Public

"Gulf oil spill claims czar Kenneth Feinberg introduced a new option Monday to the 170,000 claimants who have already received an emergency payment, offering 'quick' payments of $5,000 to individuals and $25,000 to businesses who are willing to sign away their rights to sue."

"For several weeks, nine Kansas state employees have been voluntarily working weekends and late into the night to finish a review of a permit for a power plant. ... And that worries the coal plant’s opponents, who said the extra hours were a clear signal that the state was pushing the permit process too fast."

"A federal appeals court has decided to move ahead with lawsuits challenging the Department of Energy's authority to scrap plans to make Yucca Mountain, Nev., a national repository for nuclear waste."

"New Jersey lawmakers, as part of a plan to control the flow of pollutants into the state’s waterways, today passed what’s being described as the nation’s toughest restrictions on fertilizer."

"Many of Western Pennsylvania's 16 coal-fired power plants have been charged repeatedly for violations of their air or water pollution permits and paid relatively small penalties, according to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette review of federal and state environmental agency data."

"Already been to North Korea? Hiking in Afghanistan a little bit too last year? Fear not. Tourism has a new frontier: the site of the world's biggest civilian nuclear disaster."
 

"Plans to open the first major coal export facility on the West Coast are likely to be delayed until next year because of an appeal filed by a coalition of environmental groups, which say shipping coal to Asia throws a wrench in U.S. efforts to reduce international greenhouse gas emissions."

"In many places around Western Pennsylvania residents see clusters of death and clusters of people sickened by cancer or heart and lung diseases. And, like Lee Lasich, a Clairton resident, they're frustrated that government health and environmental agencies don't see them too, don't do something about the problems and don't take a tougher stance on enforcement of air pollution regulations."

"Rare minerals. Food and water. Arable soil. Air-cleansing forests. In the intellectual heart of the American military and policy-making world, these are emerging not just as environmental issues, but as the potential stuff of conflict in the 21st century."