"Congress is barreling toward a frenetic finish this week that could see action on a genetically modified organisms bill in the Senate and House work on spending legislation before lawmakers leave for a seven-week summer break July 15."
"As recently as two weeks ago, the food industry was preparing to place labels on food products that contain genetically modified ingredients. But if a bi-partisan deal cobbled together last Thursday in the Senate Agriculture Committee gets signed into law, widespread labeling likely won't come to pass."
"Hillary Clinton, courting young voters and the broader Democratic base, has promised to one-up President Obama on climate change, vowing to produce a third of the nation’s electricity from renewable sources by 2027, three years faster than Mr. Obama, while spending billions of dollars to transform the energy economy."
"A Mississippi project, a centerpiece of President Obama’s climate plan, has been plagued by problems that managers tried to conceal, and by cost overruns and questions of who will pay."
"The ongoing crisis in Flint, Mich., has shined a spotlight on the public-health hazards that lead continues to pose in U.S. drinking water. In particular, it has led to renewed pressure to test for the problem in the nation’s schools, where millions of young children, the age group most vulnerable to lead poisoning, spend their days."
"Rivers, streams, lakes, and coastal waters of the United States face various threats through human activities, not least of which is the bane of pollution. One of the major sources of contaminants that can upset the natural balance is industrial output, including large-scale agriculture, particularly if the processes and discharge are poorly managed, according to a new report from Environment America."
"Mass die-offs in California, the Southwest and Europe are not only tied to global warming by new studies, they will add to it."
"The Interior Department said Thursday it is changing the way it values coal mined from public lands in the West to make sure mining companies are not shortchanging taxpayers on sales to Asia and other markets."
"The race by automakers and technology firms to develop self-driving cars has been fueled by the belief that computers can operate a vehicle more safely than human drivers. But that view is now in question after the revelation on Thursday that the driver of a Tesla Model S electric sedan was killed in an accident when the car was in self-driving mode."
President Barack Obama signed reforms to the Freedom of Information Act into law Thursday, just in time for the 50th birthday of the nation's landmark open government law on July Fourth. The bill capped years of work by ovocates in Washington.
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