Economy & Business

Denton Record-Chronicle city hall reporters Lowell Brown and Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe tackle environmental issues as part of their everyday coverage. SEJournal has the inside story on their award-winning shale-gas-drilling series, which revealed through one neighborhood's ordeal how land deals really work in Texas and the impacts of the controversial technology.

But the list — the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory — is still minus some 17,000 chemicals that manufacturers allege are trade secrets.

The plants, ranging from very large to very small, are now using chemicals and processes such as liquid chlorine bleach, calcium hypochlorite, or ultraviolet light — allegedly making ~40 million people living nearby safer.

Do commercial products we have body contact with contain toxic chemicals? In too many cases, states and environmentalists are saying, the federal government forbids consumers from knowing.

Many story leads are tucked away in this 196-page report: recession impacts from drops in extraction and consumption, increases in importation of key materials, insights on stories related to climate change and air pollution, and much more.