"In many parts of the country, areas that are now full of houses and schools and shopping centers were once oil and gas fields. You wouldn't know it by looking, but hidden underground, there are millions of abandoned wells. New development happening on top of those old wells can create a dangerous situation."
"In the U.S. Senate, Florida and Alabama are pressuring Georgia to join a water-sharing compact for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. But it could be too late downstream for scores of families who earned their livelihoods from the dying Apalachicola River."
"ST. LOUIS -- A jury on Wednesday awarded $17.5 million in damages to three plaintiffs and assessed $29 million more in punitive damages against Monsanto and three other companies in a suit here alleging negligence in the production of PCBs."
"The strange tale of how a Supreme Court justice accidentally triggered the biggest new water rule in a decade."
Open government groups have started a 50-day countdown to the law's 50th anniversary. It remains to be seen whether Congress can send President Obama a fix-FOIA bill by that date. Image: © Clipart.com.
The Senate-passed bill contains an explicit exemption from permits and fees for newsgathering. A House energy bill, now going to conference to be reconciled with the Senate bill, contains no newsgathering exemption. But that's not the end of the story. Image courtesy of NPS.
"The National Park Service has lost an early round of legal maneuvering over Yosemite National Park’s trademarked names, as a multi-front fight narrows to the court venue preferred by the aggrieved former concessionaire."
"The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved new chemical safety rules designed to overhaul federal regulation covering thousands of chemicals in daily use, a rare bipartisan action in a year when Congress is torn by presidential politics."
"The E.U. has not approved the biotech seeds; the uncertainty could present export problems for U.S. farmers and grain producers."
"Pennsylvania environmental regulators have, for now, dropped their pursuit of a nearly $9 million fine against Range Resources-Appalachia LLC after the two sides reached an agreement over a Lycoming County gas well that regulators said leaked methane into drinking water supplies and streams."
