"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ability to protect citizens from premature death and other health problems would be gutted if Congress slashes funding as threatened by Republican lawmakers, its chief said on Wednesday."
EPA is conducting a study of fracking, no matter where it is used (e.g., gas shale, oil shale, coalbed methane, tight sands). Public comment is being allowed as the agency's Science Advisory Board meets March 7-8, 2011, to review the draft study plan. Initial study and research results are possible by the end of 2012, and a report may be published some time in 2014.
A new report from the Royal Society of Canada provides a mixed verdict on the environmental impacts of oil sands extraction in Alberta.
"As [Maine] Gov. Paul LePage continued to weather national fallout for recently saying women could develop 'little beards' if exposed to bisphenol-A, or BPA, questions continue to mount about the motives behind the governor's proposal to reverse a ban on the substance."
After a December 2008 spill of toxic coal ash at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston plant, EPA vowed to bring the ubiquitous waste under regulation. First, industry got to the Obama White House to sandbag the effort. Now, GOP lawmakers heavily funded by electric utilities have slipped a rider into the House stopgap spending bill to quash EPA's effort to protect the public altogether.
"The Obama administration scaled back toxic air rules on heavy industrial boilers, a sign it may be willing to compromise with businesses and Republicans on future air pollution rules."
"The electromagnetic radiation emitted by a cellular phone's antenna appears to activate nearby regions of the brain to unusually high levels, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. that is likely to spark new concerns about the health effects of wireless devices."
"Early [Saturday] morning, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a funding bill that environmentalists say amounts to the biggest attack on clean air and clean water in recent history."
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