A hard-nosed account of Monsanto and its controversial and popular herbicide Roundup comes in a new book by a former wire service reporter, who pieced together documentation and fact-finding from over 20 years to make a case there was a dangerous cover-up. BookShelf reviews Carey Gillam’s “Whitewash.”
They count in the tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, and each one is a potential story. This week’s TipSheet looks at abandoned mines spread across the United States, many of them polluted, and with few cleanups underway. Find out what’s at stake, and get reporting resources.
"Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has redrawn his ambitious plan for reorganizing the Interior Department after the agency received numerous complaints from Western leaders and members of Congress that splitting up states into multiple regions would cause more harm than good."
"With fanfare, U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt convened top officials from across the government last week to discuss a coordinated federal effort to combat lead poisoning. What did they do? Hard to say."
"A pair of environmental groups representing public employees sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday, claiming officials failed to adequately take and maintain public records in violation of federal law."
"An inland traffic corridor in Florida is being promoted by the Trump administration as a top project in its $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan, even as the state grapples with rising sea levels along its 1,200-mile coastline."
"When the federal government shut down twice this year, meteorologist Brandon Dunstan went to work, just like any other day at the National Weather Service office in Raleigh, N.C."
"The chairman of the House Oversight Committee — in a prominent instance of Republican scrutiny of the Environmental Protection Agency under Scott Pruitt — demanded on Wednesday that the E.P.A. chief turn over documents related to his first-class travel at taxpayer expense."
Infrastructure is much in the news these days, with battles over politics and funding yielding stories for environment reporters. In play are a Trump plan, who gets to pick projects, who pays and much more. But in an election year, how likely are infrastructure plans to move forward? The backstory, with angles for environment and energy, plus what to watch for in 2018, in our Backgrounder on infrastructure.
Covering local infrastructure projects often means covering energy and the environment. This week’s TipSheet offers a companion to our special backgrounder on the national infrastructure story emerging out of Washington. We’ve got dozens of resources and links for finding infrastructure news and information from Congress, executive agencies, infrastructure organizations and environmental groups.
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