WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration's newest anti-pollution plan would ping American drivers where they wince the most: at the gas pump. That makes arguments weighing the cost against the health benefits politically potent.

2. EPA Administrator Jackson Announces Resignation - Friday, December 28, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) – EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the Obama administration's chief environmental watchdog, is stepping down after nearly four years marked by high-profile brawls over global warming pollution, the Keystone XL oil pipeline, new controls on coal-fired plants and several other hot-button issues that affect the nation's economy and people's health.

3. Republicans Grill FDA Chief on Meningitis Outbreak - Thursday, November 15, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) – Republican lawmakers challenged the country's top medical regulator Wednesday to explain why her agency did not take action sooner against the specialty pharmacy at the center of a deadly meningitis outbreak.

4. House GOP to Push for Pipeline Despite Obama Move - Monday, January 23, 2012

BALTIMORE (AP) – House Republicans say a fresh push for a 1,700-mile Canada-to-Texas pipeline could be part of a new round of negotiations over extending the payroll tax cut and benefits for the long-term unemployed.

5. Obama Takes on Big Government: 'It Has to Change' - Monday, January 16, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) – Seeking more power to shrink the government, President Barack Obama on Friday suggested smashing six economic agencies into one, an election-year idea intended to halt bureaucratic nightmares and force Republicans to back him on one of their own favorite issues.

6. Congress Delays Light Bulb Law - Monday, December 19, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans in the U.S. Congress are flipping the dimmer switch on a law that sets new energy-savings standards for light bulbs.

They have reached a deal to delay until October enforcement of new standards that some fear will be the end of old-style, 100-watt bulbs. Republican lawmakers say they are trying to head off more government interference in people's lives.

7. White House to Review Energy Department Loans - Monday, October 31, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Friday ordered an independent review of clean-energy loans made by the Energy Department, its latest response to questions and criticism over a half-billion-dollar loan to a California solar company that eventually went bankrupt.

8. Gov't Pulls Back on Junk Food Marketing Proposal - Thursday, October 13, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) – Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam can rest easy. Government officials fine-tuning guidelines for marketing food to children say they won't push the food industry to get rid of colorful cartoon characters on cereal boxes anytime soon.

9. Debt Panel Members Rake in Health Money - Thursday, September 08, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) – The powerful new congressional panel assigned to tame the deficit will have to squeeze Medicare and Medicaid for any chance of success. But health care industries that depend on those programs have invested millions over the years to woo its members.

10. Pelosi Names Final Members to Debt Supercommittee - Friday, August 12, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's appointment Thursday of three Democrats to Congress' new debt-reduction supercommittee completes the roster of a panel whose members are already being tugged in competing directions.

11. Debt Panel Members Prompt Doubts - Thursday, August 11, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) – A conservative Texas Republican congressman has been chosen by House Speaker John Boehner to co-chair a powerful new committee tasked to find a bipartisan plan to slash the federal budget deficit by over $1 trillion.

12. US Congress Weighs Bill to Stop Nuke Waste Imports - Monday, October 19, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. government regulators told Congress on Friday that they have no power to stop Italy or any other country from dumping tons of radioactive waste in the United States.

It is up to Congress to stop other countries from shipping their radioactive waste to the United States, government officials who oversee the nuclear power industry told the House Energy and Commerce Committee's energy subcommittee. Moreover, a federal judge has ruled that multistate compacts overseeing waste disposal in their region do not have the authority either to bar foreign waste destined for private sites, witnesses said at a hearing.