"Rep. Joe Barton has earned nearly $100,000 from an interest in natural gas wells that he purchased from a longtime campaign donor who also advised the congressman on energy policy, according to interviews and records."
"In December, the Justice Department announced a settlement in one of the largest environmental bankruptcies in U.S. history. The American Smelting and Refining Company, known as Asarco, will pay a record $1.79 billion to settle claims for hazardous waste pollution at 80 sites in as many as 20 states."
"The Federal Trade Commission is expected to crack down on "greenwashing" when it updates its environmental marketing guidelines for the first time since 1998."
"President Obama acknowledged yesterday that the Senate may pass an energy bill this year without the cap-and-trade component he has long put at the center of his environmental agenda."
"President Obama moved on Wednesday to bolster the nation’s production of corn-based ethanol and other alternative liquid fuels and ordered the rapid development of technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal."
RSVP by 4:00 p.m. February 12, 2010, to learn about the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force's proposed marine spatial planning framework for coordinating many ocean and coastal activities by multiple agencies and actors.
Billed as "a resource to support citizens negotiating with big energy," this brand new Center for Future Civic Media service could become a useful tool for energy and environment reporting.
Environmental reporters who use databases to find and build stories have a fresh windfall, including three new datasets from EPA, plus many others relevant to the EJ beat.
A study by Univ. of California-Irvine researchers has found that while grass itself acted as a carbon sink, when other factors are taken into account — fuel burned to maintain the lawn, emissions from fertilizer spread to help it grow, etc. — four times as much carbon was emitted than was absorbed.
After intense recovery efforts resulting in an increase from ~400 nesting pairs in 1963 to the current count of >7,000, the bald eagle may soon be removed from the USFWS list of endangered and threatened species, with monitoring ongoing for at least five more years.
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