ContributorNetwork - While Austin, like most Texas cities, has a recycling program, the capital of the state is experimenting with commercial composting, using food and other organic waste to create mulch and potter's soil for commercial use, according to the Austin American Statesman.
ContributorNetwork - The Texas Public Policy Foundation is warning of an "approaching regulatory avalanche" in a report. The foundation says new rules in the works by the Environmental Protection Agency could cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Here are the details of the report.
AP - China announced Monday it will prohibit its airlines from paying European Union charges on carbon emissions, ratcheting up a global dispute over the cost of combatting climate change.
ContributorNetwork - According to a blog post from Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, the environmentalist organization accepted millions of donated dollars from the natural gas industry to fight against coal-fired plants nationwide. Here are the details.
Reuters - There was no risk of a radiation leak after a fire broke out at a Moscow nuclear research center housing a non-operational 60-year-old atomic reactor Sunday, said officials, but Greenpeace Russia expressed serious concern about the incident.
Reuters - Canada will set up a new environmental monitoring system for the northern Alberta oil sands as it seeks to fend off harsh international criticism following revelations that oversight of the huge petroleum development has been insufficient.
Reuters - The U.S. Agriculture Department on Friday awarded $40.2 million in grants to farmers, ranchers and farmer-controlled rural business ventures aimed at spurring locally produced food supplies and renewable energy ventures.
LiveScience.com - Hundreds of species never before seen in a Peruvian national park have been found during an inventory of the Amazonian forests there, according to a conservation group.
AP - British leader David Cameron made a third unwanted shake up of his government since 2010 on Friday after Cabinet minister Chris Huhne quit as prosecutors charged him over an alleged attempt to pin a speeding penalty on his ex-wife.
Pew - No issue divides more along partisan lines than the importance of environmental protection – 58% of Democrats say it is a top priority, compared with just 27% of Republicans.
AP - An environmental watchdog group filed a lawsuit Thursday against the company it blames for an oil spill 11 miles off the coast of Louisiana, claiming oil has been flowing into the Gulf of Mexico for more than seven years with few details about what's being done to stop it.
The Christian Science Monitor - The Obama administration today unveiled plans to boost US offshore wind power by opening up four new wind-leasing regions for wind turbine power generation.
AP - The view off the mid-Atlantic shore in the next decade could include giant wind turbines generating electricity for homes in several states if federal efforts to speed approval for the projects shave years off the process as officials intend.
Reuters - Spanish oil company Repsol YPF has begun drilling the first well in Cuba's long-awaited exploration of offshore oilfields that the communist country says hold both billions of barrels of oil and the key to greater prosperity, industry sources told Reuters on Thursday.
AP - Unusual wear has been found on hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water at Southern California's San Onofre Unit 2 nuclear plant, raising questions about the integrity of equipment the company installed in a multimillion-dollar makeover in 2009.
Reuters - The director of a U.S. documentary that portrays shale gas production as dangerous was arrested and escorted out of a Republican-dominated Congressional hearing on Wednesday, touching off a dispute over public access to the event.
AP - The Atlantic sturgeon, a prehistoric fish whose once bountiful populations were depleted by anglers seeking its coveted caviar, has been declared an endangered species by federal officials, a decision that could lead to moves to protect its habitats along the East Coast.
