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Matthew Freeman | December 8, 2008
Shortly before Thanksgiving, a quartet of heavyweight health organizations issued their annual “Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer.” The principal finding of the study from the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries is that the […]
Matt Shudtz | December 5, 2008
Dan Rosenberg of NRDC has an excellent new post up on Switchboard that lays out some ideas for reforming U.S. chemical policies in the wake of the Bush Administration. The ideas include improving the risk assessment process EPA uses to develop its IRIS database, strengthening chemical security measures, re-invigorating right-to-know policies under the Toxic Release […]
Shana Campbell Jones | December 4, 2008
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Entergy Corp. v. EPA. The case involves a challenge by electric utilities to new EPA regulations requiring power plants to protect aquatic life by regulating “cooling water intake structures” at existing power plants. Billions of fish, shellfish, and other aquatic organisms are drawn into these […]
James Goodwin | December 3, 2008
Perhaps no other consequence of global climate change kindles the public’s fears like the prospect of catastrophic sea-level rise. For years now, climate scientists have recognized the potential for increasing global surface temperatures to produce certain kinds of feedback loops that would accelerate the collapse of massive ice shelves in Greenland and Antarctica, leading to […]
Shana Campbell Jones | December 2, 2008
Chief Justice Earl Warren once said he always turned to the sports section of the newspaper first. “The sports page records people’s accomplishments,” he explained. “The front page has nothing but man’s failures.” The Chesapeake Bay has been in the news a lot lately, and its fans aren’t cheering. When it comes to Bay cleanup […]
Margaret Clune Giblin | December 1, 2008
The “land disposal” laws line up on the pages of U.S. history books, reminders of a bygone era when the government of a young nation was striving to find ways to encourage people to move west by giving away public lands at bargain-basement prices. The Homestead Act of 1862, for example, gave settlers title to […]
Matthew Freeman | November 28, 2008
CPR’s Tom McGarity has an op-ed this morning in the Austin American Statesman on Wyeth vs. Levine, the Supreme Court case testing an assertion by pharmaceutical manufacturer Wyeth that FDA approval of its proposed drug label shields the company from tort litigation over harm that drug subsequently causes. The Court heard oral arguments on the […]
Matthew Freeman | November 28, 2008
If you’re a Washington, D.C., commuter, it’s hard these days to miss the series of transit ads from Chevron on subway walls, bus shelter windows, and even the exteriors of subway cars. “I will finally get a programmable thermostat,” says one, over the picture of a concerned woman. “I will at least consider a hybrid,” […]
Matt Shudtz | November 25, 2008
Every time energy prices spike, oil companies (and their allies in Washington) start talking up oil shale. It happened just before World War I, it happened after the 1973 oil embargo, and it’s happening again now. Oil shale, the hucksters tell us, is the answer to America’s energy problems. Huge deposits of the stuff lie […]