Environmental Politics

Congress created a cap-and-trade plan for air pollution from the nation's aging fleet of power plants 20 years ago. In its time, it was successful in cutting pollution, but today, tattered by politics and lawsuits, its future is uncertain.

"In the face of drastic funding cuts and a hostile political environment, U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has told her top deputies to rank which of their programs they deem to be essential and which could fall on the budgetary chopping block."

The president of Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish lambasted as untrue a ProPublica report that local officials -- nicknamed "spillionaires" -- had cashed in by manipulating cleanup contracts after the BP oil spill. New documents, however, support ProPublica's investigative findings, and raise questions about whether the official testified truthfully under oath before Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-CA) House Oversight Committee.

"The House of Lords has taken the unprecedented step of publishing a 'cease and desist' letter on its website demanding that Lord Christopher Monckton, a prominent climate sceptic and the UK Independence party's head of research, should stop claiming to be a member of the upper house."

"U.S. EPA announced Friday that it decided against a proposed rule that would have required contractors to test dust to prove the absence of lead following renovations."

"Powerful business and industry groups appealed to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Friday to pull back upcoming smog standards, calling the rules a test case of the White House's commitment to ensuring regulations don’t hinder U.S. competitiveness."

As cash-strapped local governments in Florida cut their mosquito-control budgets, the fight against a surge in mosquito populations is getting ugly -- and mosquitos may be threatening both health and economic well-being.

"As consensus mounts, and their states confront torrid heat, these politicians maintain global warming is a hoax."

"It's not yet lights out: Republicans have revived their effort to crush energy-saving lightbulbs, with a vote in the House of Representatives as early as Friday."