At the Spills of National Significance (SONS) Draft Communications Strategy forum on June 8, and in a June 30 letter, SEJ urged SONS communicators to release data fully and promptly, to acknowledge uncertainties and gaps, and to give journalists good access to officials, experts and places.
"The U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals from BP Plc and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and left intact a ruling that opens the companies to potentially billions of dollars in fines for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill."
"The Supreme Court ruled [Monday] that the Obama administration unlawfully failed to consider compliance costs before it issued its landmark power plant emission limits for mercury and other hazardous pollutants."
"At the vast BNSF rail yard in Kansas City, Kan., dozens of trains stretch into the distance. You can feel them rumble. You can hear the roar of 4,400-horsepower diesel locomotives. And you can smell their exhaust."
"Trains heaped with coal pass through Richmond every week on their way to the city’s port. In Parchester Village, a largely black and Latino neighborhood in northwestern Richmond, residents say coal dust blows off the open mounds, covering the grass and coating their screen doors."
"The Environmental Protection Agency has announced a $168 million settlement to help remedy pollution from a coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation."
"The Obama administration's long-awaited hydraulic fracturing rule will not take effect as scheduled today [Wednesday, June 24, 2015], thanks to a federal judge's eleventh-hour decision to stay the rule until August."
"Duke Energy’s plan to dig up 12 more coal ash ponds, announced Tuesday, means the company now aims to excavate 24 of its 36 ponds in the Carolinas."
"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued new safety requirements for underground storage tanks on Monday, a move it says will protect water sources by preventing potential petroleum leaks."
"At least some of the tar balls found littering one of southern California's most popular beaches last month were matched by lab tests to crude oil that spilled from a ruptured pipeline along the Santa Barbara coast about 100 miles away, state and pipeline company officials said on Monday."
