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NPR's Ina Jaffe reports on an industrial-environmental deal that could only have been made in California. After a beach eroded to expose oil pipelines, Chevron replaced it with new sand. But that ruined the surfing, and Chevron had to fix it. The company employed a surf engineer who's building a unique breakwater to create new but gnarly waves. It's the first such project anyone's heard of, but probably not the last.

Linda talks with NPR Capitol Hill correspondents Brian Naylor and Peter Kenyon about the Republican-led 104th Congress, which is coming to a close. Republicans say they've made great progress on their agenda over the past two years, having enacted two thirds of their Contract with America. Democrats say they stopped the GOP leadership from cutting Medicare, education and environmental protections.

It's been five years since the collapse of the Soviet Union but it will take many more years to undue much of the ecological damage done during Soviet rule. Case in point: one of the greatest environmental disasters in the world today is the drying up of the Aral Sea in central Asia. In the 1950s, when the Soviets decided to increase their cotton crop, two rivers that flowed into the Aral Sea were used to irrigate the cotton fields of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan; the flow of water to the Aral Sea was reduced by ninety percent with disasterous results. NPR's Mike Shuster visits an Uzbek town that used to one of the Aral Sea's biggest ports--now the sea is thirty miles away and the town of Mujnak (Moy-NAHK) is plagued by both massive unemployment and serious health problems brought on by the Aral's demise.

Within the next week, the EPA is expected to propose new, more stringent health standards for two of the most common and pervasive air pollutants -- ozone and small particles. Stricter standards could force tighter pollution controls on everything from cars to power plants to woodburning stoves. NPR's David Baron reports that there is a growing debate on what constitutes a "safe" level of these pollutants -- and that industry and environmental groups are already launching intensive lobbying campaigns.

John Nielsen looks at the emphasis the Clinton campaign is placing on its environmental record, contrasting it with that of Bob Dole and the Republican Congress. While Dole supporters in Congress defend the Republican record as a good one, the candidate himself has said little about it.

U.S. officials who are hoping to strengthen some international environmental treaties are watching a fishing conference in Spain very closely, where diplomats are trying to crack down on nations that are ignoring the treaty protecting the giant bluefin tuna. The numbers of bluefin tuna have been reduced by ninety percent since the 1970's, mostly due to overfishing by fleets from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The debates over the treaty could have far-reaching implications for other international wildlife protection agreements. NPR's John Nielsen reports.

A major environmental lobbying group has broken ranks, issuing a report that calls the Endangered Species Act a failure. The Environmental Defense Fund says the law hasn't protected species on private land and that the law needs to be overhauled to extend its reach to these areas. But other groups don't want Congress to tinker with one of environmentalism's monumental achievements. And as NPR's John Nielsen reports, ranchers and farmers are also opposed to any changes.

the Clinton Administration out of expanding a law requiring them to detail all the chemicals that go into plants and factories. Environmentalists are pushing for the expansion, to hold the chemical industry accountable for accidents and toxic pollution.

Flying tourists over the Grand Canyon is big business. But the federal government now says it's too noisy, and has decided to restrict where, when and how often planes and helicopters can cruise over the West's top tourist attraction. NPR's Howard Berkes reports that neither environmentalists nor tour companies are happy with the compromise regulations.

So-called "rational Republicans" want conservatives to vote for moderates or Dems to save democracy. NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks to Republican former NJ Gov. and EPA Admin. Christine Todd Whitman.