"Emboldened by their success wresting concessions from the Obama administration in debt-limit talks, House Republicans now plan an assault of similar vigor on the Environmental Protection Agency."
The Obama administration has for the first time recommended setting aside as wilderness a key part of the Arctic National Wildlife refuge known as the 1002 Area. But the chance of action on the recommendation by the current Congress is considered remote.
"Fuel leaked from Enterprise Products Partners' natural gas liquids pipeline into the Missouri River in Iowa has dissipated or evaporated with little chance of recovery, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Tuesday."
"For forensic meteorologists, who use the science of weather to testify in court about what has already happened, rather than predict what will occur, business could soon see an uptick."
"Kansas farmer Larry Kepley is almost out of hope. After drought left the veteran wheat farmer with what he called the 'worst wheat harvest' he's ever known, the odds for next year's crop are looking just as grim.
Sun-baked fields are as hard as rock, and moisture levels deep into the soil are nearly nonexistent as drought persists throughout much of the U.S. southern Plains.
"Japan insists its nuclear crisis was caused by an unforeseeable combination of tsunami and earthquake. But new evidence suggests its reactors were doomed to fail."
David McNeill and Jake Adelstein report for the Independent August 17, 2011.
SEE ALSO:
The planned oil-drilling in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's coast could bring spills harder to control than the Deepwater Horizon blowout. For centuries, native Inupiat have huted bowhead whales, bearded seals, walruses, and Caribou here. The Interior Department has approved exploration here by Shell, the company recently cited by the United Nations for decades of oil pollution in the Niger Delta.
Greater sage-grouse are at just 3% of their historical numbers, and warrant protection, according to the Bureau of Land Management. But since other species are in even more dire straits, the birds haven't been declared a threatened or endangered species. The US Dept. of Agriculture money is a work-around aimed at saving the birds and their habitat.
USDA continues to expand its Biomass Crop Assistance Program that provides financial incentives for producers of various biomass products with the latest selected project areas for growing camelina in CA, OR, WA, and MT, poplar trees in OR, and switchgrass in KS and OK.
Bayer CropScience has agreed to pay up to $750 million to about 11,000 farmers to compensate for contaminating two varieties of long-grain rice. The settlement requires participation of farmers who planted at least 85% of the average 2.2 million acres of long-grain rice grown each year from 2006 to 2009.
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