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The fossil fuel industry outspent environmentalists eight to one on lobbying as the two forces battled over climate change legislation in 2009, according to a new report from the Center for Responsive Politics.

"Chemtura Corp, a producer of specialty chemicals, will pay $26 million to clean up 17 contaminated sites located in 14 U.S. states, under an agreement announced Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice."

Grand Canyon National Park is threatened by factors ranging from climate change and mining to flyovers and management of the Colorado River.

"Cruise ships and large commercial ships will be banned from dumping any kind of sewage -- even highly filtered wastewater -- along California's coast out to three miles from shore, under new rules from the Obama administration."

"The United States on Tuesday offered to help major economies such as China and India develop shale gas, a rapidly growing sector in North America which US officials bill as a clean alternative." The motives may be as much geopolitical as environmental.

"BP Plc's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may be exacerbating a natural phenomenon that causes fish, crabs, eels and shrimp to swarm the shoreline to escape oxygen-depleted sea waters."

"The Tennessee Valley Authority has lost nearly $50 million in power generation from its biggest nuclear plant because the Tennessee River in Alabama is too hot."
 

Before the BP oil spill disaster, Louisiana wetlands were facing an even bigger disaster of long-term subsidence and erosion. Now the increased awareness stemming from the oil spill may help save them.