"For the second consecutive year, the Obama administration more often than ever censored government files or outright denied access to them under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press."

"The Gulf of Mexico is close to being back to normal and there are no indications of any long-term damage from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, a BP report released Monday says."

"A group of environmental and food safety organizations will sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its approval of an insecticide that the groups say will harm threatened and endangered wildlife."

"Chuck Fluharty parachutes into busted rural economies and tries to figure out how to get them out of the ditch. His latest challenge: Appalachia."

Did the chemical industry's main lobbying group write the bill to update the Toxic Substances Control Act? The top Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee, California's Barbara Boxer, says computer forensics show a draft of the "bipartisan" bill supported by the American Chemistry Council was written by the ACC itself. ACC denies it. Boxer has a competing bill. The controversy will erupt at a hearing today.

Robert Kenner's new film, "Merchants of Doubt," is about a "product" that is being "sold in courtrooms and the halls of Congress, he says, on television and, occasionally, in newspapers."
 

"Almost two years after an Exxon Mobil Corp. pipeline split open and sent Canadian crude flowing through a neighborhood in Mayflower, Ark., federal regulators have quietly proposed a sweeping rewrite of oil pipeline safety rules."

"Mounting evidence suggests BPS poses the same health risks being reported for BPA, a common ingredient in plastics".

"U.S. EPA has agreed to consider clamping down on corrosive dust after watchdogs complained that the current standards failed to protect rescue workers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."

"Wind power will be cheaper than electricity produced from natural gas within a decade, even without a federal tax incentive, according to a U.S. Energy Department analysis."