"A lengthy, blistering heat wave that is blanketing the eastern half of the United States is putting significant stress on the nation's power grid as homeowners and businesses crank up their air conditioners."
Congress created a cap-and-trade plan for air pollution from the nation's aging fleet of power plants 20 years ago. In its time, it was successful in cutting pollution, but today, tattered by politics and lawsuits, its future is uncertain.
"Shrimp boats that fish in the Gulf of Mexico without the required turtle-excluder devices are killing more sea turtles than is allowed under the Endangered Species Act, the advocacy group Oceana said in a report Tuesday."
"Health and environmental groups have mounted a campaign against Bath & Body Works, urging the retailer to stop selling its line of 'Summertime Scent' soaps that contain triclosan, a chemical categorized as a pesticide."
"A Pennsylvania homeowner and an Indiana golf course company have filed a class-action lawsuit against DuPont charging that the chemical giant was either negligent or reckless in putting a new weedkiller on the market."
"Members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission appeared divided Tuesday over how to proceed with a staff proposal that calls for nuclear power plants to be better prepared for blackouts and natural disasters."
"In the face of drastic funding cuts and a hostile political environment, U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has told her top deputies to rank which of their programs they deem to be essential and which could fall on the budgetary chopping block."
"A government report released Tuesday says states are underreporting violations of federal drinking-water standards, preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing rules aimed at protecting public health."
The president of Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish lambasted as untrue a ProPublica report that local officials -- nicknamed "spillionaires" -- had cashed in by manipulating cleanup contracts after the BP oil spill. New documents, however, support ProPublica's investigative findings, and raise questions about whether the official testified truthfully under oath before Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-CA) House Oversight Committee.
"When an earthquake launched a tsunami that devastated a Japanese nuclear complex in March, U.S. regulators quickly reassured the public that American reactors were built to withstand the expected severity of earthquakes in their areas. Privately, though, internal emails from March show staffers at the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission fretted about the public attention on the potential earthquake vulnerability of some U.S. plants."
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