National (U.S.)

"It's a heavy metal. It's linked to learning problems in school children. And every child is exposed. Sounds like lead? It's cadmium. Signs are emerging that cadmium – a widespread contaminant that gets little attention from health experts and regulators – could be the new lead. Children with higher cadmium levels are three times more likely to have learning disabilities and participate in special education, according to new research."

"About 21 months ago, a proposed list of widely used chemicals that may pose health risks landed at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget for review. It’s still there."

"The nuclear industry is celebrating the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decision to give the go-ahead for a utility company to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia, the first license to be granted for a new reactor in the U.S. since 1978. But last year's accident at reactors in Fukushima, Japan, still clouds the future of nuclear power, as does the cost of new power plants."

"The American Chemistry Council significantly ramped up its lobbying efforts in the fourth quarter of last year, spending more than double its total for any quarter in recent history."

"TEHACHAPI, Calif. -- At the end of an empty road just north of Highway 58 and past the outfield wall of an abandoned high school looms the towering Lehigh Southwest Cement plant -- a behemoth kiln that belches mercury and other toxics into the air, as it has for decades."

"MONTREAL -- The transboundary movement of spent lead-acid batteries in North America has environmental and public health consequences to communities in Mexico that are the subject of a new investigation by the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, CEC."

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is worried about the safety of pipes and equipment which will entomb in glass decades worth of nuclear waste from the cold-war Hanford weapons facility.

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"RICHLAND, Wash. -- Bechtel National, Inc. is designing and building the world's largest radioactive waste treatment plant for the U.S. Department of Energy at the Hanford Site near the Columbia River in southeastern Washington state.

"For the first time in over three decades, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to decide to grant a license to build a nuclear reactor -- a milestone for an industry whose long-hoped-for renaissance is smaller and later than anticipated."

"The vote, set for Thursday, is on two new reactors at the Southern Company's Alvin W. Vogtle plant near Augusta, Ga. It would be the first vote on a construction license since 1978, a year before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania.

"Documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, recently unsealed as part of a major lawsuit against Syngenta, reveal how the global chemical company's PR team investigated the press and spent millions to spin news coverage and public perceptions in the face of growing concerns about potential health risks from the widely used weed-killer 'atrazine.'"

"Three U.S. consumer groups petitioned the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday to subject a new genetically engineered salmon to a more rigorous review process than is now in place before the fish can be approved as safe to eat."