"Environmental health groups are now looking to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to impose tougher standards on fluoride in drinking water, building on a decision Friday by the federal Department of Health and Human Services to lower the recommended level for the first time in nearly 50 years."
 

"New House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) drew attention last week when he solicited advice from a number of corporations, trade groups and organizations about federal regulations covering a variety of issues. A number of energy companies, manufacturers were on the list that are likely to focus on regulations from the Environmental Protetion Agency in their response.  The letter raised some eyebrows in DC, of course."

"Former House majority leader Tom DeLay, the brash Texan who helped build and tightly control a Republican majority in his chamber until resigning in 2005, was sentenced by a state judge on Monday to three years in prison for illegally plotting to funnel corporate contributions to Texas legislative candidates."

The American Farm Bureau is suing EPA for requiring farmers to clean up agricultural pollution going into Chesapeake Bay.

Is Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann's call on constituents to get "armed and dangerous" over the climate bill something to be concerned about?

"U.S. EPA is interceding in a New Jersey public-health flap that could have national implications, ordering a hospital services company to stop disinfecting its ambulances with finely misted pesticides after a local union complained of workers falling ill."

"One of the most worrisome national security threats of climate change is the spread of disease, among both people and animals, U.S. intelligence and health officials say."

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a request to reopen a lawsuit that charged energy companies with contributing to the effects of Hurricane Katrina by emitting greenhouse gases."

CIA intelligence analysts have focused more intensely in the past year on a threat to national security they find highly worrisome: geopolitical chaos caused by climate change. Speaking on background, they say the U.S. is frighteningly unprepared. The CIA analysts must stay anonymous, because the public is not supposed to know.

The Tuesday recommendations of the presidential oil spill commission may include one that could help the offshore oil industry dodge tighter government safety regulation -- creation of a self-policing program like the one the chemical industry launched after Bhopal.