"Federal officials who oversaw drilling in the Gulf of Mexico accepted gifts from oil companies, viewed pornography at work and even considered themselves part of industry, the Interior Department inspector general says in a new report." The House Natural Resources will grill Interior Sec. Salazar on the report this morning at 10 am EDT.
"The most critical moment in the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico is at hand, as BP engineers armed with 50,000 barrels of dense mud and a fleet of robotic submarines are poised to attempt a 'top kill' maneuver to plug the gushing well a mile below the surface."
Still covering aspects of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill? SEJ's tracker blog The Daily Glob has compiled a list of important Gulf-related research programs: institutes, academic programs, and labs working on marine science, gulf ecology, oil spill response and recovery, coastal ecosystems, wetlands, and more.
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) was joined by executives from Google Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., YouTube LLC, and designer chairmaker Herman Miller Inc. yesterday to launch a nonprofit group created to help scrub hazardous chemicals from consumer products."
"A unique research project at Environment Canada could soon offer a new perspective for Canadians on conservation and its economic value, says a director in the federal department."
"Under increasing pressure from the federal government, oil giant BP is agreeing to reduce the amount of a chemical dispersant it is using in the Gulf of Mexico."
"The Obama administration Monday declared a commercial fisheries failure in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, paving the way for federal grants to offset financial losses in the fisheries industry."
"A dearth of information about the ingredients of various oil-dispersing formulas is complicating an increasingly rancorous debate over which, if any, is the best choice for cleaning up the catastrophic spill in the Gulf of Mexico."
"LONDON — Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?"
