The Interior Department scientist who first warned of climate change as a threat to polar bears in a 5-year-old peer-reviewed paper has been suspended. The Obama administration has been accused of hounding him so it can open up the fragile Arctic to drilling by Shell and other companies.
"As the capital's debt-limit drama enters its final act today, the last two solutions standing -- one Democratic, one GOP -- would slash long-term energy and environmental spending to a degree comparable with the fiscally austere deal struck to avert a springtime federal shutdown."
Claiming costs to oil and gas industry would outweigh health benefits to Americans, the oil industry is going behind closed doors at the White House to convince President Obama to overrule his EPA's effort to tighten smog controls.
"Rising sea waters may threaten U.S. coastal cities later this century, while the Midwest and East Coast are at high risk for intense storms, and the West could see compromised water supplies."
"A federal appeals court ruling that would require Clean Water Act permitting for stormwater runoff on logging roads has sparked a political backlash, leading to congressional action and possible Supreme Court intervention."
"The federal government and the West Virginia Coal Association want a judge to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at protecting Logan County’s Blair Mountain from surface mining and returning it to the National Register of Historic Places."
"Teams tallying damage from an Exxon Mobil Corp. oil spill into the Yellowstone River have found contamination on roughly 60 percent of shoreline areas inspected downstream from the pipeline break, state and federal environmental regulators said Tuesday."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday it would again delay issuing a final limit on smog pollution opposed by manufacturers and many Republican lawmakers until the Obama administration has finished reviewing it."
"The Environmental Protection Agency solicited public comment, July 26, about whether to require new toxicity testing and environmental sampling of bisphenol A, an ingredient in many plastics and food-contact resins." Recent studies suggest BPA exposure may come from a wider variety of products, and cause more serious health effects, than previously thought.
"Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is more than just a supporter of his state's influential coal producers -- he's a full-fledged industry insider."
