EcocentricPolitics
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson finally got to use her parking space on Capitol Hill this morning. Jackson was the star witness at the newly Republican-run House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearings on the proposed “Energy Tax Prevention Act.”
What’s that? You …
EcocentricHealth
Cross-posted from Healthland:
When I was researching a piece last year on chemical regulation—and the lack of it in the U.S.—one of the facts I was most surprised to learn was the existence of perchlorate in the bloodstream of many Americans. That’s perchlorate as in “the main ingredient of rocket fuel.” Yes, the stuff that sends …
EcocentricOil
We’re only a couple of months shy of the one-year anniversary of the Gulf oil spill, but there’s still a great deal of uncertainty over just what happened—and what might be left over. As I’ve written before, recent studies seem to jibe with the government’s earlier reports suggesting that much of the oil in the Gulf has either …
EcocentricPolitics
As Politico first reported last night, Carol Browner will be stepping down from her post as White House climate and energy czar. Browner, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator in the Clinton Administration, was a key member of the “Green Dream Team” of cabinet appointees and White House aides who accompanied …
EcocentricCoal
In a decision that could have a major impact on both the mining industry and the Obama Administration’s relationship with conservatives, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that it was vetoing the largest single mountaintop mining removal permit in West Virginia history. In using its authority under the Clean Water …
EcocentricEcocentric
With the failure of carbon cap-and-trade legislation this year, and a passel of Republicans taking over the House who seem to doubt that global warming exists, Congress has become a dead-end for fighting greenhouse gas emissions. But the Supreme Court has given the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the power to regulate …
EcocentricHealth
Over at the Healthland blog, I have a post up on a new report from the venerable Consumer Reports on potentially unsafe levels of mercury found in canned tuna. Mercury contamination is a real risk for pregnant women and young children—the Consumer Reports investigation shows that mercury may be more prevalent in canned tuna than we …
EcocentricRegulation
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this before leaving the office tonight (it’s Thursday Night Football!): forty years ago today, President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), capping a year of tremendous green progress. (It was kind of like 2010, only opposite.) Obviously Nixon was, to put it politely, no …
EcocentricPolitics
So there seems to be an election coming up tomorrow—or at least that’s what I can tell from all of the writers and editors scurrying around TIME HQ this morning, trying to make sure John Boehner’s deep orange tint doesn’t throw off the visual balance of the next issue. The sad truth for environmentalists—or “climate hawks,” or …
EcocentricOil
New BP CEO Bob Dudley isn’t happy with me. Well, not just me—all of the reporters who dug into BP’s past safety problems and raised questions about the mistakes the company made on the road to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. And he’s also mad at the environmentalists and scientists who raised the alarm in the wake of the spill, and …
