Public

Committee staff are crucial to covering environmental issues. Here are some current House committee phone contacts relevant to the environment beat.

Journalists' Freedom of Information Act requests will have more clout if they demand specific justification for each redaction. A new Justice Department guidance document makes clear this is mandatory for most agencies.

A broad coalition of open-government groups is finalizing an ambitious agenda to improve public access to information in the next administration.

AREVA, the world's largest builder of nuclear reactors, banned pens, recorders and cameras during a field trip to the company's Lynchburg facilities organized by SEJ during its 2008 annual meeting held in Roanoke, VA.

In an effort to increase government accountability and transparency, media groups put forward a new "21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda."

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has a new tool for investigative journalists. Reporters can now snoop around the Federal Contractor Misconduct Database to find misdeeds by federal contractors.

The Smithsonian Institution's Board of Regents held its first public meeting in 162 years November 17, 2008. This marks a move away from existing policies that have made the institution's meetings and records less open to public scrutiny than other federal entities.

Weary of undisclosed corporate financial risk, battered stock investors are pressuring companies to disclose the economic risks they face from climate change.

US Supreme Court to hear six cases with important environmental implications. Issues involved are: use of sonar in Naval training; logging in California; power plant operation; disposal of mining wastes; royalties paid to the Navajo Nation on coal leases; and liability under Superfund law.

New U.S. refineries will process crude oil from Canada's Tar Sands, which means that much of the pollution associated with that refining will occur in the lower 48.