National (U.S.)

"Chuck Fluharty parachutes into busted rural economies and tries to figure out how to get them out of the ditch. His latest challenge: Appalachia."

Did the chemical industry's main lobbying group write the bill to update the Toxic Substances Control Act? The top Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee, California's Barbara Boxer, says computer forensics show a draft of the "bipartisan" bill supported by the American Chemistry Council was written by the ACC itself. ACC denies it. Boxer has a competing bill. The controversy will erupt at a hearing today.

Robert Kenner's new film, "Merchants of Doubt," is about a "product" that is being "sold in courtrooms and the halls of Congress, he says, on television and, occasionally, in newspapers."
 

"Almost two years after an Exxon Mobil Corp. pipeline split open and sent Canadian crude flowing through a neighborhood in Mayflower, Ark., federal regulators have quietly proposed a sweeping rewrite of oil pipeline safety rules."

"Mounting evidence suggests BPS poses the same health risks being reported for BPA, a common ingredient in plastics".

"U.S. EPA has agreed to consider clamping down on corrosive dust after watchdogs complained that the current standards failed to protect rescue workers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."

"Wind power will be cheaper than electricity produced from natural gas within a decade, even without a federal tax incentive, according to a U.S. Energy Department analysis."

"Lead levels high enough to potentially harm children have been found in artificial turf used at thousands of schools, playgrounds and day-care centers across the country, yet two federal agencies continue to promote the surfacing as safe, a USA TODAY analysis shows."

"A federal appeals court upheld a district judge's decision to drop manslaughter charges against two former BP Plc (BP.L) well site managers over their roles in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil drilling disaster that killed 11 people."

"A virulent strain of avian flu that has killed turkeys in the heart of the nation's poultry region has been found through molecular testing to be nearly identical to viruses isolated in migratory ducks."