Publication Items

What You're Not Supposed To Know About Secret Environmental Treaty [1]

The public is not allowed to know the terms of the draft Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact likely to come up for a Senate vote this year. Yet the Senate has already begun voting on terms for considering the treaty, which may allow other nations to override U.S. health, safety, and environmental protection laws. Fortunately, WikiLeaks has already published a leaked version of the environmental chapter of the TPP treaty.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Environmental Health [3]
Environmental Politics [4]
Health [5]
Laws & Regulations [6]
Natural Resources [7]
Visibility:
Public [8]
- Read more about What You're Not Supposed To Know About Secret Environmental Treaty [1]
Is Wyoming Ban on Reporting Environmental Harm Unconstitutional? [9]

A newly enacted Wyoming law seems to be aimed at criminalizing the collection and reporting of stream pollution or other environmental harm. It creates a unique new category of crime called "data trespass." Just what the law, signed in March by Gov. Matt Mead (R), means or does is being debated hotly.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Activism [10]
Agriculture [11]
Environmental Politics [4]
Laws & Regulations [6]
Pollution [12]
Region:
Mountain West (CO ID MT NV UT WY) [13]
Visibility:
Public [8]
- Read more about Is Wyoming Ban on Reporting Environmental Harm Unconstitutional? [9]
Do Firefighters Have a Right To Know About Hazmats They Face? Do You? [14]

The watchdog group Center for Effective Government offers data tools that partly offset government failures to protect people from dangerous materials that poison or injure people, burn, or explode. They are also tools for journalists trying to inform their communities.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Chemicals [15]
Disasters [16]
Visibility:
Public [8]
- Read more about Do Firefighters Have a Right To Know About Hazmats They Face? Do You? [14]
You Are the Heart of SEJ [17]

In this excerpt from the latest issue of SEJournal, SEJ president Jeff Burnside reflects on the power and value of SEJ members, shares stats that'll make you proud and offers easy ways for you to help grow our membership — win-win all around.

SEJ Publication Types:
SEJ Presidents Report [18]
Visibility:
Public [8]
- Read more about You Are the Heart of SEJ [17]
Panel: Conflict Looms over Environment and Energy in 2015 [19]

SEJ Publication Types:
Features [20]
Topics on the Beat:
Journalism & Media [21]
Visibility:
Public [8]
- Read more about Panel: Conflict Looms over Environment and Energy in 2015 [19]
Can Nonprofit News Rescue Environmental Journalism? [22]

SEJ Publication Types:
Features [20]
Topics on the Beat:
Journalism & Media [21]
Visibility:
Public [8]
- Read more about Can Nonprofit News Rescue Environmental Journalism? [22]
Need to Know? Eight Reports from the Congressional Research Service [23]

Congress does not release reports done by the Congressional Research Service to the public, even though taxpayers fund them. Thanks to the Federation of American Scientists' Government Secrecy Project, you can read them anyway.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Disasters [16]
Economy & Business [24]
Energy & Fuel [25]
Natural Resources [7]
Nuclear Power & Radiation [26]
Science [27]
Technology [28]
Region:
Antarctica & Arctic [29]
Visibility:
Public [8]
- Read more about Need to Know? Eight Reports from the Congressional Research Service [23]
Americans Can't Know Whether Chemicals in Products They Use Are Unsafe [30]

As Congress limps toward revisions of the badly broken Toxic Substances Control Act, it's clear that only a small fraction of the roughly 84,000 chemicals in commerce in the U.S. have actually been tested for health effects. Now an environmental health group has rated some household cleaning products firms.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Chemicals [15]
Consumer [31]
Health [5]
Visibility:
Public [8]
- Read more about Americans Can't Know Whether Chemicals in Products They Use Are Unsafe [30]
New Oil Train Regs Go Backward on Public's Right to Know Risks [32]

Since U.S. oil production started booming, the news has been full of tanker trains blowing up. Under a May 2014 emergency order, the Federal Railway Administration increased requirements that railroads disclose oil train routes. But a new regulation issued May 1, 2015, leaves the public — and firefighters — with less information about the risks they face. Photo: The latest oil train derailment and explosion, today, in ND/Curt Bemson via AP.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Disasters [16]
Energy & Fuel [25]
Laws & Regulations [6]
People & Population [33]
Planning & Growth [34]
Transportation [35]
Region:
Great Plains (IA KS ND NE MO SD) [36]
Northwest (OR WA) [37]
Visibility:
Public [8]
- Read more about New Oil Train Regs Go Backward on Public's Right to Know Risks [32]
Despite FOIA, EPA Press Policy Remains a Puzzle Palace [38]

In response to the WatchDog's request for the U.S. EPA's press policy, EPA seems to be saying that it doesn't have one. Or that paradoxically EPA staff can talk to reporters but are forbidden to talk to reporters. Or that EPA does not respond to requests for information. Even though the WatchDog finally got a partial response to its June 10, 2014, FOIA request for EPA policies on news media access to EPA employees on April 29, 2015, nothing was revealed. Puzzled? So are we.

SEJ Publication Types:
WatchDog TipSheet [2]
Topics on the Beat:
Environmental Politics [4]
Government [39]
Journalism & Media [21]
Visibility:
Public [8]
- Read more about Despite FOIA, EPA Press Policy Remains a Puzzle Palace [38]

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