National (U.S.)

Cleanup of polluting runoff from abandoned mines in Colorado and elsewhere is stalled by a legal paradox.

Environmental groups have issued a new report listing top U.S. species threatened by climate change.

"The Environmental Protection Agency has put off, until the middle of next year, any decision about whether to increase the amount of ethanol allowed into the nation’s fuel."

"The U.S. Supreme Court hears a major property rights case Wednesday, a case from Florida that pits the state's need to prevent beach erosion against the rights of property owners to keep ownership of the land at the water's edge."

A USA TODAY probe reveals some of the reason why USDA officials did not recall meat they knew could be tainted with salmonella from school lunch programs. The story is based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Hoping to please the farm lobby, Congress ordered the nation's gasoline refiners to blend more ethanol into the fuel Americans use. But fuel demand falling because of the recession and more efficient vehicles has made this impossible.

"Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell has directed the agency's regions and research stations to jointly produce draft "landscape conservation action plans" by March 1 to guide its day-to-day response to climate change."

"The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season ended Monday without a hurricane landing on U.S. shores and with the fewest named storms in 12 years, according to the National Hurricane Center."

"Despite months of additional study and a self-imposed timetable, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration likely will not release its ruling Monday on the safety of bisphenol A, a chemical used in thousands of household products that has been linked to developmental and behavioral problems."

"A group of U.S. senators who could determine the fate of a climate bill received more than $20 million in campaign contributions over the past two decades from energy interests with a direct stake in pending legislation."