Matthew Daly

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration says new rules to manage nearly 200 million acres of national forests will protect watersheds and wildlife while promoting uses ranging from recreation to logging.

The new rules, to replace guidelines thrown out by a federal court in 2009, are set to be released Thursday by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. A summary was obtained by The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Sensing a political opening, congressional Republicans are moving toward a high-stakes showdown with President Barack Obama over a plan to link fast-tracked approval of an oil pipeline to a measure renewing a payroll tax cut.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas will help the president achieve his top priority — creating jobs — without costing a dime of taxpayer money.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration moved Wednesday to speed up permitting and construction of seven proposed electric transmission lines in Utah and 11 other states, saying the projects would create thousands of jobs and help modernize the nation's power grid.

WASHINGTON — A divided Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

WASHINGTON — America’s energy future can’t be unlocked as simply as Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann makes it sound when she depicts the nation as the “king daddy dogs” of energy. Even if environmentalists folded and Washington regulators got out of the way, much of the energy is too expensive for companies to develop.

WASHINGTON -- Under pressure from Congress, the Obama administration is backing away from a plan to make millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West eligible for federal wilderness protection.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a memo Wednesday that his agency will not designate any of those public lands as "wild lands." Instead Salazar said officials will work with members of Congress to develop recommendations for managing millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West. A copy of the memo was obtained by The Associated Press.

Salazar's decision reverses an order issued in December to restore eligibility for wilderness protection to millions of acres of public lands. That policy overturned a Bush-era approach that opened some Western lands to commercial development.

A budget deal approved by Congress prevented the Interior Department from spending money to implement the wilderness policy. GOP lawmakers complained that the plan would circumvent Congress' authority and could be used to declare a vast swath of public land off-limits to oil-and-gas drilling.

Republican governors in Utah, Alaska and Wyoming, filed suit to block the plan, saying it would hurt their state's economies by taking federal lands off the table for mineral production and other uses.