An Associated Press investigation explains how federal regulators leave safety up to gas pipelines and utilities, whose profit-seeking decisions on safety cause fatal disasters like the one in San Bruno, Calif., that killed eight and destroyed 55 homes.
"A coalition of public health organizations in the coming weeks plans to step up efforts to oppose legislation that would block or delay Environmental Protection Agency climate rules." Budget-cutting Republicans on Capitol Hill will be encouraged to reduce the healthcare costs borne by taxpayers and ratepayers as a result of air pollution.
"A federal judge said Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer paying victims of BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, can’t identify himself as an independent administrator of a $20 billion settlement fund."
President Obama's vision of a green-jobs economy includes a new agency, ARPA-Energy, like the one that invented the Internet. It already includes 16 projects applicable to electric cars.
"The future pace of drilling approvals in the Gulf of Mexico might be slowed less by new laws or regulations stemming from last year's massive spill but by a decades-old law that opens the door to longer environmental reviews and litigation."
"A Department of Interior study of potential new restrictions on surface coal mining outlines projected production shifts and job losses as well as estimated environmental benefits of tougher regulations, according to a draft report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act."
"The Obama administration will spare a stalled power plant project in California from the newest federal limits on greenhouse gases and conventional air pollution, U.S. EPA says in a new court filing that marks a policy shift in the face of industry groups and Republicans accusing the agency of holding up construction of large industrial facilities."
"Two southwestern Pennsylvania fly ash disposal sites are among 28 such sites in 17 states that have contaminated groundwater by leaking toxic, cancer-causing hexavalent chromium, according to a new report by Earthjustice and two other environmental groups."
"The government has again delayed independent safety tests required for many toys, youth all-terrain vehicles and other children's products as part of a 2008 anti-lead law -- a move meant to help small businesses burdened by the law."
"The Environmental Protection Agency is setting the first federal drinking water standard for a toxic rocket fuel ingredient linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women and young children, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday."
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