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usatoday.com — The Bush administration said it won't finish implementing new vehicle fuel-efficiency rules, leaving the issue to the incoming Obama administration. The Transportation Department said in a statement that the recent financial problems of automakers will require the next administration "to conduct a thorough review of matters affecting the industry." The auto industry was swift to criticize the decision, saying any delay could cost them money. The department is required under a law enacted in 2007 to set rules by April 1, 2009 for how automakers are to meet new fuel economy standards.

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nytimes.com — The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States — most of them unregulated and unmonitored — that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal. Like the one in Tennessee, most of these dumps, which reach up to 1,500 acres, contain heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a threat to water supplies and human health. Yet they are not subject to any federal regulation, which experts say could have prevented the spill, and there is little monitoring of their effects on the surrounding environment.

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reuters.com — U.S. drivers need to pay more gas taxes and new user fees to fix crumbling roads and bridges and ease congested highways, a transportation commission is set to recommend to Congress later this month. U.S. gasoline taxes should be raised 10 cents a gallon to help fund improvements, at least until new systems are created to charge drivers for how much they use roads, according to a draft copy of recommendations from the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission. "We've basically had a 30-year experiment in this country in under-investing in surface transportation infrastructure," said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and chairman of the commission.

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cnn.com — The drinking water in the area of last month's coal-sludge spill in eastern Tennessee is safe, but elevated levels of arsenic have been found in the sludge, authorities said. A billion gallons of the sludge, made up of water and fly ash from a coal-burning Tennessee Valley Authority steam plant in Kingston, Tennessee, swamped 300 acres of mostly private property when a dike on a retention pond collapsed December 22. Preliminary results from water samples taken in the spill area show no unsafe levels of toxins, said Leslie Sims, on-scene coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency. The testing includes municipal supplies and private wells, he said.

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nytimes.com — A coal ash spill that blanketed residential neighborhoods and contaminated nearby rivers in Roane County, Tenn., earlier this week is more than three times larger than initially estimated, the Tennessee Valley Authority said on Thursday.

Coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal, contains toxic heavy metals like arsenic, lead and selenium that can cause cancer and neurological problems.

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iht.com — Environmentalists sued the Bush administration on Monday, trying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from changing a U.S. rule they say keeps mining waste from entering mountain streams. At issue is mountaintop mining, in which forests are clear cut and holes are drilled to blast apart rock. Massive machines then scoop coal from the exposed seams. The rock and dirt left behind is dumped into adjacent valleys, changing the natural shape of the earth, lowering the height of the mountain and covering streams.

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