USFWS officers and DHS agents are not allowing independent academic researchers to study damage from the BP oil spill to natural resources from public lands and waters, saying they are justified by the "Natural Resource Damage Assessment" process under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and "national security," respectively.
Obama administration officials are publicly refusing to disclose data backing up an August 4 report announcing that some three-fourths of the BP oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico was "gone.".
"Another BP employee is refusing to testify in the investigation into the cause of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, invoking his Fifth Amendment right to not produce testimony that could incriminate him."
"Two weeks after BP's Macondo well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico, the federal government's Minerals Management Service finalized a regulation intended to control the undersea pressures that threaten deepwater drilling operations. MMS did not write the rule. As it had dozens of times before, the agency adopted language provided by the oil industry's trade group, the American Petroleum Institute, and incorporated it into the Federal Register."
"A Manhattan-sized plume of oil spewed deep into the Gulf of Mexico by BP's broken Macondo well has been consumed by a newly discovered fast-eating species of microbes, scientists reported on Tuesday."
"While it is too early to gauge the long-term environmental or economic effects of the release of 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf, it now appears that the direst predictions about the moratorium will not be borne out."
The fossil fuel industry outspent environmentalists eight to one on lobbying as the two forces battled over climate change legislation in 2009, according to a new report from the Center for Responsive Politics.
"Chemtura Corp, a producer of specialty chemicals, will pay $26 million to clean up 17 contaminated sites located in 14 U.S. states, under an agreement announced Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice."
Grand Canyon National Park is threatened by factors ranging from climate change and mining to flyovers and management of the Colorado River.
"Cruise ships and large commercial ships will be banned from dumping any kind of sewage -- even highly filtered wastewater -- along California's coast out to three miles from shore, under new rules from the Obama administration."
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