"Cancer-causing industrial chemicals have been found in the sewers at a Columbia-area restaurant as a state investigation of illegal dumping expands from the Upstate to the Midlands, where utility officials scrambled this week to learn more about the threat to central South Carolina."
"An elemental phosphorus plant owned by the FMC Corp., on the Shoshone-Bannock homelands in Idaho, has been abandoned for more than a decade. But its legacy of pollution remains -- and it’s jeopardizing economic progress, public and environmental health on the reservation and in surrounding communities."
"Senator Tim Scott will vote against President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, virtually erasing the possibility of a Senate panel approving the nomination."
"Federal judges [Wednesday] posed stiff questions to Department of Energy officials on why the agency continues to collect fees for disposing of nuclear waste even though it has no operating national repository."
Residents of a largely Latino San Diego neighborhood have three times the chance of having asthma.
"A new federal flood-insurance reform law requires maps to take account of projected sea level rise in designating flood zones, as federal subsidies for properties in flood zones fade to zero."
On Saturday, October 5: At 9:00 a.m. SEJ FOI Task Force Chair Tim Wheeler of the Baltimore Sun will moderate a session on overcoming obstacles put up by agency press offices to reporters who want to interview government officials. At 10:45 a.m. WatchDog Editor Joe Davis will present a hands-on session with tips for sleuthing dam and levee stories using federal databases like the National Inventory of Dams and the National Levee Database.
In 2010, BLM denied Horseback Magazine photojournalist Laura Leigh access to federal land to photograph a roundup. She went to court, was rejected, then went to a complex chain of appeals. Now the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and other j-groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of photojournalists' First Amendment rights to cover government actions.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on September 12, 2013, approved a bill shielding journalists from being compelled to reveal their confidential sources. Its prospects for enactment look iffy in a Congress noted for gridlock. The panel approved the bill (S 987, titled "The Free Flow of Information Act of 2013) by a 13-5 vote.
News broken this month by Politico revealed the existence of a Koch brothers fund that quietly handed out some $250 million to conservative causes during the 2012 elections. Under U.S. law, such groups are tax-exempt, can raise unlimited amounts of money, and do not have to disclose their donors.
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