"The Texas fertilizer plant that blew up on April 17, killing at least 15 people, appears to have been claiming an arcane exemption that allowed it to avoid targeted workplace inspections and safety requirements and enter a 'streamlined prevention program' with environmental regulators, a government spokesman confirmed."
"An independent study co-published by the Faulkner County Citizens Advisory Group and Global Community Monitor reveals that, in the aftermath of ExxonMobil's Pegasus tar sands pipeline spill of over 500,000 gallons of diluted bitumen (dilbit) into Mayflower, AR, air quality in the area surrounding the spill has been affected by high levels of cancer-causing chemicals."
"Six months after Superstorm Sandy plowed through the Northeast, restoration efforts continue to move forward. New Jersey's Seaside Heights boardwalk is set to reopen Memorial Day, and some of the homes that were destroyed are starting to be rebuilt."
"Senator Barbara Boxer said on Tuesday she plans to investigate the explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant earlier this month that killed 15 people and injured scores more."
"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said on Tuesday it will increase oversight of Exelon Corp's 805-megawatt Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, to ensure that safety equipment is protected from flooding."
"Scientists say waste-treatment plants must follow subways and power stations in being protected against climate change."
"Louisiana will receive $340 million from BP in early Natural Resource Damage Assessment money for four projects to restore barrier islands and to finance two coastal science centers, Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Tuesday in a news conference in Jean Lafitte. The money comes from $1 billion that BP set aside in 2011 to build early projects to compensate for damages to natural resources resulting from the three-month flow of oil resulting from the blowout of BP's Macondo well in April 2010."
"Federal officials are cautioning nuclear-powered plants that store spent fuel in dry casks to be on the lookout for water damage."
"WASHINGTON -- Eighteen years after a domestic terrorist murdered 168 people in Oklahoma City with an ammonia nitrate bomb, the federal government and the chemical industry are still jockeying over how to regulate a volatile and plentiful fertilizer that contributed to the devastating plant explosion in West.
At least five federal agencies enforce a patchwork of overlapping and sometimes conflicting regulation of chemical plants. The system is reliant on voluntary reporting by industry, and by nature is largely reactive to complaints or catastrophes.
"With two schools near a plant storing ammonium nitrate -- the fertilizer used in the Oklahoma City bombing -- West, Texas, Superintendent Marty Crawford said he had always worried about an explosion like the one that happened last week."
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