Secrecy News reports the NRC, responding to a Dec. 2009 White House OMB directive, has asked the public what information it should post online and how else it might improve transparency and collaboration with the public.

Katharine Jacobs, chair of the forthcoming National Academy of Sciences report on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change and a professor at the University of Arizona, will head up the effort to reinstate the National Assessment — with new emphasis on adaptation.

Washington Post reporter Lyndsey Layton writes about the thousands of chemicals exempted from EPA screening for potential harm to the environment and public health — and the three-decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that renders it possible, in the interest of protecting manufacturers' bottom lines.