WatchDog TipSheet

Some of "The Rules" laid down by the EPA press office, as experienced by SEJ members, include the following:

A Senate bill would require members of Congress who add FOIA exemptions to legislation to flag them.

The University of California "has begun withholding public records that detail how animal research is done.

Need another reason not to go through the "press office?" Try reading the transcript from the White House briefing of June 8, 2005.

A freelance journalist is challenging in court the US Department of Agriculture's efforts to keep secret its data on who owns the feedlots Americans can see and smell, but whose pollution the food industry does not want USDA to regulate.

The House Science Committee is investigating charges that a White House political arm with no scientific expertise is suppressing EPA information about the toxic risks of commercial products.

In the old days, the newsroom at most local dailies had a police scanner squawking like a nervous parrot in the background, to get the jump in case something big happened. To get environmental news today, you need other tools.

Inspection reports on badly maintained dams - or information on what homes would be swept away if they failed?

Paul Wotzka, a hydrologist with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, who was fired shortly after he asked permission to testify before the Minnesota legislature on Atrazine pollution of water finally had his say.

Federal district judge Dee Benson ruled Oct. 9, 2007, that a group of news media companies could not have access to an investigation by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) into the Crandall Canyon mine collapse in Utah Aug. 6, which killed six miners and three workers trying to rescue them.