"In the months before last week's deadly fertilizer plant explosion in Texas, U.S. government watchdogs criticized federal oversight of facilities that make or store dangerous chemicals."
"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Scientists backed by a $15 million industry-funded research project are picking apart -- and trying to disprove -- a series of studies that found coalfield residents near mountaintop-removal mining operations face greater risks of serious illness and premature death."
"As the Obama administration launches a broad investigation of flame retardants used in furniture and other household goods, the nation's top environmental regulators are running into the limitations of a federal law that makes it practically impossible to ban hazardous chemicals."
"The Environmental Protection Agency issued a sharply critical assessment of the State Department's recent environmental impact review of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, certain to complicate efforts to win approval for the $7-billion project."
Reporters aren't the only ones frustrated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's clampdown on press coverage, which prompted SEJ recently to call it "one of the most closed, opaque agencies" in the federal government. Patrick Boyle, former chief of public affairs for EPA's Mid-Atlantic regional office, says politically motivated "message control" didn't begin with the Obama administration, but it's gotten much worse under a president who promised greater transparency in government.
"Rob Gillies and his team gather data on Nepal’s changing climate for a research project. They log temperatures, raindrops and snow. They pump the numbers into powerful computers and read the trend lines the computers spit out. Gillies sees the numbers in human terms, too. Global warming is likely to mean less water, putting crops and livestock in peril, along with nourishment for children who already don’t get enough to eat. That leaves the climate scientist with questions instruments can’t answer. About fairness. Justice. And life and death."
"BILLINGS, Mont. -- Internal investigators faulted the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday for years of delays in completing health studies needed to guide the cleanup of a Montana mining town where hundreds of people have died from asbestos exposure."
"WASHINGTON -- A dozen states and cities and three major environmental groups have notified the Environmental Protection Agency that they plan to sue the regulator unless it issues final rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants."
"U.S. construction workers, environmentalists and company executives squared off on Thursday at a raucous meeting on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, but it was unclear the gathering changed any minds on the controversial project."
"The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today confirmed the nomination of Ernest Moniz to become the next secretary of Energy on a 21-1 vote."
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