Here's more evidence of why documents should be leaked to reporters: a Powerpoint obtained by LA Times' Neela Banerjee shows EPA's Region 3 staff argued a year ago for continuing its investigation of fracking pollution around Dimock, PA — as EPA HQ announced it was ending its study of Dimock wells. Now there's an echo in Pavillion, WY.
House and Senate Republicans made a big deal over EPA "transparency" while McCarthy's nomination was being held up in the Senate, for 130 days. Then on July 9, 2013, the Senate Environment Committee's ranking minority member said he would drop his filibuster threat because EPA had agreed to some of his demands on transparency.
"The White House this afternoon nominated New Mexican Mike Connor, a former aide to Sen. Jeff Bingaman and current head of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, to be second in command at the U.S. Department of the Interior."
John Fleck reports for the Albuquerque Journal's N.M Science blog July 30, 2013.
"WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barbara Boxer will seize control of efforts to regulate industrial chemicals during what lobbyists are calling a 'mega-hearing' Wednesday that will test her ability to navigate a major environmental law through a divided Congress."
Some chemicals can cause cancer. But the chemical industry, unable to get the results it wants from toxicologists at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, is now trying to get them by using lawyers, lobbyists, and legislators.
"BOSTON -- The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency told an audience at Harvard Law School on Tuesday that cutting carbon pollution will 'feed the economic agenda of this country' and vowed to work with industry leaders on shaping policies aimed at curbing global warming."
"'Climate change will not be resolved overnight,' EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told the 310-member audience. 'But it will be engaged over the next three years. That I can promise you.'
"Republican strategists have laid out an aggressive game plan for seizing the high ground on energy during the August recess: talk about gas prices and jobs, jobs, jobs."
"At Margaret O'Keefe's farm in East Texas, they grow high-quality Bermuda grass. The fields are flat and vibrant green, surrounded by woods of a darker, richer green. The family loves this land. O'Keefe inherited it from her mother, who divided it among eight children."
"BRUSSELS — The European Union’s trade chief said on Saturday that a deal had been reached with China to settle a dispute over exports of low-cost solar panels that had threatened to set off a wider trade war between two of the world’s largest economies."
"An EPA staff report suggests methane from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, contaminated wells near Dimock, Pa., but the agency says the water's safe to drink."
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