McClatchy Washington Bureau

Bill would protect huge chunk of California land

While few pieces of major legislation are moving in the current Congress, wilderness bills have been a notable exception, and it has been one of the most striking changes caused by the Democratic takeover of Congress last year. By the time the current session ends, environmentalists say, there's a good chance that an additional 2 million acres of wilderness could be declared off-limits to development. That would double the amount set aside in the last two-year congressional session, when Republicans were in the majority. | 08/17/08 22:41:58 By - Rob Hotakainen

More Chinese, beset by pollution woes, are going green

While Olympic visitors from around the world get a firsthand glimpse this month at China's pollution problems, a homegrown movement is racing to ward off what many here predict could be epic environmental meltdown. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are taking the first steps to turn the tide, fueled by growing unhappiness with the plunging quality of life caused by out-of-control environmental degradation. | 08/17/08 10:54:24 By - Jack Chang

How'd these Germans get to Alaska? They took the fabled Northwest Passage

It's not that easy for hundreds of outsiders to suddenly sneak up on Barrow, considering how the northernmost town in the United States has neither a port nor a road to help them get here. Newcomers pretty much have to arrive on a big noisy plane. Which is why nearly everyone in this historic Inupiat community was surprised last fall when they woke up to find about 400 German tourists walking around town. How the heck did they get here? | 08/15/08 10:48:18 By - George Bryson

Calif. utility agrees to buy solar power from two proposed plants

Pacific Gas and Electric announced Thursday that it has entered into agreements to purchase 800 megawatts of power from two solar plants to be built on the Carrizo Plain. The agreements will make the northern Carrizo Plain around California Valley one of the state's major producers of solar electricity. | 08/14/08 16:06:30 By - David Sneed

U.S. price hikes likely result of Beijing's efforts to curb smog

In what turned out to be a futile effort to rid Beijing of air pollution, officials blocked heavy truck traffic from entering Beijing and closed nearby factories. Those steps will create shortages felt around the world long after the Olympics have ended. U.S. consumers will likely see higher prices if not outright shortages for products such as mobile telephones, auto parts, semiconductors, Vitamin C, and steel. The true impact won't be known till September. | 08/14/08 08:57:12 By - Jack Chang

Everglades reservoir puts sugar deal at risk, judge told

For decades, environmental groups have pushed to speed up Everglades restoration but on Tuesday they urged a federal judge in Miami not to step in and force the state to resume work on a key project halted in May. The reason for the change in tune: Paying for a $700 million reservoir the size of Boca Raton could threaten state financing of a deal they consider even bigger for the Everglades -- the proposed $1.75 billion buyout of U.S. Sugar. | 08/13/08 19:40:51 By - Curtis Morgan

Proposal to harness wind power off Calif. coast worries fishing industry

Oil companies, some politicians and commuters paying $4 for a gallon of gas might look at California's coast and think of crude oil pooled below the seafloor. The state's North Coast, however, holds promise of another energy bounty. | 08/11/08 07:40:35 By - Maddalena Jackson

A solar success

In the early morning, Jerry Hicks is riding the clattering old mowing machine, pulled by the big Belgian draft horses, Ted and Alice, slaughtering weeds — and being careful not to hit the solar panels collecting energy from the morning sun. | 08/11/08 07:31:36 By - Jim Warren

Scientists dig into Alaska tundra's effect on warming

Across the tundra and coast of the Arctic Ocean, land is caving in. Soils loosed by freshly thawed earth set off a new era of rot, and of bloom -- dumping a bonanza of nutrients into this top-of-the-world environment. | 08/10/08 08:10:11 By -

By the looks of it, China is losing its battle against smog

In the era of China's great dynasties, it was believed that emperors could command the heavens at will. They could summon rain when it was needed or clear the skies. China's ruling Communist Party would love to have similar powers. Clearly, it doesn't. A defiant gray pall hangs over Beijing as the Summer Olympic Games get underway. | 08/07/08 19:10:09 By - Tim Johnson and Jack Chang

Yosemite a climate laboratory

Scientists predict that climate change will mean more rainfall and less snow in Yosemite in the next 50 years. If that happens, they say, one of the nation's premier outdoor destinations could experience problems -- including severe floods in winter and spring, plus dry wells in the summer. | 08/07/08 17:07:15 By - Doug Hoagland

Shrinking African lake imperils wildlife

There's nothing remarkable about this lump of hot sand, tangled weeds and tree-branch huts except that, until a few years ago, it didn't exist. More precisely, the island was underwater, hidden beneath the vast surface of central Africa's Lake Chad. The emergence of the island, whose sweltering shores have been settled by dozens of families, is evidence of an unsettling ecological trend: The lake is drying up. | 08/07/08 10:30:00 By - Shashank Bengali

Obama makes Alaska gas pipeline part of energy plan

Presidential candidate Barack Obama is touting the Alaska natural gas pipeline. | 08/07/08 09:29:34 By - Sean Cockerham

Fed up when power line fell on pet reindeer pen, Alaska man installs solar

Four years ago, Harvey Bowers launched a crusade to get off the grid after a line-clearing crew dropped a tree on a pen housing his pet reindeer. So far, the Wasilla area bed and breakfast owner is finding it easier than he thought. | 08/06/08 11:06:11 By - S.J. Komarnitsky

Senator says Asarco should pay for hazardous waste cleanup

During a stop Tuesday in Tacoma, Sen. Maria Cantwell urged the U.S. attorney general to ensure that corporate polluters such as Asarco clean up their hazardous messes using their own money, not taxpayers'. | 08/06/08 10:56:30 By - Brian Everstine

Weyerhauser lays off 1,000 from headquarters

Weyerhaeuser Co. announced Tuesday that it will lay off 1,000 people from its Federal Way headquarters over the next 18 months, bringing the company's rapid downsizing home to the Puget Sound region in a hard and sudden way. | 08/06/08 10:51:09 By - Rob Carson and C.R. Roberts

Kentucky governor OKs use of low-speed electric vehicles

The move, part of an effort to gain a plant for manufacturing ZAP (Zero Air Pollution) vehicles in Kentucky. The electirc vehicles currently are manufactured in China. They can't go faster than about 40 mph, but a charge that lasts 45 miles only costs 60 cents. | 08/05/08 16:54:29 By - Jack Brammer

Commuters longing to live near work

Renters in far-flung bedroom communities are seeking apartments closer to work. Homeowners are inviting rent-paying strangers into their homes. Families have been split. "Nothing changes people's behaviors as quickly as high prices," said Bert Sperling, founder of Sperling's Best Places of Portland, Ore., which ranks qualities of cities based on market research. | 08/05/08 10:27:23 By - Jack Hagel

More sockeye Salmon returning to Idaho than seen in decades

STANLEY, Idaho - For the first time in years, Idahoans have a good opportunity to see the state's most endangered fish alive. | 08/05/08 10:21:30 By - Rocky Barker

Urban Agriculture - vertical veggies to sprout on L.A.'s Skid Row

Some Cal Poly students and staff have their minds set on growing 4,000 fruit and vegetable plants in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles — on the walls of four downtown buildings. | 08/05/08 07:29:37 By - Nick Wilson

Union slams EPA chief for ignoring staff on global warming

Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson stunned his staff last month when he publicly opposed their proposals for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, four union officials said in a letter provided to McClatchy Monday. The letter is the latest salvo against Johnson's EPA leadership. Several Democratic senators have called for Johnson to resign. | 08/04/08 17:51:00 By - Renee Schoof

Scientists find 890 new species in Great Smoky Mountains

A decade ago, scientists decided it would be smart to know exactly what plants and animals populate America's most-visited national park, the Great Smokies. Today they're 16,570 species into the nation's largest biological roundup, and they've already found 890 species that are entirely new to science. | 08/03/08 15:29:06 By - Bruce Henderson

