Chemicals

"An internal EPA memo released [Dec. 8] confirms that the very agency charged with protecting the environment is ignoring the warnings of its own scientists about clothianidin, a pesticide from which Bayer racked up ... about $262 million in sales in 2009."

"The United States is too reliant on China for minerals crucial to new clean energy technologies, making the American economy vulnerable to shortages of materials needed for a range of green products — from compact fluorescent light bulbs to electric cars to giant wind turbines."

"Enough uncertainty surrounds silver-colored metal dental fillings with mercury that U.S. regulators should add more cautions for dentists and patients, a U.S. advisory panel said on Wednesday."

"Louisiana's 17 refineries averaged 10 upsets a week between 2005 and 2009, according to a study of emission reports by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmentalist coalition, and the United Steelworkers union."

"In many places around Western Pennsylvania residents see clusters of death and clusters of people sickened by cancer or heart and lung diseases. And, like Lee Lasich, a Clairton resident, they're frustrated that government health and environmental agencies don't see them too, don't do something about the problems and don't take a tougher stance on enforcement of air pollution regulations."

"Owls are dying under gruesome circumstances, bleeding to death from stomach hemorrhages in an agonizing and days-long decline. The culprit: An extra-potent class of rodenticides that has flooded the market in recent decades."

"The latest research on the District's decade-long effort to reduce lead in its drinking water is likely to reverberate well beyond the city's borders and add a chapter to one of the more tortuous public health chronicles of the past century."

"Although Canada will not expose its own citizens to asbestos, its plans to continue exporting the deadly substance to developing countries has drawn widespread condemnation. "