"A key environmental agency under Governor Mitt Romney says severe budget cuts have forced the agency to curtail its search for hazardous waste sites, cut back monitoring of water quality and air pollution, and close a regional office in northeastern Massachusetts, according to an internal document obtained yesterday.

The cutbacks at the Department of Environmental Protection are surfacing as a second environmental agency under Romney, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, is facing scrutiny for failing to plow a parkway where four schoolchildren were hurt on Friday."