California's Yosemite, Sierra Nevada show warming's effect

Just as rising worldwide temperatures are melting the Arctic icepack, they're also bringing big changes to California's Sierra Nevada and other mountain regions. You can see them in the dead rust-red pines west of Yosemite National Park, the fading easel of wildflowers near Carson Pass south of Lake Tahoe and the whoosh of cars over Tioga Pass after Thanksgiving – when, before 1975, the road was always closed by snow. | 08/03/08 09:23:50 By - Tom Knudson

New poll: Opinion shifting in favor of offshore drilling

Floridians now favor offshore drilling by 60 to 36 percent, and drilling found support also in Ohio and Pennsylvania. "Those who said Senator McCain was throwing away Florida's electoral votes by advocating more offshore drilling might want to think again,'' said Peter Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac University's polling institute. | 08/01/08 09:55:20 By - Lesley Clark

Washington state prisons cut costs to taxpayers, environment

Washing the inmates' laundry in cold water, composting kitchen waste and collecting rain water are holding down costs to both the taxpayer and the environment, says the Department of Corrections in Washington state. | 08/01/08 09:52:37 By - Adam Wilson

Texas takes lead in energy-efficient houses

One good piece of news has come from higher utility prices in Texas — energy-efficient houses are becoming more the norm than an exception. | 08/01/08 07:18:53 By - Teresa McUsic

A backyard in Anchorage makes a refuge for birds

Bonnie Lembo and her husband have spent 21 years welcoming birds to the gardens around their blue house in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. | 07/31/08 11:09:33 By - Cheryl Chapman

T. Boone Pickens courts Kansas on wind plan

Billionaire oil magnate T. Boone Pickens brought his crusade for energy independence to Kansas on Wednesday. telling a packed town hall meeting in Topeka that the nation can develop enough wind power to meet 20 percent of its energy needs and divert natural gas from electricity production to fuel motor vehicles. | 07/31/08 10:45:51 By - Dion Lefler and Jeannine Koranda

Congress members question Florida Everglades buyout

Saying they felt like they'd been kept out of the loop, Florida's representatives in Washington questioned state officials for two hours Wednesday about the deal the state announced last moonth to buy U.S. Sugar and close it down so that its cane fields could be used to help restore the Everglades. | 07/30/08 19:01:39 By - Lesley Clark

States, environmentalists to sue EPA over greenhouse gases

California, New York City, three other states and a coalition of environmental groups will file notice Thursday that they plan to sue the Environmental Protection Agency to force it to regulate pollution from ocean ships and aircraft tied to global warming. The Clean Air Act a court can compel the EPA to act if it delays too long, but plaintiffs must give the government 180 days notice of intent to sue. | 07/30/08 23:00:00 By - Renee Schoof

Cape Hatteras vehicle limits worked. So why overturn them?

A court agreement to close the beaches of Cape Hatteras to offroad vehicles to protect the nests of several endangered and threatened species has worked: the number of nesting pairs of piping plovers is up, as are the number of sea turtle nests. So why are North Carolina's senators intent on overturning the limits? | 07/30/08 18:46:07 By - Barbara Barrett

Judge says EPA ignored law, failed to protect Everglades

A federal judge slapped the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to enforce the federal Clean Water Act when it approved a revised schedule for cleaning up contaminated water flowing into the Everglades from Lake Okeechobee — avoiding a December 2006 deadline to reduce pollutants in the Glades. | 07/30/08 09:00:01 By - Scott Hiaasen and Evan Benn

Florida shuts down utility's 'green' program as a fraud

By a unanimous vote, Florida's Public Service Commission ended Florida Power & Light's Sunshine Energy Program in which 39,000 customers voluntarily added $9.75 to their monthly electric bill so that FPL could purchase energy from renewable sources. Officials determined that only 24 percent of the money went toward that; the remainder went to marketing and administrative expenses. | 07/29/08 19:51:03 By - John Dorschner

Caribou slaughter shocks Alaskan wildlife officials

Investigators found the carcasses of 120 caribou, at least half of which were left to rot, scattered along a 40-mile trail, prompting them to call the killings "by far the worst case of blatant waste" they had ever seen. Troopers so far have identified five suspects and think there could be many more, but the investigation has been stymied by an apparent lack of cooperation from officials in nearby villages. | 07/29/08 07:46:31 By - James Halpin

Coca-Cola to begin using hybrid trucks in Florida

While other companies are shying away from the considerable costs involved, Coca-Cola announced Monday it is rolling out 10 heavy-duty hybrid trucks in South Florida, part of a national campaign to put 142 of these so-called green trucks on the road in North America in the next several weeks. Many companies — from utilities to architectural firms — are rushing to jump on the green bandwagon, and the soft-drink industry is no exception. | 07/28/08 19:12:11 By - John Dorschner

EPA tells its staff: Don't answer watchdogs' queries

An internal memo released by an environmental group told the staff of the EPA's enforcement division that if they're contacted by the EPA inspector general's office or the Government Accountability Office to forward the call or e-mail to a designated person. The memo sets down the same procedure, with different contact people, for queries from reporters. | 07/28/08 18:13:00 By - Renee Schoof

Air Force base proud of environment-friendly programs

The traditional Air Force blues have taken on a shade of green at Keesler Air Force Base. Ride around the 2.63-square mile base, the most densely populated in the Air Force, and it resembles a college campus with its Live oak trees, green lawns and manicured golf course. Look closer and you'll see recycling bins, police patrolling on bicycles — a program so successful it's being considered at other Air Force bases — and large construction projects that are using green technology. | 07/28/08 17:56:33 By - Mary Perez

Using West's oil shale would pump up greenhouse gases

Oil shale in the American West might contain three times the oil of Saudi Arabia, but getting it out of the ground would require much more energy than drilling for conventional oil does, and the result would be more greenhouse-gas emissions. Department of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced proposed regulations last week to start a commercial oil-shale program on public lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. | 07/28/08 15:25:00 By - Renee Schoof

Opinion shifting on drilling for oil in Arctic refuge

ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE -- This place is a Zen thing. The only way to tell you've wandered in is the absence of anything saying so. | 07/28/08 10:13:26 By - Scott Canon

Little-known foundation plays major role in Everglades restoration

Early in the hush-hush negotiations to buy U.S. Sugar, Gov. Charlie Crist dropped by a fundraiser for the small but powerful Everglades Foundation. | 07/28/08 10:03:48 By - Curtis Morgan

Scientists worry as once frozen tundra thaws in Alaska

Across the tundra and coast of the Arctic Ocean, land is caving in. Soils loosed by freshly thawed earth set off a new era of rot, and of bloom — dumping a bonanza of nutrients into a top-of-the-world environment that swirls from months of midnight sun to deep-freeze dark. Will nature channel the nourishment of this soil into a great flowering of plant life that soaks up greenhouse gas and tamps down the causes of climate change? Or will it make it worse? | 07/28/08 07:40:12 By - Scott Canon

As global warming intensifies wildfires, costs to fight them increase

The Forest Service has struggled for years to pay for fighting fires that last year alone scorched almost 10 million acres. As fire seasons grow longer and the blazes more intense in forests stressed by global warming, the agency's funding woes mount. | 07/28/08 09:41:56 By - Les Blumenthal

New wildfire in California shuts down power to Yosemite

A fast-moving wildfire near Yosemite National Park claimed a dozen homes and prompted hundreds more evacuations Sunday, as thousands of firefighters struggled to keep it from engulfing nearby communities. In Yosemite, hotels and restaurants got by on generators after power lines were shut down because of the potential risk to firefighters. | 07/28/08 09:35:26 By - Jeff. St. John and Doug Hoagland

Why might Alaskans favor Arctic drilling? A $2,000 check

People who lived in Alaska for all of last year — every man, woman and child — are likely to get a check from the state's investments of oil revenues that will total more than $2,000, the first time since the state began making the payments in 1982 that the dividend has topped two grand. That means a family of four in Alaska will receive more than $8,000 as their payout from the state fund. Alaska is the only state that has such a program. | 07/28/08 09:34:57 By - Wesley Loy

