"PARIS -- Any global climate change deal reached in Paris next month will be legally binding and have a concrete impact, France's foreign minister said on Thursday, reacting to U.S. comments that questioned the status of the accord."
"Smoking would be prohibited in public housing homes nationwide under a proposed federal rule to be announced on Thursday, a move that would affect nearly one million households and open the latest front in the long-running campaign to curb unwanted exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke."
"Large chemical companies and their major trade association and lobbying arm, the American Chemistry Council, say they can maintain high safety standards through self-regulation and voluntary actions. Our report finds this isn't the case. Voluntary standards don’t work, and existing regulations are not effectively enforced."
An important, but little-known, transparency law requires that FAC meetings be open to the public. But a new study shows that more than two-thirds of the time, they are not. On those committees, industry "experts" who have a financial stake may be telling agencies to ignore scientific findings in their regulation of things like environmental health and toxic chemicals.
"The recent finding by an international panel that eating processed meat increases the risk of cancer could trigger warning labels under California law and a legal battle by meat producers and their trade groups to avoid the requirement."
"After a ruptured oil pipeline went undiscovered for 17 hours, spilling 800,000 gallons of heavy oil into Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010, Congress ordered an audit that laid bare the industry's lackluster record of spotting leaks. But after five years of work, the Obama administration has proposed a regulatory overhaul that fails to patch that hole in the nation’s pipeline safety net — a revelation that has been largely ignored amid Washington's obsession with the Keystone XL pipeline."
"The American Farm Bureau Federation and other industry groups today asked the Supreme Court to review U.S. EPA's landmark approach for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay."
"Peabody Energy, the world’s biggest private coal company, has agreed to make more robust disclosures to its investors about the financial risks it faces from future government policies and regulations related to climate change and other environmental issues that could reduce demand for its product."
"President Obama announced on Friday that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a symbol of the debate over his climate policies."
"House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) [Thursday] proposed comprehensive reforms to the Land and Water Conservation Fund in a bill that would send significantly more money to states and greatly curtail the purchase of new federal lands."
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