"Just a year after Congress imposed significant changes in the government's oft-criticized flood insurance program, howls of protest from homeowners facing higher premiums have coastal lawmakers pressing for delays that would preserve below-cost rates for hundreds of thousands of people in flood-risk areas."
"A White House plan to curb illegal trafficking in rhino horn, elephant tusks and body parts from other endangered wildlife could have the side benefit of helping to stabilize parts of Africa plagued by insurgent groups, military and political analysts say."
"It's that time of year when native Mainers and summer tourists alike don plastic bibs and get crackin' on succulent Maine lobsters. Last year lobstermen landed about $340 million worth of these coveted crustaceans, generating $1 billion worth of economic activity to the state's economy. But there's a largely hidden threat to all that bounty, according some scientists."
"When the Environmental Protection Agency abruptly retreated on its multimillion-dollar investigation into water contamination in a central Wyoming natural gas field last month, it shocked environmentalists and energy industry supporters alike."
"GENEVA -- Global warming accelerated since the 1970s and broke more countries' temperature records than ever before in the first decade of the new millennium, U.N. climate experts said Wednesday."
If you are looking for yet another category of environmental information that the U.S. public is not allowed to know about, try international trade agreements. A recent court decision — one that got little attention from the news media — upheld the federal government's authority to keep secret some information about the health and environmental impacts of trade treaties.
On June 25, 2013 — the day President Obama gave his climate speech — officials from the Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the Environmental Protection Agency held a closed-door meeting with lobbyists from the oil and chemical industries who don't want the public to know how they calculate their greenhouse gas emissions.
After a decade of neglect, the NPMS is partly back online and marginally functional. Parts of it don't even work. But if you want to get a general clue about the location of major natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines in your community, the NPMS is one place to start. And, there are other ways to get the info you need.
Exxon claims trade secrecy in its bid to hide inspection results for the pipeline that leaked 5,000 barrels of Canadian oil sands crude in Arkansas last spring, spurring debate over transparency and spill readiness. EnergyWire's Elana Schor has the story, raising questions that have still to be answered.
"Babies whose mothers consume nitrates in drinking water have a higher risk of spina bifida, cleft palate and other birth defects, according to a large study of children in Texas and Iowa. Used as fertilizers on crops, nitrates are one of the most widespread chemical contaminants in aquifers around the world. The study is the first to compare birth defects in kids to their mothers’ consumption of nitrates-tainted drinking water during pregnancy."