Environmental movement grows in Puerto Rico

The fight over the Paseo Caribe project is among several across Puerto Rico pitting developers against environmentalists, who say development projects threaten the island's natural resources. | 07/28/08 09:50:43 By - Frances Robles

Contemplating the impact on N. Carolina of offshore drilling

Although current legislation would keep any offshore drilling at least 50 miles from North Carolina's coast, there would be massive impact on what remains one of the East Coast's longest and most undeveloped coastlines. Pipelines would come bumping across the barrier islands, and oil or natural gas processing plants would be built on shore, possibly in the bustling industrial center of Norfolk, Va., but possibly near North Carolina port towns such as Wilmington or Morehead City. | 07/28/08 00:25:02 By - Barbara Barrett

Wind energy faces daunting challenges

Led by billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, pioneers in the emerging wind-power industry are touting their product as The Next Big Thing as they chart a course to produce at least 20 percent of the nation's electricity in just over two decades. | 07/25/08 17:21:00 By - Dave Montgomery

Congressmen get aerial view of Kentucky mountaintop mining

Two congressmen flew over dozens of mountaintop mining sites Friday and spoke with residents living deep in the central Appalachian coalfields, in what community activists said was a first for Eastern Kentucky | 07/25/08 16:41:46 By - Cassandra Kirby-Mullins

Wind's just waiting to be ridden in N.C.

A century ago, the Wright Brothers came to North Carolina and discovered the secrets of flight on the strength of abundant coastal winds. A steady wind still blows along the shore, and it's awaiting a new generation of entrepreneurs to harness its potential – this time to produce electricity. | 07/25/08 14:35:03 By - Wade Rawlins

Anchorage headed for coldest summer

Anchorage residents might call it the so-called summer of '08. So far, it's on pace to produce the fewest days ever recorded in which the temperature reached 65 degrees. That record was set in 1970, when Anchorage made it to the 65-degree mark on only 16 days. With only a month to go when temperatures might reach that mark, there've been only seven 65-degree days. | 07/24/08 17:18:56 By - George Bryson

EPA saw greenhouse gases as threat in squelched document

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency told the Bush administration in December that high levels of man-made heat-trapping gases are causing global warming and endanger the American people, Sen. Barbara Boxer said Thursday after she reviewed the EPA finding. Had the White House accepted the document, EPA would have been required to regulate the gases under the Clean Air Act. | 07/24/08 13:53:00 By - Renee Schoof

Senators want to name California peak after late Sierra Club leader

California's two Democratic senators want to rename a prominent Sierra Nevada peak after David Brower, reigniting debate over the legacy of the late Sierra Club leader. | 07/23/08 18:01:10 By - Michael Doyle

Courts shutting out little guy, Exxon Valdez plaintiff says

It's getting harder for ordinary people to sue big corporations in an effort to hold them accountable for gross misconduct, one of the plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez lawsuit told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. | 07/23/08 17:48:00 By - Erika Bolstad

Alaska lawmakers approve natural gas pipeline

Members of the House of Representatives voted late Tuesday to approve an exclusive state license for a Canadian energy company proposing to build a natural gas pipeline down the Alaska Highway to Alberta. | 07/23/08 09:36:36 By - Wesley Loy

SC volunteers help nesting loggerhead turtles

Adults and children hit the beach at 6 a.m. on Fridays at Myrtle Beach State Park to search for signs of loggerhead turtles and their nests and find ways to help save the endangered species. | 07/23/08 09:32:42 By - Kelly Marshall Fuller

Bringing back the saltwater marshes to Nisqually Refuge

Bulldozers and other earth-moving machines began gouging into a beautiful green meadow near the entrance of the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in Washington State on Tuesday. "It's such a big change," U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge manager Jean Takekawa said. "It's jarring to see heavy equipment out there, but it is how we are bringing back the saltwater marsh." | 07/23/08 07:16:20 By - Chester Allen

What's killing young penguins washing ashore thousands of miles from home?

The discovery of hundreds of young penguins washing up along the Brazilian shoreline over the past month has sparked a scientific mystery over what may have led the birds thousands of miles astray. | 07/22/08 15:28:51 By - Jack Chang

Oilman T. Boone Pickens promotes wind power

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, echoing his message from a weeks-long advertising blitz, urged Congress on Tuesday to embrace a largely untapped potential of wind power to help free the United States from its dependence on foreign oil. | 07/22/08 10:59:17 By - Dave Montgomery

New volcano erupts in Alaska

Okmok has company. Mount Cleveland, a volcano in the Aleutian Islands about 90 miles west of still-simmering Okmok Caldera, erupted Monday, giving Alaska dueling volcanoes. | 07/22/08 07:14:28 By - Beth Bragg

Scientists study link of global warming at Mount Rainier

A slurry of rocks and mud sounded like a freight train when it ripped through a popular Mount Rainier hiking destination in 2001 and scared some television viewers who believed their homes were in the path. As it turned out, the debris flow at Comet Falls proved less dangerous than initially believed, but it gave scientists insights into a phenomenon that continues to mystify. | 07/21/08 10:46:22 By - Susan Gordon

NYC subway cars become S.C. underwater habitat

A load of trolley cars from New York are set to arrive in Murrells Inlet this week - to be dumped in the ocean. | 07/21/08 07:30:55 By - Kelly Marshall Fuller

Swiss man produces solar-powered car

36-year-old Louis Palmer is five months away from circling the globe in his solar powered car -- a trip that will take him across 40 countries and 36,000 miles. The United States is the 28th country he's visited in the Solar Taxi -- and he's driven more than 23,000 miles. | 07/21/08 07:23:07 By - Victor A. Patten

Are the ways fires are fought 'firewise?'

The Idaho town's ability to withstand a frontal assault by a major wildfire demonstrates what fire behavior experts have been saying for more than a decade | 07/21/08 07:09:20 By - Heath Druzin and Rocky Barker

Miami blue butterfly disappearing

Between 25 or 30 related butterflies in South Florida, including blues and hairstreaks, are in danger of disappearing, says one of Florida's leading butterfly experts. | 07/20/08 18:11:02 By - Georgia Tasker

A man of average size with a very small carbon footprint

Jayant Baliga invented a power-saving switch that prevents 1.4 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere each year, offseting the carbon footprint of 175 million people. That's worth tens of millions of trees. | 07/20/08 10:10:17 By - Kristin Buller

Drilling in ANWR remains off limits, despite growing support

For the first time, 50 percent of those polled by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press last month said they supported drilling in ANWR. But John McCain and Barack Obama remain opposed and Senate Republicans have dropped the idea. | 07/20/08 06:16:40 By - Erika Bolstad

Costa Rica cracking down on illegal development

Costa Rica's Environmental Tribunal, the country's highest environmental court, has completed a four-month crackdown on thousands of illegally developed hotel rooms, oceanfront homes and condominiums. | 07/19/08 16:29:26 By - Dave Sherwood

Suddenly, everyone is talking about wind energy

That breeze you're feeling may be the sudden gust of news about wind energy, until now almost a boutique producer of power in America. Oilman T. Boone Pickens began flooding the media this month with a $58 million campaign to sell a plan to build thousands of wind turbines. This week, global-warming guru Al Gore announced a plan to spend at least a trillion dollars in the next 10 years on renewable energy, including wind, to break the nation’s fossil-fuel addiction cold turkey. | 07/19/08 07:51:50 By - Karen Dillon

Roof gardens, porous pavement: Kansas City plans green sewer system

Kansas City and federal officials are collaborating to turn the sewer project looming in the city's future into a showcase for ways to make a sewer system environmentally friendly. | 07/18/08 09:49:58 By - Karen Dillon and Lynn Horsley

