GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States reiterated on Friday that it was committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 even though the Senate has failed to pass legislation. "I am in no sense writing off legislation over time. And I'm quite sure the president isn't," U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern told a news conference during two days ...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - U.S. government officials urged residents of a Wyoming farming community near natural gas drilling sites not to use private well water for drinking or cooking because of chemical contamination. "Sample results indicate that the presence of petroleum hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds in groundwater represents a drinking water concern," the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement ...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday it had disapproved parts of Texas' program for permitting new industrial pollution sources. The action will not affect permits at the state's refineries, in which Texas leads the nation. EPA has been wrestling with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to end the use of a single permit for a ...

Two environmental organizations have sued federal regulators in an effort to accelerate the cleanup of coastal waters in Massachusetts' Cape Cod Bay. The Conservation Law Foundation and the Coalition for Buzzards Bay allege in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that the Environmental Protection Agency has not ...

The United States has 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. Twenty nations held two days of talks in Washington in first-of-a-kind shale gas talks initiated by the United States, where some forecast that shale -- a miniscule presence a ...

LOS ANGELES/HOUSTON (Reuters) - Julayna Smith has a problem. Over the years, she has accumulated eight cell phones in trying to keep up with the latest models. Her boyfriend has also started a small Blackberry pile of his own. "I don't know the first place to look to recycle a phone, I just have no idea where I would ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American farmers have been ridiculing a proposal by U.S. regulators to reduce the amount of dust floating in rural air. "If there's ever been rural America, that's what rural America is," said Nebraska hog farmer Danny Kluthe. "You know? It's dirt out here, and with dirt you've got dust." The Environmental Protection Agency ...

People who live around a toxic former silver mining complex in Idaho have a message for federal environmental officials who want to expand a lengthy cleanup effort: Go home, your help is no longer wanted. Despite the government's best intentions, some locals think a prolonged federal presence ...

After a lobbying push by oil giants, a bipartisan group of Texas legislators have asked state environmental regulators to quickly solve a permit dispute with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that has left some of the nation's largest oil refineries in operating limbo. A letter signed ...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Energy companies drilling for natural gas in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale have violated environmental laws 1,435 times since the drilling boom began in early 2008, according to a survey published on Monday by an environmental group. The survey, based on data from state regulators, found that the most common infraction -- representing almost a third -- was for erosion ...