"State insurance regulators are feeling pressure to address climate change before a federal counterpart established last year moves in on their territory."
Congress' drive to cut spending could increase the threat to US citizens' from bioterrorism as well as more common epidemics, a new study says.
"Nigerian coastal and fishing communities were on Thursday put on alert after Shell admitted to an oil spill that is likely to be the worst in the area for a decade, according to government officials."
"Decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will take three or four decades, Japan's government said on Wednesday as it unveiled plans for the next phase of a huge and costly cleanup of the tsunami-wrecked complex."
"TOKYO -- Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan today declared that the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been brought to a state of cold shutdown, turning a corner in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
'The nuclear reactors have reached a state of cold shutdown and therefore we can now confirm that we have come to the end of the accident phase of the actual reactors,' Prime Minister Noda told a news conference.
"The Environmental Projection Agency on Friday said it is giving $500,000 to the city of Joplin, Missouri to clean up property contaminated by lead in a devastating May 22 tornado."
"Despite a long history of accidents, and a stack of warnings from safety investigators, there are still thousands of miles of antiquated, leak-prone, cast-iron pipelines running under the streets of Pennsylvania cities and towns. Some are more than 100 years old."
Joseph Tanfani and Craig R. McCoy report the last of a four-part "Battle Lines" series for the Philadelphia Inquirer's Deep Drill reports December 18, 2011.
"Officials released a first round of oil spill restoration projects Wednesday that included proposals to create or enhance oyster habitat, salt marshes, sand dunes, and nearshore reefs in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida."
"Drawing from a $1 billion pool established by BP as a down payment on fines related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, representatives from the Gulf States agreed on $57 million worth of restoration projects.
Those proposals will be up for public comment at a series of meetings in January and February."
"BP and the oil industry drilling in the Gulf of Mexico lacked the proper safety attitude to handle the large risks of deepwater drilling, leading to the many bad decisions behind the nation's worst offshore spill, a panel of expert engineers said today.
More specifically, the industry needs to radically redesign the blowout preventers that are meant to be a last line of defense against runaway wells or else risk a repeat of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, the National Academy of Engineering concluded.
