"In a major ruling in the oil spill litigation, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled Wednesday that BP and Anadarko are responsible parties under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and are liable for civil penalties under the Clean Water Act for the undersea discharge of oil from the ill-fated Macondo well.
A bill that would mandate open public access, free of charge, to papers resulting from federally funded research is currently languishing in the GOP-controlled House. Private for-profit publishing companies aim to stop it, preserving their control over the science publishing market. One of these is Elsevier, the largest single academic publisher in the world, currently being boycotted by almost 7,000 researchers worldwide.
The Patton Boggs lobbying firm, which represents the mining industry, has sent letters threatening unspecified legal action against four scientific journals if they publish results of a study about the exposure of miners to diesel emissions, according to Science magazine.
This year's Farm Bill deliberations have been less transparent than ever before. In that spirit, SEJ's WatchDog shares a backgrounder, published by the Federation of American Scientists, on the 2012 Farm Bill done by the Congressional Research Service — which keeps their taxpayer-funded reports secret from the public.
The complaints came out at the Vancouver meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) this month — the main multidisciplinary science conference held yearly on the continent. Also during the meeting, a letter from six journalism and science groups called on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to end the muzzling-scientists policy was released.
"LONDON -- More than 145 food products derived from whales, dolphins and porpoises are for sale on Amazon Japan, the wholly owned subsidiary of Internet marketplace giant Amazon Inc., according to a new report by the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency."
"Dow Chemical Co hoped an Olympic sponsorship would boost its global cache, but the company's link to a gas leak tragedy 28 years ago threatens to curb some of the benefits from the $100 million advertising deal. As many as 25,000 residents of Bhopal, India, died in the aftermath of a 1984 gas leak at a pesticide factory that was owned by a subsidiary of Union Carbide, which sold the facility in 1994. Dow bought Union Carbide in 2001."
"Ships entering the Great Lakes should be made to kill all the creatures that hitch a ride in their ballast tanks, environmental groups said on Tuesday, challenging as too lax a proposed government standard to combat invasive species."
New York state legislators are considering banning shark fin sales, something several other states have done.
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