"President Obama plans to announce three cabinet-level nominations Monday, including a new administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, who could be on the hotseat in the looming battle over global warming."
"Environmentalists have a hope. If they can block the Keystone XL pipeline, they can keep Canada from developing more of its dirty tar sands oil. It takes a lot of energy to get it out of the ground and turn it into gasoline, so it has a bigger greenhouse gas footprint than conventional oil. But the State Department report, which was released Friday, says Keystone won't have much of an impact on the development of that oil from Alberta."
"Girls living nearest to the Fukushima nuclear disaster zone have almost a 70 per cent increased risk of thyroid cancer, the World Health Organisation says."
"Cleanup of radioactive waste at nuclear sites across the country — including one in Washington state where waste tanks may be leaking 1,000 gallons per year — would be delayed under automatic spending cuts set to take effect Friday."
"For Jesslyn Brown, sequestration could not come at a worse time of the year."
"Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project will take about 19 months longer to complete than originally expected and cost about $740 million more than originally thought, the company said Thursday."
"The federal budget sequester took effect on March 1 with a number of likely environmental impacts. With $1.2 trillion in cuts over the next decade and $85 billion through the end of the fiscal year in September, layoffs and difficulties in enforcing the nation's environmental regulations are expected."
Such a move had been resisted for years by the few large companies that dominate the scientific publishing industry. Some open-access groups hailed the memo as a breakthrough that would really allow taxpayers to read the research they pay for. Still, the proof will be in the implementation.
As new heads for environmental and energy agencies come before the Senate for confirmation, they will likely feel heat over the gulf between the Obama administration's rhetoric on transparency and its iron discipline on message control. Case in point: Gina McCarthy, widely expected to be Obama's nominee for EPA's top administrator slot.
"The acting head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warned staff on Tuesday that it may place an unspecified number of jobs on temporary furlough if across-the-board federal budget cuts take effect at the end of this week."
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