EJToday is SEJ's selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day's EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.
"Papers Detail BP Settlement in Gulf Oil Spill"
NY Times, 04/19/2012"The estimated multibillion-dollar settlement between BP and lawyers representing individual and business plaintiffs in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was fleshed out on Wednesday in hundreds of pages of motions and exhibits."
"Obama Wants To Target Oil Market Manipulation"
AP, 04/18/2012"President Barack Obama pushed Congress Tuesday to give oil market regulators more muscle to deter price manipulation by speculators, the latest White House response to determined Republican attacks on administration energy policies amid high gas prices at the pump."
"Canada Chops Environmental Reviews, Fires Scientists, Responders"
ENS, 04/18/2012"OTTAWA -- Conservation advocates across Canada are warning today that more environmentally-destructive development will be approved now that the Conservative Harper Government has slashed environmental reviews. In the next 10 years, more than 500 projects representing over C$500 billion in new investments are proposed across Canada."
"Transocean Seeks To Block CSB Oil-Spill Probe"
Reuters, 04/12/2012"Myriad agencies have investigated BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but the owner of the rig that exploded and sank wants to draw the line at the one designated by Congress to probe disasters involving deadly chemical blasts and releases."
T"he U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which investigates chemical explosions in the same manner the National Transportation Safety Board investigates airplane crashes, launched its first offshore investigation shortly after the 2010 explosion killed 11 workers and allowed more than 4 million barrels of crude to foul the gulf.
"First Global Effort to Fight Environmental Crime Takes Shape"
ENS, 04/03/2012"LYON, France -- For the first time, heads of environmental, biodiversity and natural resources agencies from across the world have met with heads of law enforcement agencies to craft a global compliance and enforcement strategy for environmental security."
"Studies Show Why Insecticides Are Bad News For Bees"
NPR, 03/30/2012"The search for the killer of America's bees is a little bit like an Agatha Christie novel. Suspicion has turned toward one shady character and then another: declining habitat; parasites; diseases; pesticides.
Or did they all conspire in the recent mass murder of the country's bees?
"Justice Was Blind To Some Facts in Idaho Wetlands Case"
Greenwire, 03/30/2012The nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court did not have all the facts before them when they decided the recent case of Sackett v. EPA, which limited EPA's authority over wetlands under the Clean Water Act.
"EPA's Veto of Spruce Mine Permit Overturned"
Charleston Gazette, 03/26/2012"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A federal judge has overturned the Obama administration's veto of the largest mountaintop-removal mining permit in West Virginia history, saying the agency greatly oversteps its authority in blocking the controversial project."
"Justices Allow Challenge to E.P.A. Control of Wetlands"
NY Times, 03/22/2012"The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that an Idaho couple had the right to file an immediate court challenge to a federal Environmental Protection Agency decision designating their property as wetlands and forbidding them from building a home there."
EPA's 22-Year Battle With Cranberry Farm Ends; Questions, Anger Linger
Greenwire, 03/21/2012"Though U.S. EPA has prevailed in one of its longest-running enforcement matters, there's some debate over whether the payoff was worth all the effort."
"Feds Let BP Off Probation Despite Pending Safety Violations"
ProPublica, 03/14/2012"BP’s refining subsidiary was released [Monday] from criminal probation related to a 2005 explosion in Texas City that killed 15 workers."
"Lawyers Descend En Masse for Arguments on Greenhouse Gas Rules"
Greenwire, 02/28/2012"If the importance and complexity of a court case can be established based on the number of lawyers at the lectern, then the battle over the Obama administration greenhouse gas regulations is of epic proportions. When the three interlinked cases are argued over two days at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit this week, no fewer than 18 different attorneys will advocate for their clients before the three-judge panel."
"Gulf Oil Spill's 'Trial of the Century' Could End Before It Begins"
New Orleans Times-Picayune, 02/06/2012"Some leading analysts and legal observers believe the highly anticipated 'trial of the century' over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, set to begin in three weeks, will end before it starts. BP and negotiators for federal and state governments are frantically working to confect a settlement so they won't have to leave the fate of billions of dollars in potential pollution fines and spill damage payments in the hands of U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier."
"A Judge Rules Vermont Can’t Shut Nuclear Plant"
NY Times, 01/20/2012"WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday blocked Vermont from forcing the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor to shut down when its license expires in March, saying that the state is trying to regulate nuclear safety, which only the federal government can do."
West Virginia: "Reports: DEP Mine Cleanup Program Unfunded, Mismanaged"
Charleston Gazette, 01/11/2012"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- As this year's legislative session begins, a state advisory council is again urging lawmakers to increase a coal production tax that funds abandoned mine cleanups and a scathing new audit says mismanagement by the Department of Environmental Protection could leave the state responsible for 'immense amounts of monies' for reclamation."

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