-century, U.S. government scientists reported on Sunday."
"One of the the nation’s largest utilities agreed Monday to close three of its coal-fired power plants as part of a settlement with government officials and environmental groups, the latest sign of how the nation’s electricity supply is shifting away from coal."
"NEW ORLEANS — BP finally faced off in court Monday against an army of federal and state prosecutors, lawyers and even its contract partners over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill three years ago, contending that it alone should not shoulder blame for the rig explosion that killed 11 workers and soiled beaches and marshes from Louisiana to Florida."
"The former U.S. EPA official who tangled with Texas officials in a drilling contamination case outside Fort Worth said the state's oil and gas regulators were more interested in promoting the industry than policing it."
"You're going to need a bigger fishbowl.
"WASHINGTON, DC -- If Congress does not act this coming week, automatic federal spending cuts, called the sequester, will go into effect March 1 that will impact the environment. Funding for parks, energy development, travel, clean air and water, fish and wildlife protection, pollution prevention, and disaster readiness will be cut."
"A team of state scientists has outlined serious concerns about the damage South Carolina will suffer from climate change – threats that include invading eels, dying salt marshes, flooded homes and increased diseases in the state’s wildlife."
"Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge is a 315,000-acre stretch of eelgrass and tundra pockmarked with lakes and lagoons, a site where the geese called Pacific black brants stop off to feed before they begin their journey to wintering grounds in Mexico."