Family tries for a month to cut water, energy, fuel by half

Pete Skenandore has a new perspective on grocery shopping. | 07/18/08 09:41:10 By - Cynthia Sewell

Scientists in Arctic monitor North America's 'air conditioner'

Beyond the Arctic Circle, teams of scientists measure widening slumps as ice melts beneath the tundra. They scuff through tussocks blackened by unexpected fires, and search for fish in drought-depleted streams. | 07/18/08 09:26:52 By - Carrie Peyton Dahlberg

Texas wind power takes jump to reality

State regulators put Texas on course to spend $4.83 billion on power lines needed to carry electricity from wind farms in the Panhandle and High Plains to the state's urban centers. | 07/18/08 07:38:50 By - John Moritz

Canal could help water problems in California, report says

A team of University of California-Davis researchers today is recommending that a peripheral canal is the best solution to restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta environment and protect the fresh water that moves through it to millions of people and business in California. California voters rejected a peripheral canal in 1982, amid opposition from some scientists and environmental groups who feared it would deprive the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta of critical freshwater flows. | 07/17/08 18:58:02 By - Matt Weiser

Hydrogen cars could rule road by 2050, slash oil need, panel says

As the cost of filling up skyrockets, a government-backed study released Thursday says America could nearly eliminate its need for gasoline for cars, pickup trucks and SUVs by 2050 if the government helps build a market for hydrogen fuel cells and other technologies. | 07/17/08 14:01:00 By - Renee Schoof

Florida debating impact if offshore drilling begins

If the offshore-drilling ban covering much of the nation's coast is lifted, the next oil and gas rush would start off of Florida's coast and spark an environmental battle of national scope. | 07/17/08 09:59:55 By - Curtis Morgan

How can you tell where a bird's from? Just listen to its accent

Humans aren't the only creatures whose regional drawls and twangs give them away. The same thing goes for songbirds. A scientist at Duke University has found that birds, just like humans, learn their songs from one another and "talk" like the birds they grow up with. | 07/17/08 07:16:28 By - Zoe Elizabeth Buck

Fresno airport puts sun to work

An array of solar panels covering 9.5 acres southeast of the Fresno Yosemite International Airport will generate 4.2 megawatts of electricity per year, making it the biggest solar power system at any airport in the country, said Russ Widmar, the airport's aviation director. | 07/17/08 07:39:11 By - Jeff St. John

17 bears killed in Anchorage this year

As of Wednesday, 17 bears have been killed in Anchorage this year, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The city's most recent bruin fatality was Wednesday morning on Elmendorf Air Force Base. The bear, a tagged female known as "709," was lured into a culvert trap with Cinnabons, then shot to death. | 07/17/08 07:53:28 By - Megan Holland

Historic oaks of Washington state get human help to survive

The living history of Washington's Puget Sound region can be found in the lustrous leaves and rugged branches of surviving Oregon white oaks. | 07/16/08 10:24:35 By - Susan Gordon

Scientists study effects of global warming on arctic lakes

TOOLIK LAKE, ALASKA - Scientist Anne Hershey paddled a small inflatable raft across an arctic lake, pausing in her stroke to consider how the melting permafrost caused a landslide of mud and sediment spilling down the bank into the water. | 07/16/08 10:13:13 By - Wade Rawlins

Miami's Mount Trashmore adapts to greener times

The first things a visitor senses atop Mount Trashmore's Cell I _ a 147-foot heap of grass-covered garbage in south Miami _ are the smell of fresh-cut grass and the sight of butterflies. | 07/16/08 10:05:43 By - Evan S. Benn

As Alaska glaciers shrink, concerns turn to the rivers

For the first time in decades, federal officials allowed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this summer. It wasn't for oil, though. | 07/16/08 06:58:25 By - Elizabeth Bluemink

Washington senator urges landmark status for nuclear reactor

The National Park System Advisory Board meets next week to consider whether to designate the B Reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation a national historic landmark. The reactor, the world's first, produced the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II. | 07/15/08 18:34:25 By - Les Blumenthal

Alaska legislature to vote on TransCanada pipeline license

JUNEAU _ Alaska's House of Representatives will vote next week on a natural gas pipeline license for TransCanada Corp. | 07/15/08 10:45:45 By - Wesley Loy

BP to dig horizontal well to remote Alaska oil field

Imagine a bent straw made out of steel extending 8 miles long and 2 miles deep, plunging through icy water and miles of undersea rock. | 07/15/08 10:35:55 By - Elizabeth Bluemink

Fewer drivers in Washington means less money for road construction

Record fuel costs are forcing people to drive less, and that is cutting into tax collections that pay for road construction in Washington state. | 07/15/08 10:28:41 By - Adam Wilson

Texas considers wind power proposal

AUSTIN — If they build it, cheap energy will come. | 07/15/08 10:22:11 By - Jay Root

Florida considers world's largest photovoltaic solar plant

Florida regulators on Tuesday will consider Florida Power & Light's request to build three solar plants that would include the largest of its type in the world. | 07/15/08 10:09:46 By - John Dorschner

California leaders denounce Bush's lifting of offshore oil ban

As soon as the president made the announcement that he was lifting an executive order made 18 years ago by his father that prohibits offshore drilling, California's leaders accused Bush of cozying up to oil interests and that the plan would do nothing to lower gasoline prices. Even California's Republican governor joined the chorus, saying the state should focus on alternative energies as the best way to reduce fuel costs. | 07/15/08 07:17:50 By - Rob Hotakainen

At electronics disposal site, no guarantee of proper recycling

Hundreds of people flocked to an electronics recycling event at the Olympia High School parking lot Friday to get rid of old computers, monitors and other electronic waste free of charge — but with no guarantee that the equipment would be disposed of properly. | 07/14/08 17:44:02 By - John Dodge

Ancient canoes, modern science meld to track water quality

For centuries, the cedar canoes of the Coast Salish Indians have plied the inland waters of Washington state and British Columbia, carrying trading goods, raiding parties and families headed to summer potlatch celebrations. For several weeks this summer, they'll also be trailing water-monitoring equipment provided by the U.S. Geological Survey. | 07/14/08 10:11:22 By - Les Blumenthal

N.C. goes to court over TVA coal power plant pollution

A lawsuit that aims to stem pollution wafting into North Carolina from coal-fired power plants in other states goes to trial today in a federal courthouse in Asheville. | 07/14/08 09:59:25 By - Sarah Avery

Conservationist documents Biscayne National Park's creation

The thousands of visitors who come to Biscayne National Park in the coming months _ to snorkel through coral reefs, glide along on a glass-bottom boat or cast a rod into the rippling waves _ may well owe a debt of gratitude to Lloyd Miller. | 07/14/08 09:47:33 By - Tere Figueras Negrete

California ski resort plans to become large wind energy user

California's Kirkwood Mountain Resort is aiming to be the first ski area in the country to meet a significant portion of its electrical need with renewable energy generated on site. | 07/14/08 07:22:48 By - Janet Fullwood

Gasoline prices give kick to new crime: stealing grease

Theft of used restaurant cooking oil are rising nationwide as higher gasoline prices drive up the grease's value — from 7.6 cents a pound eight years ago to about 34 cents a pound now. Big hauls by truck have netted as much as $6,000 worth of grease. Thefts are heavy in the Pacific Northwest, where biofuel is especially in demand. | 07/12/08 12:58:37 By - Joe Lambe

Despite court ruling, EPA won't move on greenhouse gases

The EPA said it couldn't propose any regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act because the issue was too complex and there were too many objections from other federal agencies. Critics said the EPA announcement, contained in a 588-page report, was tantamount to the Bush administration refusing to carry out a Supreme Court order. | 07/11/08 18:36:00 By - Renee Schoof

