"A Valdez-based citizen watchdog group told legislators Tuesday that the state's arsenal of oil-response equipment lags behind modern technology and the state division that enforces the rules for preventing and cleaning up spills has an 'ever-worsening funding shortage.'"

"Citing a 'grave danger' to the nation's coal miners, the Obama administration said Tuesday that mine operators must take additional steps to control the buildup of highly explosive coal dust underground."

The Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday, September 22, will hold a hearing on the National Flood Insurance Program, which is teetering under some $19 billion in debt. The NFIP is set to expire Sept. 30, just as the hurricane season reaches its height. Congress has allowed the NFIP to expire four times already this year.

"BP's renegade Macondo well, which spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in the world's largest accidental release of hydrocarbons, is finally dead.

"SUKKUR, Pakistan — Suhani Bunglani fans flies away from her two baby girls as one sleeps motionless while the other stares without blinking at the roof of their tent, her empty belly bulging beneath a green flowered shirt. Their newborn sister already died on the ground inside this steamy shelter at just 4 days old, after the family's escape from violent floods that drowned a huge swath of Pakistan. Now the girls, ages 1 and 2, are slowly starving, with shriveled arms and legs as fragile as twigs."

"The top federal regulator of oil and gas pipelines is facing withering criticism for her ties to industry and her agency's floundering response to recent oil-pipeline spills in the Midwest and last week's deadly gas pipeline explosion in California."

"America's warning system for the series of giant ocean waves known as a tsunami is better than it was before the deadly 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but not good enough to meet risks posed by tsunamis generated near land that leave little time for warning, says a new congressionally requested report from the National Research Council."

Is the federal government trying to stop any research on oil spill impacts in the Gulf that does not fit preconceived conclusions supported by industry? Independent scientists have been getting that impression lately.

"It has happened three times in two months. First with Time magazine, then twice with the New York Times. A story in a national publication says the Deepwater Horizon disaster might not be quite as bad as everyone feared. Government and oil company employees nod their heads, eager to send the message that their cleanup efforts are succeeding."