It may come as little surprise that an unknown number of Americans could die as a result of White House weakening of food safety rules mandated by Congress. The Office of Management and Budget has been secretly weakening environmental health and safety at industry request for years. The surprise is that we found out.
"A federal judge on Friday rejected BP's attempt to block the Deepwater Horizon claims administrator from awarding what it said could be billions of dollars in payments for 'business economic losses' that the British oil giant contends are based on 'fictitious' claims of damage.
U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier, who also is overseeing the sprawling BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill trial, seemed unlikely from the onset of the hour-long hearing to issue the temporary injunction that BP sought as part of the class action suit.
"With the warming U.S. Arctic region poised for greater oil and mining development, the White House needs to develop a national strategy that can take environmental decisions on a larger scale, a report issued Thursday concluded."
"On one covert video, farm workers illegally burn the ankles of Tennessee walking horses with chemicals. Another captures workers in Wyoming punching and kicking pigs and flinging piglets into the air. And at one of the country’s largest egg suppliers, a video shows hens caged alongside rotting bird corpses, while workers burn and snap off the beaks of young chicks."
"The Home Depot chain agreed to pay $8 million for selling tens of thousands of gallons of paint, varnishes, sealants and other liquid building materials that violated regional air quality rules, the South Coast Air Quality Management District announced Thursday, April 4."
"WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency's latest proposed tightening of limits on sulfur in gasoline, and its previous rules, will most likely have the perverse consequence of retarding the development of cars running on batteries, advanced biofuels or hydrogen -- all promising but expensive technologies that have not become mass-market products."
"WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge by the oil lobby disputing a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency air pollution rule."
Natrona County District Judge Catherine Wilking ruled March 25, 2013, that a company could withhold as trade secret the ingredients used in the fluids it pumped under high pressure to fracture gas- and oil-bearing rock. Environmentalists had sought to make the ingredient list public.
The unsealed documents revealed that the potential plaintiffs had received $750,000 from frackers Range Resources, which has been accused of high-handed tactics. The case is important in several respects — even beyond the broader controversy over sealing of civil settlements.
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