Public

Paul Wotzka, a hydrologist with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, who was fired shortly after he asked permission to testify before the Minnesota legislature on Atrazine pollution of water finally had his say.

Federal district judge Dee Benson ruled Oct. 9, 2007, that a group of news media companies could not have access to an investigation by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) into the Crandall Canyon mine collapse in Utah Aug. 6, which killed six miners and three workers trying to rescue them.

A federal jury in Toledo may soon be deciding whether some company officials engaged in a cover-up of safety problems at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant. Although the story has gotten little national attention, the Toledo Blade's Tom Henry has covered the trial in detail.

Cancer registries, which are part of the public health system help physicians collect statistics on cancer incidence and help pinpoint "cancer clusters" that may be caused by environmental factors. the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) runs a surveillance system, which has a registry of cancer cases in almost every state. But the hospitals in the federal Veterans Affairs (VA) system are now saying they will not share cancer data with state registries unless the states sign restrictive agreements.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Oct. 16, 2007, to create a federal shield law which would offer limited protection for reporters from being compelled to disclose confidential sources.

The Interior Department has proposed codifying its rules on photography, filming, and sound-recording on public lands it administers. Some newsgatherers are worried that the rules would hurt their ability to do their jobs.

It was news when the White House censored testimony prepared in October 2007 by Centers for Disease Control Director Julie Gerberding - testimony detailing the health hazards likely to result from climate change.

EPA on March 26, 2008, delivered a report Congress had demanded on its plan to reopen the agency's shuttered libraries.

A rule issued April 16, 2008, ostensibly to keep the public safe from shipments of highly hazardous materials by rail, has been little-understood by the public.