Chemicals

"The EPA’s analysis of asbestos underestimates the extent to which people are exposed to the mineral and its potential to cause cancer and other diseases, an agency science advisory panel said."

"A federal judge has ordered President Donald Trump's administration to update its oil spill response plans and potentially limit the use of the chemical dispersants that were heavily used during the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster."

"From Washington to Los Angeles, the scene has become eerily mundane in the last week: The soft thud of a tear gas canister landing on pavement, followed by a billow of white smoke enveloping a throng of fleeing demonstrators."

"Bayer AG is blocked from selling its controversial dicamba-based herbicide in the U.S. after an appeals court rejected a federal regulator’s permit for the product, compounding the German company’s weed-killer woes."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday finalized a rule to control leaks of a type of pollution from industrial equipment, though critics argued the agency did not go far enough."

"Horseshoe crabs’ icy-blue blood will remain the drug industry’s standard for safety tests after a powerful U.S. group ditched a plan to give equal status to a synthetic substitute pushed by Swiss biotech Lonza and animal welfare groups."

"Though shuttered for a year, a Western Maryland paper mill’s byproducts continue to pollute the Potomac River, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh charged in a federal lawsuit."

"The EPA disagreed with a White House request to use current data when revising its rule on mercury air pollution, publicly available email exchanges show, which a law professor says could weaken the agency’s legal defense of the regulation."

"The legislation could inflict harsh new punishments on Black protesters opposing a massive complex of plastics plants on what are likely slave burial grounds."