"The Senate confirmed Sylvia Matthews Burwell as the new director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the end of April. Now Democrats in the House and Senate are calling on her to fix whatever's been delaying all the environmental, health, and safety rules at OMB for months (and in some cases, years)."
"On June 3, the Connecticut legislature passed a bipartisan GMO labeling bill, making it the first state to require food manufacturers to reveal whether their products include genetically engineered ingredients."
"The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant said it had found another leak of contaminated water on Wednesday, piling pressure on the utility to curb the problem as it seeks permission to release water to the sea."
"Minneapolis, where 94% of residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park, has the U.S.' best park system, according to new rankings by a national non-profit conservation group."
"In what at least one expert is calling a 'very unusual' move, TransCanada Corp. is reportedly digging up and rebuilding dozens of sections of the already-completed part of the Keystone XL pipeline."
"PORTLAND -- A genetically modified test strain of wheat that emerged to the surprise of an Oregon farmer last month was likely the result of an accident or deliberate mixing of seeds, the company that developed it said Wednesday."
"The first tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season got a little stronger early Thursday as it headed toward Florida's western coast and a new tropical storm warning was issued for a swath of the U.S. East Coast."
Styrene (used to make plastic packaging) was listed in June 2011 as "reasonably anticipated" to be cancer-causing in the biennial federal Report on Carcinogens. Industry not only challenged, but also mounted a political campaign, persuading a powerful House Appropriations subcommittee chairman to withhold spending for the report until NTP reconsidered the styrene listing.
NC's Senate is considering an industry-sponsored bill that would extend restrictions on undercover investigations beyond livestock operations to include other categories of industry. The state's Chamber of Commerce supports it, saying industries beyond agriculture want protection from the reporting of workplace abuses.
The fracking industry loves to argue there's no proof its gas-extraction methods cause pollution. But it works hard in Pennsylvania to keep secret any evidence that might prove the question — one way or the other. Existence of its database was reported by Marie Cusick of WITF in Harrisburg, via NPR's StateImpact Pennsylvania.
