"EPA To Investigate North Carolina for Civil Rights Violations"
"The EPA will investigate whether a North Carolina state agency's regulation of industrial pig farms discriminates against communities of color."
Source: EHN, 02/26/2015
Public
"Army Corps Project Pits Farmland Against Flood Threat"
"For years, some small towns and farmers along the Mississippi River have been battling each other over a flood project set up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers."
Source: NPR, 02/26/2015
Siberian Crater Saga Is More Widespread And Scarier Than Anyone Thought
"At the end of last summer came news of a bizarre occurrence no one could explain. It was a massive crater that just one day showed up. Early estimates placed it at nearly 100 feet in diameter, nestled deep in Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula, a place called 'the ends of the Earth.'"
Source: Wash Post, 02/26/2015
Food Waste Is Becoming Serious Economic and Environmental Issue: Report
"With millions of households across the country struggling to have enough to eat, and millions of tons of food being tossed in the garbage, food waste is increasingly being seen as a serious environmental and economic issue."
Source: NY Times, 02/26/2015
Fishermen Blast Tepco Over Failure To Disclose Radioactive Water
"Fukushima fishermen appear to have finally run out of patience with Tokyo Electric Power Co. They lambasted TEPCO at a meeting on Feb. 25 over the utility’s failure for half a year to disclose the flow into the ocean of water contaminated with radioactive materials from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant."
Source: Asahi Shimbun, 02/26/2015
"Nature’s Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age"
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News Media Coalition Appeals Gag Orders in Blankenship Case
After a judge refused to reverse most of the secrecy ruling around the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine disaster caused by Massey Energy's safety violations, including indictment of the company's former CEO, media outlets appealed. Now a coalition of many more media groups, led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, have filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the secrecy ruling as unconstitutional.
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Groups FOIA Federal Rules for Allowing Petroleum Export Ban Exceptions
For decades, U.S. politicians have made energy independence a patriotic platitude — with one result being a ban on exporting crude oil produced in the U.S. Now some oil companies are getting exceptions to the export ban for a product called "condensate," and the Commerce Department won't say why. So a coalition of environmental groups have filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out.
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Sunshine Week Highlights Open Government March 15-21
News media and open-government groups across the country will field events March 15-21, 2015, to emphasize the importance of freedom of information to democratic government. Here is a short preliminary list of some major Sunshine Week events already scheduled.
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Is Your Audience in an Oil Train Blast Zone?
After a February 16, 2015, oil train derailment and explosion in West Virginia, new concerns have arisen over the public's right to know about the dangers oil trains pose to communities. Now trackside communities have some data and maps to help them protect themselves. Image: AP Photo/ Office of the Governor of West Virginia, Steven Wayne Rotsch.
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