Sugar buyout to delay other Everglades projects

Water managers vowed Thursday to close the $1.75 billion deal for the U.S. Sugar Corp without hiking taxes on South Florida homeowners, but the big buyout will come at the cost of delay for other Everglades projects. | 07/11/08 10:29:04 By - Curtis Morgan

Wetlands restoration project to benefit endangered salmon

Work on the largest estuary-restoration project in the Northwest will begin next week in the fields and wetlands of the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in Washington State. The $12 million project, about 10 years in the making, will restore 762 acres of saltwater estuary near the mouth of the Nisqually River. | 07/11/08 07:01:42 By - John Dodge

More commuters scooting about in Kansas City

Ric and Joanna Shewell of Kansas City own three vehicles, and the gas guzzler in the bunch is a Toyota Corolla that gets 31 miles per gallon. She drives a hybrid car that gets 45 mpg, and he rides a Honda Metropolitan scooter that will go about 100 miles on a single gallon of gas. | 07/11/08 06:43:10 By - Donald Bradley

Kentucky considers three-wheel electric car

SHEPHERDSVILLE, KY — As Kentucky politicians tout a three-wheeled electric car as a financial boon to the state and their gas price-weary constituents, an industry analyst suggests they use caution. | 07/10/08 07:52:19 By - Jack Brammer

Everglades deal with US Sugar puts Florida town in limbo

Clewiston, Fla., the town that sugar built, is wondering what the future holds once the U.S. Sugar Corp. ceases operations. Florida announced last month that it would buy the company and in six years, put it out of business as part of a plan to restore water flow to the Everglades. | 07/10/08 07:44:59 By - Jane Bussey

Biologists seek to restore Alaska's wood bison herds

Bison lived in Alaska for more than 400,000 years but then disappeared in a drought spurred by changing habitat and hunting, biologists say. Wood bison — a tall, rangy subspecies well suited to the cold — haven't been seen in Alaska for roughly 100 years or more. Now they're back. | 07/10/08 07:20:59 By - Kyle Hopkins

Hoping to win on offshore drilling, GOP drops Alaska push

The decision to drop drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from discussions of energy policy comes as Senate Republicans look for ways to entice Democrats into supporting offshore oil drilling as part of a compromise bill aimed at high gasoline prices. Democrats want legislation to include conservation incentives and tax breaks for alternative and renewable energy development. | 07/09/08 20:24:51 By - Erika Bolstad

Washington farm certified as 'salmon-safe'

Farming practices at The Evergreen State College Organic Farm are safe for salmon, according to a Seattle-based nonprofit conservation group, Stewardship Partners. | 07/09/08 11:03:15 By - John Dodge

Washington state energy from ag waste project considered for federal funding

BENTON CITY, Wash. _ A biomass pellet gasification project in eastern Washington state may receive $1 million in federal funding. | 07/09/08 10:56:35 By - Mary Hopkin

A benefit from high price of metal — people are cleaning up

Skyrocketing costs of scrap metal have created a silver — or should we say steel — lining to economic and environmental woes. Collecting scrap not only brings in extra money, but also encourages citizens to clean up unsightly refuse. | 07/09/08 07:58:33 By - Anna Tong

G-8 leaders aim to halve emissions by 2050

WASHINGTON — Leaders of the Group of 8 leading industrial nations on Tuesday set a goal of cutting global emissions of greenhouse gases in half by 2050 and said that all major economies should join the effort. | 07/08/08 21:12:35 By - Renee Schoof

Ex-EPA official: White House cut global-warming testimony

Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the White House demanded that all mention of how global warming harms human health be cut from testimony to Congress last fall, a former Environmental Protection Agency official who had a key role on climate policy said Tuesday. | 07/08/08 21:12:00 By - Renee Schoof

Washington State agreement reached on spotted owl habitat

Washington state's Forest Practices Board threw its unanimous support Monday behind a group made up primarily of timber industry officials and conservationists to work on spotted owl habitat protection on private forestlands. | 07/08/08 12:36:51 By - John Dodge

Gas prices ground visiting nurses

Soaring gas prices are driving some of North Carolina's visiting nurses off the road. Others are refusing to take on new patients. The trend, service providers warn, could increase health care costs and force critically ill patients to leave home. | 07/08/08 10:16:21 By - Sara Peach

Farm produces turkeys _ and a side of solar

The Nilsen farm in Wilton, Calif., which typically produces a half-million turkeys a year, will soon also generate one million watts. The Nilsens won't own the electricity. The power being generated is owned by a renewable energy company that is leasing Nilsen land next to the turkey houses. | 07/08/08 10:00:22 By - Bill Lindelof

California man's small-scale ethanol production plant starting to gain worldwide attention

Floyd Butterfield was ahead of today's need for alternative energy sources when he built a small Paso Robles plant that would produce fuel from alcohol — in 1981. But not until recently, as gas prices started creeping up, has Butterfield’s contest-winning design for a small-scale ethanol production plant garnered worldwide attention. | 07/08/08 07:30:44 By - Leah Etling

Poll: More Americans support offshore drilling

With a group of restaurants fronting the Gulf of Mexico and the Intracoastal Waterway, it probably comes as no surprise that Ed Chiles has strong views about drilling for oil off Florida's coast. | 07/07/08 10:09:37 By - Brian Neill

Northern pike take over Alaskan lake

Patches of snow still dotted the grassy edges of Alexander Lake this May when state fisheries biologists Dave Rutz, Sam Ivey, and Chris Brockman set about pulling up a hoop net they'd set for pike. As they reeled in the long black net, they gasped. Inside was a mass of 45 pike, and, in that mass were seven "pigs," pike 40-inches or longer with thigh-thick bellies. One measured just shy of four feet and weighed maybe 30 pounds. | 07/07/08 07:51:19 By - S.J. Komarnitsky

Rare bird disappearing from the Everglades at alarming pace

The population of the Everglades snail kite, an endangered hawk, is in sickening free fall from the compounded impacts of back-to-back droughts and a long-controversial water management scheme intended to protect another equally at-risk bird. | 07/05/08 16:40:44 By - Curtis Morgan

New satellite to shed light on Earth's warming

NASA plans to launch a new satellite next year that will help scientists fill in a gap in their understanding of global warming: the role of clouds and airborne particles. The satellite Glory, targeted for launch next June, will give scientists a much better tool to measure particles than any satellite so far. The particles, known as aerosols, are bits of things such as dust and smog. | 07/03/08 16:57:17 By - Renee Schoof

Sacramento won't fine couple who let lawn die

Sacramento city officials on Wednesday admitted their code enforcement policies may not be drought-friendly, and said they won't fine the couple featured in Wednesday's Bee who let their front lawn die to save water. | 07/03/08 09:14:00 By - Matt Weiser

High fuel prices keep NC fishing boats at the dock

High fuel prices have accomplished what rough weather and cheap imported seafood never could -- keeping Sheldon Daniels' trawler fleet at the dock. | 07/02/08 10:22:44 By - Dudley Price

New proposed mileage standards draw critics on both sides

Automakers charged Tuesday that proposed new mileage standards are too tough while consumer groups complained that they're too lenient. The Consumer Federation of America, an alliance of advocacy groups, wants to raise the standard well above the hike the government is proposing. The government's proposal would require automakers' fleets of cars to average 35.7 miles per gallon by 2015. Light trucks would have to average 28.6 miles per gallon. | 07/01/08 21:08:55 By - Kat Glass

Could wind power work in Florida?

