"Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer, citing lax oversight, urged regulators and states to do more to curb threats caused by poor storage of ammonium nitrate in the wake of April’s deadly explosion in Texas."
"A 27-year-old U.S. program intended to warn the public of the presence of hazardous chemicals is flawed in many states due to scant oversight and lax reporting by plant owners, a Reuters examination finds."
"KALAMAZOO -- John DeKoff lives only a few hundred yards from a mound of 1.5 million cubic yards of potentially carcinogenic, toxic material. And he prefers it stay right where it is."
"Pepsi-Cola is still using caramel coloring containing a chemical linked to cancer in rodents, a report released on Wednesday showed, more than a year after the beverage maker promised to phase it out."
"In Vernon, a judge allows Exide to resume operations that had been suspended for alleged pollution violations. In the Central Valley, a state agency OKs expansion of a hazardous waste dump."
"WASHINGTON -- Environmental safety groups are stepping up efforts to prevent a reportedly dangerous yet widely used herbicide from being sold in the United States, even as the country’s primary environmental regulator is considering increasing the amount of the herbicide allowed in the U.S. food supply."
"Colorado oil and gas industry regulators have given medical community leaders a written assurance that doctors can obtain and share trade-secret information about fracking chemicals for the purpose of treating patients and protecting public health."
"In response to a massive bumblebee die-off blamed on pesticides, the Oregon Department of Agriculture issued a temporary restriction Thursday on 18 insecticides with the active ingredient dinotefuran."
"HOUSTON -- A federal agency investigating a deadly explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant told a Senate committee Thursday that regulation of the dangerous chemicals used in the industry fall under a 'patchwork' of standards that are decades old and are far weaker than rules used by other countries."
In January 2013, representatives of some 140 nations met in Geneva to finish a treaty to minimize emissions of mercury. In the end, they gave an exemption to the use of a mercury compound, thimerosol, as a preservative in some children's vaccines.
