Publication Items

The aging fleet of US nuclear power reactors have some technological similarities to the reactors failing in Japan. Could similar loss-of-cooling events happen at some US reactors — whether caused by earthquake, tsunami, terrorist attack, electrical outage, flooding, equipment failure, or some other problem?

According to the AP, the Chemical Safety Board, which has been monitoring the testing, wanted further tests to confirm whether a fundamental design flaw may have contributed to failure of the blowout preventer's control pods

Before picking up stories based on journals in the environmental sciences, reporters might pause to ask about those journals' policies on transparency and potential conflict of interest. And then ask about enforcement, and any relevant conflict declarations on the article in question.

In the case of Milner v. Department of the Navy, the court rejected an expansive interpretation of the FOIA exemption on personnel matters. And in another FOIA case decided March 1, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations do not have a right of personal privacy that can prevent the federal government from disclosing records about them.