"Federal inspectors charged with ensuring the safety of offshore oil drilling are overwhelmed, insufficiently trained, work without official procedures for some of their most crucial decisions and sometimes have insufficient support from their supervisors for resisting industry influence, according to a report released Tuesday by the Interior Department’s inspector general."
"Florida filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday to block new water pollution controls in the recession-hit state."
"In the face of heavy criticism from industry groups and members of Congress, U.S. EPA is asking to go back to the drawing board with a set of regulations that would limit toxic air pollution from industrial boilers."
"Fifty percent of thermal paper receipts and most dollar bills tested in a new study are tainted with Bisphenol A, according to a report released Wednesday by the Washington Toxics Coalition."
A lab downstream of the Alberta oil sands project has been testing Athabasca River water for decades -- but not testing for chemicals that might come from the oil sands.
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an emergency order against a gas driller in Texas on Tuesday, accusing the company of contaminating an aquifer and giving it 48 hours to provide clean drinking water to affected residents and begin taking steps to resolve the problem."
This invasive grass that already has a grip on about 2 million acres in the West makes the rangeland it invades virtually worthless for grazing, harms many animals that contact it or try to eat it, increases wildfire risk, and creates monocultures that have very low biodiversity and crowd out numerous native plant and animal species.
The map and report on known greater sage grouse high-density breeding populations is a starting point that can be refined with the input of state fish and wildlife agencies. But you can use it right away as you cover various land use and environmental issues.
A US Geological Survey report offers a perspective on the global situation and an assessment of known US deposits. There may be about 13 million metric tons available in 14 states — with the sites generally posing the usual environmental challenges associated with mining and refining.
NASA researchers have found the 104 selected lakes are warming by an average of 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit each decade (with some lakes increasing by up to 1.8 degrees F), and the temperature increase tends to be larger as you work toward the North Pole.
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