"'Wind is ready to go," says Christine Real de Azua of the American Wind Energy Association. But perhaps not in Florida. Though pleasant breezes sweep in from the ocean, several experts say the quality and location of those winds make it difficult, if not impossible, to generate much wind power here at a reasonable cost. | 06/30/08 07:29:58 By - John Dorschner

King salmon runs only half of anticipated

The spawning goal is 100,000 of the big fish upriver. Projections based on early sonar counts at Pilot Point, Alaska, on the lower river indicate the entire king salmon run might number only 100,000, possibly less. It's normally at least twice as large. | 06/30/08 07:14:13 By - Craig Medred

Questions abound over huge land purchase for Everglades

Florida has agreed to pay $1.75 billion to buy out U.S. Sugar Corp. and use its 187,000 acres of sugar fields to revive the Everglades. But there're actually no studies to show how the land might be used or how much it will cost to turn the area south of Florida's Lake Okeechobee into the reservoirs, cleaning marshes and pumping systems needed now to move the water south. | 06/29/08 09:23:41 By - Curtis Morgan and Scott Hiaasen

Kentucky lawmakers push coal as America's fuel of the future

As fuel costs rise and the quest for alternative energy sources accelerates, lawmakers from coal-rich Kentucky are pinning their hopes on the continued role of coal in electricity generation and an environmentally controversial technology that converts coal to a liquid that can fuel cars. | 06/29/08 07:52:14 By - Halimah Abdullah

Facing the global warming facts: not all species can be saved

When Defenders of Wildlife climate scientist Jean Brennan and others suggest that it may be time to change the Endangered Species Act to allow some species to go extinct, it underscores the crisis they say the West and the world face from climate change. | 06/29/08 07:44:04 By - Rocky Barker

Columbia River has record salmon run

Ten times as many sockeye salmon are returning to the Columbia River as last year, which could mean the highest return for Idaho’s most endangered fish in more than 30 years. | 06/29/08 07:38:37 By - Roger Phillips

Price of going green — $1.2 million for a Ford Focus

One of the greenest cars in the world was in downtown Miami this week. It's a spiffy little Ford Focus with a weird fuel tank. Cost: $1.2 million. Not too far away from this car was a man promoting the world's greenest light bulb: It uses one-fourth the power of a regular bulb, has no mercury contaminants and lasts for years. Price: $55-$65. The business rush to green is on, but at what cost? | 06/28/08 07:26:16 By - John Dorschner

Study: Don't use Florida coasts as toilets

Beach closures like the ones announced in Miami-Dade this week will continue throughout Florida as long as state and local governments continue to use the state's coastal waters as a toilet, according to a two-year study of wastewater treatment facilities by the Clean Water Network. | 06/27/08 08:00:38 By - Mary Ellen Klas and Oscar Corral

Honeybee collapse claims record number of hives this year

Commercial bee colonies, critical to agriculture, are collapsing at a record rate this year, with 36 percent, twice the normal rate, of colonies lost, experts told a congressional panel Thursday. The causes remain a mystery. | 06/26/08 18:00:40 By - Michael Doyle and Barbara Barrett

Florida climate summit: There's gold in going green

With 800 participants from environmental groups, universities and the major industries of Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist's second summit on global warming opened Wednesday in downtown Miami with a strong emphasis on how business can profit by cleaning up the environment. ''We know there is gold in green,'' said Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp to open the conference at the InterContinental Hotel. | 06/26/08 13:16:58 By - John Dorschner

Supreme Court slashes punitive award in Exxon Valdez oil spill

In a victory for corporations seeking to limit big-dollar lawsuits, the Supreme Court on Wednesday cut the $2.5 billion in punitive damages awarded in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The court reduced the award to $507.5 million, dashing the hopes of more than 32,000 fishermen and Alaska Natives who've been waiting for nearly 20 years to hear whether Exxon Mobil Corp. must pay billions in punitive damages for its role in the Exxon Valdez disaster. | 06/26/08 13:03:35 By - Erika Bolstad

Drought returns to Texas

For many farmers and ranchers, it's becoming an all-too-familiar routine: One drought ends and another begins. Over the last 12 years, Texas has weathered five droughts, and another might be in the works. | 06/25/08 07:45:09 By - Bill Hanna

Some wildlife managers say global warming, wildlife don't mix

20 to 40 percent of the world's known species could go extinct within a century - no matter what wildlife managers do. That is the world that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's scientists predict we'll see before the end of this century - and one they presented to federal land and wildlife managers, scientists and others Tuesday at the Boise Centre on The Grove on the first day of a two-day conference to examine how climate change will affect natural resources management. | 06/25/08 07:25:16 By - Rocky Barker

No bigger than a thumbnail, yet this mussel is a huge pain

Never heard of the quagga mussel? It's becoming a major threat to water systems around the United States. Only the size of a thumbnail, it multiplies by the thousands, clogging municipal water pipes, taking food from native species and maybe even spurring the growth of bacteria that causes botulism. From the Great Lakes to southern California, researchers are struggling to find ways to fight it. | 06/24/08 18:32:01 By - Kat Glass

Florida makes huge land deal in bid to save Everglades

Florida will buy 300 square miles of land now used to grow sugar cane north of the Everglades in a huge deal intended to help the stalled effort to restore what's known as the River of Grass. By taking over the land from US Sugar, the state hopes to open a massive swath for reservoirs and pollution cleanup marshes. | 06/24/08 16:23:49 By - Curtis Morgan

Agriculture driving Idaho's output of greenhouse gases

Earlier reports missed the impact of agriculture because they didn't include methane, produced by cattle's digestive system. But a new report shows that feedlots are major producers of greenhouse-gases and helps account for Idaho's huge growth in emissions thought responsible for global warming. | 06/24/08 10:32:26 By - Rocky Barker

Can garbage run a car? Not yet, but some think it's possible

As gas prices have increased, so has research into futuristic fuels and vehicles that may help break our dependence on pricey planet-polluting gasoline. The first batch of biofuels may be on the market by 2010, helping to offset growing energy demand, and, perhaps, providing a creative use for the nation’s swelling landfills. | 06/24/08 07:33:40 By - James A. Fussell

Did North Carolina set the bar too low on renewable energy?

North Carolina took a radical step a year ago, requiring that as much as 12.5 percent of electricity in the state come from solar power, other alternative sources and conservation programs. It was hailed then as a victory for environmentalists. Now, however, environmental advocates say electric utilities got off easy. | 06/24/08 06:49:40 By - John Murawski

Navy v. dolphins: Supreme Court to hear battle over sonar

The Supreme Court will settle a fight that pits Southern California dolphins against the U.S. military. In a closely watched case involving national security and the natural environment, the court agreed to review restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar off the California coast. The Bush administration contends that the sonar rules, meant to protect marine mammals, hinder military preparedness. | 06/23/08 14:06:33 By - Michael Doyle

McCain to propose $300 million prize for new auto battery

John McCain hopes to solve the country's energy crisis with cold hard cash. The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, "a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency," McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California. | 06/23/08 12:48:39 By - Glen Johnson

Supreme Court rejects lawsuit challenging border fence

The court offered no explanation for why it would not hear the challenge, which questioned Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's waiving more than 30 laws to push construction of the border fence. Environmental groups and a dozen members of Congress had sought the hearing. | 06/23/08 12:47:06 By - Dave Montgomery

California air quality worsens as fires continue to burn

Wildfires burning throughout California and the Sacramento region continue to challenge firefighters, threaten homes and worsen air quality. Fires are burning in several neighboring counties — virtually surrounding the Sacramento area — and driving smoke into the valley. | 06/23/08 11:37:41 By - Niesha Lofing

Ex-President Clinton urges mayors to go green, create new jobs

Ex-President Bill Clinton on Sunday urged city leaders at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Miami to maximize energy efficiency, saying their efforts would help both the environment and the economy. | 06/22/08 21:02:46 By - By Laura Isensee

White House asserts executive privilege in air-quality case

Setting up a constitutional showdown, the White House on Friday asserted executive privilege in denying a congressional request for thousands of pages of documents related to the federal government's rejection of California's efforts to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. Congress is attempting to determine whether President Bush played a role in the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to deny California’s request for permission to impose tougher air-quality regulations than federal law called for. | 06/21/08 14:03:25 By - Rob Hotakainen

