California

"Facing big deficits, the governor has proposed taking a bigger chunk out of climate programs in his new budget — about 7% — and spreading the funds over seven years. Climate groups said cutting back on state spending now would cost the state more later."

"The Pacific coast’s only native oyster is making a comeback, but it still needs a little help from its friends."

"Drive down any of the long, rutted back roads of Anza, a dusty Riverside County community, and it won’t take long before you feel like you’ve fallen off the grid."

"On Tuesday, a federal appeals court decided not to revisit its earlier decision to strike down Berkeley, California’s first-in-the-nation gas ban in new buildings. The ruling dealt a blow to the city of Berkeley, which requested a rehearing after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ initial decision in April, and casts uncertainty over similar policies to electrify buildings in dozens of other cities."

"California’s largest greenhouse gas polluters, from power plants to oil refineries to chemical manufacturers, produced slightly fewer emissions last year than the previous year, federal data shows. But it’s still too much planet-warming gas to cut significantly into the problem of climate change, environmentalists say."

"It’s not just toxic chemical waste and mysterious barrels that litter the seafloor off the coast of Los Angeles. Oceanographers have now discovered what appears to be a massive dumping ground of military weaponry."

"California’s statewide Sierra Nevada snowpack — the source of nearly one-third of the state’s water supply — is at its lowest level in a decade, a major turnaround from last year when huge storms ended a three-year drought and buried ski resorts in massive amounts of snow."

"With aquifers nationwide in dangerous decline, one part of California has tried essentially taxing groundwater. New research shows it’s working."

"Scores of California farmworkers are dying in the heat in regions with chronically bad air, even in a state with one of the toughest heat standards in the nation."