Environmental Politics

"The Senate on Sunday night cleared a food safety package, curbing earlier fears the popular bill would die by the end of this session as a result of a procedural error by upper chamber lawmakers."

"An internal EPA memo released [Dec. 8] confirms that the very agency charged with protecting the environment is ignoring the warnings of its own scientists about clothianidin, a pesticide from which Bayer racked up ... about $262 million in sales in 2009."

"The Senate on Wednesday voted in favor of a one-year extension of the ethanol tax credit and the ethanol import tariff at existing rates, despite complaints the subsidies were wasteful."

"Environmentalists and state regulators faced off Tuesday in the start of a major permit appeal hearing that puts the spotlight squarely on West Virginia's opposition to a federal crackdown aimed at reducing strip-mine pollution across the Appalachian coalfields."
 

"The Obama administration supports a full study of the effects of gas drilling in the watershed that provides drinking water for Philadelphia and New York City, but it doesn't want to wait until it's finished for drilling to begin."

"Greens and public health advocates fear the White House is losing its backbone when it comes to defending its environmental policies — at the worst possible time."

"Although Canada will not expose its own citizens to asbestos, its plans to continue exporting the deadly substance to developing countries has drawn widespread condemnation. "

"Republican senators blocked Democratic legislation on Thursday that sought to provide medical care to rescue workers and residents of New York City who became ill as a result of breathing in toxic fumes, dust and smoke from ground zero."

"Despite landmark bipartisan legislation in 1990 amending the Clean Air Act to control nearly 200 toxic air pollutants, EPA has yet to achieve controls on most of them. The reasons have as much to do with politics and public relations as with science and health."