Coyotes have added Columbus to their comfort zone

In rural areas coyotes are typically shy and avoid contact with humans, however in urban and suburban environments they adapt quickly to the human environment. They've re-emerged in Columbus, Georgia. | 06/20/08 19:37:52 By - Lily Gordon

Anti-bottled water campaign enlists mayors to cause

Bottles of water are increasingly coming under attack from environmental activists, who maintain that tap water is better and that bottled water is both economically unsound and environmentally harmful. The bottling industry disputes that. | 06/20/08 06:48:44 By - Taylor Barnes

Low fish count prompts Alaska to end salmon fishing in key river

Biologists have been concerned since the beginning of the month by the low number of fish returning to the Deshka River to spawn. Whether they will allow fishing through the weekend remains uncertain, but the expectation is that they will not in an effort to allow as many fish as possible to survive and reproduce. | 06/19/08 15:13:30 By - Craig Medred

In California water conservation pledges go unmet

Throughout California, urban water agencies have generally failed to make good on conservation promises made during the state's last major water fight. | 06/19/08 07:40:57 By - Matt Weiser

Washington state begins ban on dishwashing detergents

The dishwashing detergent aisle won't look the same after July 1. Detergent products, including major brands such as Electrasol and Cascade, will be removed from the shelves of two counties as Washington state begins to implement a ban making it illegal to sell or distribute dishwashing detergents containing more than 0.5 percent phosphorus. The ban takes effect statewide in 2010. | 06/17/08 18:45:32 By - Isabelle Dills

California trucks young salmon to sea in move to help species

California officials on Tuesday trucked their final load of juvenile salmon from hatcheries to San Francisco Bay, marking the end of an unprecedented effort to help a dwindling species. | 06/17/08 18:29:22 By -

Murkowski pushes bill to ease tax on Exxon oil spill payout

As Alaskans await the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Exxon Valdez case, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is working on easing their tax burden, should they land a windfall in punitive damages. The Alaska Republican doesn't have much time. | 06/17/08 07:07:33 By - Erika Bolstad

McCain: Lift oil drilling ban offshore but not in ANWR

McCain plans to call Tuesday for lifting the ban that prevents offshore oil and gas drilling along much of the U.S. coastline, but would give states like Florida veto power over opening up their shores. He said he remains opposed to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. | 06/17/08 00:28:34 By - Lesley Clark

List of Florida's at-risk animals may change

Florida's wildlife managers are contemplating a fresh approach to the difficult business of deciding whether the West Indian manatee and dozens of other critters are endangered or threatened: Let somebody else do it -- namely, the federal government. | 06/16/08 16:31:49 By - Curtis Morgan

Wichita, trying to head off EPA, considers ways to cut smog

Wichita residents may soon be asked to gas up their cars at night and use electric lawn mowers to reduce smog levels. The Wichita City Council will be asked Tuesday to endorse a plan that would encourage area residents to clean up their air before the Environmental Protection Agency steps in and does it for them. | 06/16/08 07:57:59 By - Hurst Laviana

Bald eagle nursed back to health, set free in Florida

MARATHON, Fla — After a six-hour car ride wearing blinders, and another few minutes to have blood drawn and bands wrapped around its claws while 30 people gawked, the young bald eagle known as No. 303 was ready to fly the coop. | 06/14/08 09:59:31 By - Cammy Clark

News: Cheney admits error, this one about Chinese oil drilling

The vice president, citing columnist George Will, made the claim that China was drilling off Cuba in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as part of the administration's push for opening offshore waters and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The problem, of course, is that the claim was untrue. Cheney's office now acknowledges that. | 06/13/08 13:01:52 By - Lesley Clark

California drought worst ever, raising fears of fire, poor crops

The driest spring in history has yielded by far the driest, most flammable landscape fire forecasters say they have ever seen this time of year in the Sacramento Valley and Sierra foothills. Meanwhile, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday proclaimed a water emergency in nine Central Valley counties, where water shortages have led some growers to lay off workers and abandon crops. | 06/13/08 07:40:05 By - Chris Bowman

Scientists puzzled by year's surge in tornadoes

There have been 1,577 unconfirmed reports of tornadoes across the country so far this year, although that number should shrink after meteorologists review the data and eliminate duplicate reports. But the trend is unmistakable: In all of last year, there were just 1,093 confirmed twisters. | 06/13/08 07:39:48 By - Dave Helling

Alaska reporting few king salmon, worrying biologists

The number of returning fish is so low on the Deshka River that the state Department of Fish and Game on Thursday banned the use of bait by anglers. | 06/12/08 07:21:08 By - S.J. Komanitsky

GM's alternative fuel technology research wins award

General Motors Corp. has been known for gas-guzzlers like the Hummer, but chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner says the biggest U.S. automaker has spent years developing new fuel-efficient technologies, for whihc it was honored Tuesday. | 06/11/08 15:17:23 By - Randolph Heaster

Sea otter population, once nearly extinct, is again growing

Sea otters continue their slow recovery from the brink of extinction but face an uncertain future because of high levels of disease and vulnerability to oil spills. | 06/11/08 12:28:15 By - David Sneed

N. Carolina company hopes electric boats will become a trend

Record gas prices are keeping some boat owners docked, and sending boat sales off the deep end. It's the perfect time to start a boat company, says Frank Jones: At least if your company is called Carolina Electric Boats. | 06/11/08 06:49:06 By - Dudley Price

Duke Energy adding solar in N. Carolina

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Duke Energy Corp. is moving ahead with a $100 million plan to install rooftop and ground-level solar systems at up to 850 North Carolina homes and businesses. | 06/10/08 09:05:51 By - Christopher D. Kirkpatrick

Businesses see the money in being green

Going green is no longer just the right thing to do — it may be coloring the bottom line. And more and more consumers concerned with global warming, hazardous waste, oil prices and energy conservation are choosing to spend their money at businesses that think likewise. | 06/10/08 07:37:09 By - Joyce Smith

High water temperatures kill 161,000 fish in N. Carolina

North Carolina's Neuse River Rapid Response Team cited high water temperatures and low dissolved oxygen levels as factors contributing to the death of approximately 161,500 spot and croaker fish south of New Bern, N.C., over the weekend. | 06/09/08 17:35:26 By -

Congress names wilderness for member who angered Disney Co.

The House on Monday named a remote Sierra Nevada wilderness for former California congressman John Krebs, who lost his re-election bid in the 1970s after he angered the Disney Co. by blocking a planned ski development. | 06/09/08 15:41:20 By - Michael Doyle

Ohio company to turn Saturn Sky into an electric sports car

A small Cincinnati start-up company think its has a sporty answer for $4-a-gallon gasoline, or even $5 gasoline, for that matter. | 06/09/08 09:36:42 By - Jim Warren

A new garden for birds in Kansas

The exotic birds of Trinidad flashed across a big screen in Botanica's auditorium last week, photographed by local naturalist Bob Gress. | 06/09/08 09:32:49 By - Anne Calovich

Questions rise about cost of solar in the Sunshine State

Of all the ways to reduce global warming, harnessing the power of the sun would seem easiest in Florida. After all, sunlight is clean, free, and plentiful in the Sunshine State. | 06/09/08 09:26:11 By - John Dorschner

Feds pushing Great Plains schools to explore wind power

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory selected Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, Colorado, South Dakota and Montana for the Wind for Schools program. Each state then selected three to five school districts a year to receive the turbines. | 06/09/08 06:56:12 By - David Klepper

Giant Sequoia National Monument is still awaiting a plan

There's still no plan in place to govern recreation, fire management and protection of trees, wildlife and historic resources the Giant Sequoia National Monument, which President Clinton established by proclamation in 2000. | 06/08/08 12:48:48 By - Tim Sheehan

