"President Joe Biden announced today [Monday] that the Department of Veterans Affairs will grant extensive health care benefits to veterans experiencing certain debilitating respiratory cancers linked to exposure to burn pits and their fumes."
"California prohibits farmers from growing crops with chemical-laced wastewater from fracking. Yet the state still allows them to use water produced by conventional oil drilling—a chemical soup that contains many of the same toxic compounds."
"The U.S. houses hundreds of millions of tons of phosphogypsum in open-air stacks, but regulation is inconsistent."
"People of color and low-income communities are at disproportionate risk of pesticide exposure, a new study has found." "Hispanic and Latino farmworkers at high risk from pesticide use in agriculture, while people in lower-income housing also affected".
"Roughly 99 percent of chemicals added to food since 2000 were approved for use by the chemical and food industry — not federal regulators — according to a new analysis from the Environmental Working Group."
"On any given afternoon, the garbage cans in San Jose’s Westfield Oakridge Mall food court overflow with plastic spoons, forks, soft drink cups and takeout food containers. Paper frozen yogurt containers are mashed in with plastic boba tea cups and soda bottles."
"Defying pressure from industry members and Republican lawmakers, EPA has released a long-delayed and highly contentious draft assessment finding formaldehyde is carcinogenic to humans when inhaled."
"The rise of fracking in Appalachia has fed visions of turning the Ohio River Valley into a petrochemical and plastics hub. But overproduction of plastic, opposition to natural gas pipelines, and public concern about rampant plastic waste are upending those plans."
"Brightmark Energy and a county in the U.S. state of Georgia scrapped plans to build “the world’s largest” facility to turn plastic waste into fuel, according to a termination agreement published on Monday, a blow to a technology the petrochemical industry has promoted heavily."
"EPA will probe alleged racial discrimination by two Louisiana agencies in a predominantly Black area, a senior official confirmed this week."
