A congressional hearing Wednesday highlighted the environmental dangers of the 100,000 trailer FEMA has sold, but there is apparently little Congress can do about it.
"As a sheen of oil moved closer to the Louisiana coast Wednesday, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revised their estimates of the amount of oil that has been leaking from the oil well from 1,000 barrels a day to up to 5,000 barrels a day."
The 48 mines are also linked by the fact that most of their owners have been legally delaying action on the violations through appeals of the citations. The Mine Safety and Health Administration is faced with a backlog of approximately 16,000 appeals.
"As efforts failed Tuesday to contain the flow of tens of thousands of gallons of oil leaking from an exploded well deep in the Gulf of Mexico, emergency response teams are considering a controlled burn-off of the oil on the water's surface as early as today."
"BP crews raced to protect the Gulf of Mexico coastline as a remote sub tried to shut off an underwater oil well gushing 42,000 gallons a day from the site of a wrecked drilling platform."
"A slow-motion environmental disaster may be in the making with the discovery Saturday that 42,000 gallons a day of crude oil is spewing from a well on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico near where a huge drilling rig sank last week -- and it could be months before it's stopped."
"Three weeks after the Upper Big Branch explosion left 29 mine workers dead in Raleigh County, federal regulators fanned out in 10 states to examine 57 mines for safety flaws in a massive effort to avoid a repeat of the worst mining tragedy in four decades."
"The first of 98 rescued workers from the oil rig explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig arrived at a Kenner hotel Thursday shortly after 4:30 a.m., after a 100-plus mile boat journey from the burning rig to Port Fourchon Wednesday evening."
Several journalists have raised questions about why more was not known publicly about the safety defects that led to the deaths of 29 miners at Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine in April 2010.
Sixty-two U.S. urban areas are threatened by hazardous rail cargoes, but federal agencies still refuse to let many firefighters, governments, and citizens know the rail routes used to transport cargoes that could kill tens or hundreds of thousands.
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