Reversing course, the Obama administration's Interior Department scuttled a policy that it had touted barely five months before as reversing the wilderness policies of President Bush.
"An oil and gas trade group has taken the rare step of challenging a U.S. EPA information request, saying the agency is seeking too much data as it revisits a George W. Bush-era analysis of refineries' cancer-causing emissions."
"Just in time for cookout season, some unsettling news arrives for guacamole and salsa lovers: Federal testing turned up a wide array of unapproved pesticides on the herb cilantro — to an extent that surprises and concerns government scientists."
"The Supreme Court decided [Tuesday] not to take up the question of whether U.S. EPA followed the correct procedure in effectively banning a pesticide that had been in use for years."
"We can’t know for sure what Thomas Jefferson would have thought of the arrests Saturday of five people who were dancing in his memorial. According to reports, they were grooving in silence to protest an earlier court ruling banning dance within the Jefferson Memorial."
"President Obama on Tuesday nominated John E. Bryson for commerce secretary, a choice that drew plaudits from business and environmental groups, reflecting his uncommon career in both worlds. But Senate Republicans threatened to block confirmation of the nominee over a trade dispute."
"Budget cuts proposed by House Republicans to the Food and Drug Administration would undermine the agency’s ability to carry out a historic food-safety law passed by Congress just five months ago, food safety advocates say."
"U.S. dependence on imported oil fell below 50 percent in 2010 for the first time in more than a decade, thanks in part to the weak economy and more fuel efficient vehicles, the Energy Department said on Wednesday."
"The U.S. Forest Service is weighing tighter restrictions on aerial fire retardant drops as part of a long-running legal battle over the environmental effects of pouring millions of gallons of the chemical mixture on Western wildlands every year.
Retardant use has soared in recent decades as wildfires have grown larger and more houses have been built on the wildland edge. Nationally, federal and state agencies apply an average of more than 28 million gallons a year, the vast majority of it in the West and much of that in California.
Nearly a third of the retardant used by the Forest Service in the last decade has been in California, where urban development abuts fire-prone wildlands and weather and terrain regularly produce monster blazes.
The proposed limits, outlined in a recently released environmental document, are not expected to cut overall usage. Rather, they are intended to reduce drops on and near waterways, where they can kill fish, and to slightly expand the acreage that is off limits to retardant releases for ecological reasons."
Bettina Boxall reports for the Los Angeles Times May 30, 2011.
"The proposed limits are intended to reduce drops on and near waterways, where they can kill fish, and to slightly expand the acreage that is off limits to retardant releases for ecological reasons."
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