"BP has agreed to pay a record $50.6 million fine to the federal government for safety violations found by regulators last year at its troubled refinery in Texas City, Tex., where 15 workers died in a 2005 explosion."
Reporters can find most of the environmental monitoring data EPA has collected on one webpage in a form that can be queried or downloaded.
Before leaving town for its August vacation, Congress stripped $12 million for the commission from an appropriations bill and denied that panel the subpoena power it needs to find out what happened or what should be done to prevent another spill.
St. Petersburg Times' Craig Pittman reports the scientists' announcement in May that research boats had discovered a 6-mile long underwater oil plume was greeted with shushing from the Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"Drilling the final feet of a relief well intended to permanently plug the busted BP oil well deep below the Gulf of Mexico will have to wait two to three days as a strengthening tropical depression bears down on the site."
"Russian emergency workers have increased forest patrols in a western region previously contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, trying to prevent wildfires from spreading harmful radiation, officials said Wednesday."
"A month after the Deepwater Horizon disaster began, scientists from the University of South Florida made a startling announcement. They had found signs that the oil spewing from the well had formed a 6-mile-wide plume snaking along in the deepest recesses of the gulf. The reaction that USF announcement received from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agencies that sponsored their research: Shut up."
"More than three weeks after BP capped its gushing oil well ... wildlife officials are rounding up more oiled birds than ever as fledgling birds get stuck in the residual goo and rescuers make initial visits to rookeries they had avoided disturbing during nesting season."
"Paradise is in peril, both in the Great Lakes region and along the Gulf Coast."
"Almost 1,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC is pressing ahead with a $3.8 billion expansion of the largest refinery in the Midwest -- and facing off with environmental groups over controls aimed at preventing a gusher-style release of chemicals into the air."
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