"We're one week away from the first anniversary of the worst oil spill in the nation's history, and to commemorate it, House Republicans spent Wednesday marking up a trio of bills that would dramatically increase drilling in the US."
Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker's payback to the billionaire Koch brothers who helped elect him went beyond crushing unions to deregulating pollution. According to the liberal blog Think Progress, Walker and state Supreme Court Judge David Prosser worked quietly behind the scenes to allow Koch's Georgia Pacific paper plants to keep dumping thousands of pounds of phosphorus into the Fox River near Green Bay.
"The Davis Besse incident has resurfaced in the wake of the ongoing nuclear crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant. Stories recounting close ties between Japanese nuclear regulators and utilities there have reinvigorated critics who say the NRC has not been an aggressive enough U.S. watchdog."
"A year after the worst oil spill to strike U.S. waters, oyster beds are struggling along the Gulf of Mexico, the dolphin population is experiencing what the federal government calls an 'unusual mortality event,' and red snapper with rotting fins are showing up on fishing lines."
"A federal appeals court has upheld two decisions that threw out most of a lawsuit field against chemical giant DuPont Co. by Parkersburg [WV] residents over the pollution of their city's water with the toxic chemical C8."
"The Philadelphia Water Department announced yesterday that it is enhancing its testing procedures and reviewing treatment technology after federal environmental officials found radioactive iodine in the city's drinking water."
"Several Democratic senators said Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency should step up regulation of the natural gas industry because they are concerned that toxic chemicals used in drilling could enter the public water supply."
High prices for agricultural crops are driving farmers to plant more acres. Some of that land had been previously held back from planting because it is highly erodible. Changing weather patterns and inadequate enforcement of erosion protections are making things worse.
"In negotiating the budget deal that averted a government shutdown, Democrats and the White House claimed a big victory in preventing Republicans from blocking a set of environmental regulations. But as details of the compromise became known Tuesday, it was clear Republicans had won deep reductions in spending at the Environmental Protection Agency."
"New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is re-evaluating the state's participation in a regional carbon trading program and could opt to withdraw within a few weeks. Observers say the move is expected in response to pressure from GOP legislators and campaigns mounted by groups funded by billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch."
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