Public

"Federal [officials] Monday issued seven safety recommendations — six of them labeled urgent — stemming from the explosion of a natural gas pipeline that killed eight people and destroyed 37 homes in the Bay Area community of San Bruno last September."

"With President Obama slated to sign historic food-safety legislation into law Tuesday, the coalition of food industry, public interest and consumer groups that used a public health message to win its passage is now making an argument for its funding."

"Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States, researchers reported Monday in a study confirming that the agriculturally important bees are being affected worldwide."

"A coalition of environmental and farmworker groups said in a lawsuit announced Monday that state pesticide regulators improperly cut off public comment on a controversial agricultural fumigant in order to secure its passage before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's term ended."

In many states, polluted wastewater from gas drilling is required to be disposed of thousands of feet underground. But Pennsylvania only requires minimal treatment before the stuff is pumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), incoming chairman of the House Energy Committee, used to be in favor of reducing the carbon dioxide emissions which are the biggest cause of global warming. Now he is against it.

"The Obama administration today eased requirements for oil companies whose deepwater drilling activities were suspended by last year's moratorium imposed in response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico."

New York regulators are working on a new plan that may limit more tightly the use of the pesticide aldicarb -- which has shown up in the shallow aquifer on which Long Island is especially dependent for drinking water.

"U.S. EPA's plan to sidestep state officials and oversee climate rules in Texas has been temporarily blocked by a federal court, making the Lone Star State the only place where businesses cannot apply for greenhouse gas permits that the Obama administration now requires."