Public

"To call the Interior and Environment spending bill the House will debate this week partisan would be an understatement."

"Two months before completion of a health risk study on Velsicol pollution in South Chattanooga, state regulators say the company doesn't need to do any more cleanup but should put a deeper layer of dirt on its former pesticide and herbicide manufacturing site on Central Avenue."

"Poverty in Appalachia is concentrated in the communities around mountaintop removal mines, and people living in those areas suffer greater risk of early deaths, according to a new scientific paper by a West Virginia University researcher."

"The National Park Service is proposing a rule that would allow American Indian tribes to remove plants and minerals from national parks for traditional uses, a break from a Reagan-era policy that barred such activities, according to a draft obtained by Greenwire."

"Less than half of Pennsylvania's fossil-fueled power plants have pollution controls, a long-tolerated dirty habit that's now getting its comeuppance in tougher, new federal regulations."

"Three judges who will hear a coal slurry pollution lawsuit against Massey Energy have declared any reference to a deadly 2010 mine explosion off limits for the August trial and ordered the plaintiffs' lawyers to avoid inflammatory phrases including 'poison' or 'toxic soup' in opening statements."

"Less than half of Pennsylvania's fossil-fueled power plants have pollution controls, a long-tolerated dirty habit that's now getting its comeuppance in tougher, new federal regulations."

A report from the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board says workers at the Energy Department's Hanford nuclear waste site in washington were fired for raising safety concerts and that the safety culture there is broken.

"A three-year study to determine the possible impacts of climate change on federal flood insurance will warn of huge increases to the amount of land that could be inundated by rising sea levels, heavier downpours and stormier coastlines."

"Thousands of residents living atop the gas-rich Marcellus Shale ... signed lowball leases in the years leading up to the boom in Pennsylvania. In those early days a half-decade ago, virtually no layperson had even heard of the rock formation, let alone knew that drillers had found a way to access the huge reservoir of natural gas locked inside it."