"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned 12 rodent poisons made by the United Kingdom-based Reckitt Benckiser Inc. because the products failed to abide by safety regulations, the agency announced Wednesday."
"A report by two energy-consulting firms says the US government has not protected US taxpayers well enough against the risks of federal loan guarantees to a new nuclear power project."
EPA had already released preliminary TRI data for the latest available year (2011), but its National Analysis makes for easier reporting as data is collated by state. It also offers analyses by industry sector and of toxics handling by collating the parent companies of each facility nationwide.
Sunshine Week is a great opportunity for journalists to do the most important part of the job: spotlighting the very news that government officials are uncomfortable about disclosing. The website includes examples of good freedom-of-information stories, permission-free cartoons, logos and icons, and many all-purpose story ideas.
The Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity filed suit in Alameda County Superior Court charging that the California Department of Conservation's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources was not following the state's own law.
The release this month of the draft National Climate Assessment garnered many headlines. But little notice went to the fact that it was released at all. Earlier versions of this assessment of climate change's impacts on the U.S. were suppressed — and even "unpublished". But a few voices did take note of the Assessment's release.
Sunlight cures many ills. A month after watchdog Sheila Kaplan exposed a White House blackout of an EPA report on children's environmental health, the Obama administration uncorked it. Of course, the timing may have had something to do with the election as well; EPA announced its publication January 25, just a few days after the inauguration.
"Pesticides blamed for killing bees have been removed from the shelves of Britain's biggest gardening chains, prompting calls for similar chemicals widely-used on farms to be banned completely."
"An independent office within the Small Business Administration has worked to block health, safety and environmental regulations on behalf of small and large businesses without appropriate technical expertise, two new studies have charged."
"Last month Fox News reported on the 'grizzly deaths' of 500 songbirds in West Virginia. Behind the fell deed: a wind farm, caught red-turbined. 'To date, the Obama administration... has not prosecuted a single case against the wind industry,' the Fox reporter laments. Opponents of renewable energy love to trot out the risk wind turbines pose to birds, and some engineering work has gone into making them more avian-friendly. But a new study released today in Nature shows that if you really want to protect birds, forget about wind: You need to lock up Kitty."
