WatchDog TipSheet

Virtually unknown until the Swiss bank Julius Baer tried to censor it for publishing allegations of financial hanky-panky, a website called Wikileaks has catapulted to fame as a potential tool for journalists... and those who leak to them.

Can the public be trusted with information about drugs in their drinking water?

"News is what people want to keep hidden - and everything else is publicity." Bill Moyers made famous that maxim he gleaned from a Texas mentor.

EPA made public the latest year's data from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) February 21, 2008, catching a few journalists by surprise, as usual.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, ruled Feb. 15, 2008, that the public had a legitimate interest in data from some previously unreleased Agriculture Department databases - clearing the way for their release.

Large feedlots would no longer have to report toxic emissions under a rule proposed Dec. 21, 2007, by EPA.

The Society of Environmental Journalists has asked Environment Canada for its written policies on staff communication with news media.

The Bureau of Land Management has proposed changing its rules for complying with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Congress mandated a mandatory "registry" of greenhouse gas emissions with $3.5 million tucked into the final fiscal 2008 omnibus appropriations bill it passed late in 2007.

New Jersey filed a lawsuit Feb. 19, 2008, challenging the US-EPA's December 2007 rule that utilities could decide for themselves whether their air pollution increases are significant enough to require detailed record-keeping.