Senate blocks climate bill; backers wait for new president

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a vote on legislation that would cut greenhouse gas emissions across the U.S. economy, but its supporters said they'd keep working to get a stronger version ready for the next president. | 06/06/08 17:37:28 By - Renee Schoof

Here's a surprise — GOP's Liddy Dole backed climate bill

This morning, the U.S. Senate took a historic vote on the first comprehensive global warming bill to make its way out of a committee room. The sweeping legislation lost. But one of those in support of the tree-hugging, polar bear-loving legislation was Sen. Elizabeth Dole, the North Carolina Republican whose voting record is among the Senate's most conservative. | 06/06/08 09:23:10 By - Barbara Barrett

Home state's coal interests drove McConnell's climate bill opposition

As Sen. Mitch McConnell led the fight against passage of a Democratic-backed global warming bill this week, he found himself in the complicated position of balancing the economic needs of his coal-dependent state with addressing increasing public demand for environmentally friendly energy policies. | 06/06/08 18:38:31 By - Halimah Abdullah

McCain: I want to save Everglades

John McCain on Thursday defended his opposition to spending $2 billion on restoring the Everglades, an effort supported by two of his biggest Republican supporters in Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. Mel Martinez. | 06/06/08 19:36:01 By - Rick Hirsch and Lesley Clark

Kentucky encourages use of solar energy

Two years ago, after Frankfort, Ky., resident Angela Mitchell watched "An Inconvenient Truth," she sat down with her three children and discussed how they could do their part. | 06/06/08 09:50:04 By - Anna Tong

California contractor aims to build country's greenest houses

To drive up to the three- bedroom, two-bath bungalow being assembled in a historic residential neighborhood near downtown Folsom, you'd never suspect it's anything monumental. | 06/06/08 09:34:03 By -

In first, climate bill gets a Senate vote; as expected, it loses

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a vote on a bill that would cut greenhouse gas emissions across the economy, but senators backing the measure said they'd keep working to get a stronger version ready for the next president. 54 senators support the bill, but 60 were needed to bring it to consideration. | 06/06/08 13:18:08 By - Renee Schoof

In California, drought expected to mean higher food prices

California's drought -- marked Wednesday with an official declaration by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- is expected to deliver a tremendous blow to the San Joaquin Valley's multibillion-dollar agriculture industry. | 06/05/08 09:27:19 By - Dennis Pollock and Mark Grossi

Schwarzenegger hopes drought decree is wakeup call

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared Wednesday that California is in a drought, a move that included no immediate conservation orders but may lead to more aggressive water-saving efforts in many parts of the state. | 06/05/08 09:13:16 By - By Matt Weiser and Carrie Peyton Dahlberg

McCain, seeking 'green' vote, to visit Everglades Friday

John McCain will venture into the Everglades for the first time as a presidential candidate Friday, an obligatory rite of passage for politicians shoring up their environmental credentials in a crucial state. | 06/05/08 07:32:27 By - Beth Reinhard

With science undisputed, climate bill opponents turn to cost

Opponents of landmark legislation that would cut greenhouse gas emissions took a new approach this week as the Senate began debate on what could eventually be a huge reordering of how the nation gets and uses energy. Instead of challenging scientific evidence of a warming world, they've focused on costs. In the end, these opponents say, consumers would be hurt. | 06/04/08 20:31:25 By - Renee Schoof

Lowest Puget Sound tides in years a bonanza for biologists

More than four extra feet of Puget Sound beaches were exposed Wednesday by some of the lowest daytime tides in years, giving biologists an opportunity to explore sea bottoms that they hadn't seen in more than 20 years. | 06/04/08 17:35:02 By - Sudan Gordon

GM: Shift to small cars likely permanent, Hummer may go

Bigger is no longer better in the automotive industry, as evidenced by General Motors Corp.'s decision Tuesday to close four truck and sport utility vehicle plants in North America by 2010. "We at GM don’t think this is a spike or temporary shift," said Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner. | 06/04/08 10:24:49 By - Randolph Heaster

Study says green economy would need many workers in U.S.

The movement to a green economy could mean a huge gain for some job categories, according to a study released Tuesday by the University of Massachusetts. | 06/04/08 09:34:50 By - John Dorschner

First grassroots group starts fight on Sacramento smog

NEVADA CITY — The first grass-roots movement to combat Sacramento Valley's scourge of smog is sprouting on an unlikely turf: mountain hamlets that boast crystal clear, cobalt skies. | 06/04/08 09:26:47 By - Chris Bowman

New satellite photos show Amazon deforestation exploding

New satellite photographs show that the destruction of Brazil's fragile Amazon rainforest has exploded this year, fueling fears that the government's efforts to stop deforestation have been fruitless. That's raised red flags among environmentalists. | 06/03/08 21:10:03 By - Jack Chang

Irrigation may hide global warming's impact in some areas

Research suggests that irrigation acts as a crude air conditioner. It cools places like California’s central valley, the plains of Kansas and vast stretches of Asia. In fact, scientists say those chilling effects have masked climate change in those areas, buffering parts of the planet against warming temperatures. | 06/03/08 10:35:06 By - Scott Canon

Washington state considers protection of wolves

After 70 years of silence, the gray wolf's howl could be making a comeback in Eastern Washington. | 06/03/08 10:22:23 By - John Trumbo

Florida printer says his industry can go green for not a dime more

Like his father and grandfather before him, Gus Casamayor has earned his livelihood in the printing business. | 06/03/08 10:14:48 By - Brenda Krebs

Shortage hits nation's largest federal water district

LOS BANOS, Calif. _ Federal officials told hundreds of farmers in the Westlands Water District on Monday that they will get even less irrigation water _ just days after the district announced a rationing plan. | 06/03/08 10:00:35 By - Dennis Pollock

N. Carolina imposes strict pollution controls on coal plant

Four months after approving a controversial coal-burning power plant in the Blue Ridge foothills, North Carolina environmental regulators said Monday that Duke Energy must show that it will be the cleanest coal plant in the nation and implement maximum pollution controls under the federal Clean Air Act. | 06/02/08 20:49:30 By - John Murawski

Supreme Court expected to issue Exxon Valdez verdict this month

Any Monday between now and June 23, the Supreme Court could issue its decision on the Exxon Valdez lawsuit, a case that Alaskans have been awaiting for nearly two decades. | 06/02/08 20:13:20 By - Erika Bolstad

EPA lists fuel-efficient cars members of Congress can lease

The EPA has published its list of vehicles that members of Congress can lease under a new law that requires they drive vehicles with low greenhouse-gas emissions. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., introduced the legislation in 2005. | 06/02/08 19:10:19 By - David Goldstein

The solution to high gas prices no one wants — driving 55

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the cost of driving goes up 20 cents per gallon for every 5 mph over 60. The Alliance to Save Energy in Washington estimates that restricting speeds to 55 mph could reduce the use of imported oil by 20 percent. Even so, there's no eagerness to revisit the days when driving 55 was mandatory. | 06/01/08 21:34:54 By - Paul Wenske

Human waste ammonia likely cause of California fish kills

After years of searching high and low for a culprit in the collapse of Delta fish populations, scientists are learning the problem may lie right under their noses. The likely fish killer is ammonia, a common byproduct of human urine and feces. | 06/01/08 15:42:25 By - Matt Weiser

Despite traffic, Miami/Fort Lauderdale is Florida's least-polluting area

The highways of Miami and Fort Lauderdale may be jammed with gas-guzzling SUVs, but when it comes to global-warming emissions, South Florida is still greener than the state's other big metropolitan areas. | 05/31/08 20:31:40 By - Curtis Morgan

Which city pollutes most? (Hint: It's not New York or L.A.)

Idyllic Lexington, Ky., is the 91st-largest metro area in the United States, but its residents spew greenhouse gases at a per capita rate much higher than large cities such as Los Angeles and New York, a new study finds. | 05/29/08 22:45:15 By - Andy Mead