"KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Cattle farmers complained on Wednesday that a federal agency is 'spying' on their operations by flying airplanes over Midwest cattle feedlots to see if they are complying with clean water regulations."

An explosion of flammable metal dust burned Wiley Sherburne, 42, an electrician at the Gallatin, Tenn., plant of the Hoeganaes Corp. Dust was everywhere at the plant. Sherburne died two days after being burned over 95 percent of his body. Combustible dust has killed or injured at least 900 U.S. workers in the past three decades, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has bogged down on efforts to strengthen regulations.

"With efforts to revamp the nation's chemical safety law stalled in Congress, the Obama administration's top environmental regulator vowed three years ago to act on her own to beef up the oversight of toxic substances. But key parts of the initiative by Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, are still bottled up in an obscure White House office under intense pressure from industry lobbyists to back off."

"An Aug. 30, 2011, e-mail exchange among Environmental Protection Agency officials, obtained by the Center for Progressive Reform under the Freedom of Information Act, provides a glimpse into how agency officials thought the White House failed to adequately capture their work on anti-pollution rules opposed by Republicans and industry officials."

"A report issued on Monday by the National Wildlife Federation asserts that federal laws regulating oil pipelines are inadequate in several crucial areas and that local regulations do not provide sufficient protection against safety and environmental risks."

The American Legislative Exchange Council -- ALEC -- has for decades worked to fight protection of public health from environmental threats. Funded with corporate money, the group has won non-profit tax status from the federal government even as it lobbies for industrial interests on an industrial scale. Now, because it backed the gun law that kept Trayvon Martin's killer from arrest, some large corporations are cashing out from ALEC.