Environmental Health

"People inhale soot and noxious fumes from the car-laden highways encircling their historically black community."

"Republicans on the House Science Committee are accusing Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, of lobbying. In letters sent to the Inspector General and acting secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Reps. Lamar Smith and Andy Biggs wrote that they were “conducting oversight” of Birnbaum’s activity in response to a editorial she wrote in a scientific journal."

"WASHINGTON — A top manager who supervises the Environmental Protection Agency program responsible for cleaning up the nation’s most contaminated properties and waterways told Congress on Thursday that the government needs to plan for the ongoing threat posed to Superfund sites from climate change."

"A House subcommittee hearing [Thursday] revealed bipartisan confusion about the leadership, priorities and funding of U.S. EPA's program for cleaning up the nation's most polluted tracts."

"The Environmental Protection Agency’s operations will continue through next week even if government funding expires at midnight, Administrator Scott Pruitt informed agency employees in a message Friday."

"At a pediatric clinic located in one of the poorest sections of Buffalo, 7-year-old asthmatic Victor Small sits with his mother Laticka."

"A lack of federal funding could force the state of South Dakota to stop monitoring water for lead and copper, cease regulating wastewater and otherwise pare back pollution control programs."

"Microbial activity in a Baltimore stream is unaffected by exposure to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, evidence that sewage contamination of urban waterways may be fomenting pockets of antibiotic resistance, researchers reported last week in the journal Ecosphere."

"Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt's point man for Superfund efforts has declined to testify at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the sites' cleanup efforts scheduled for Thursday."

"The scent of exhaust fumes fill the air on a mid-January afternoon. Cars, trucks and buses zip back and forth from downtown Buffalo on the Kensington Expressway, also known as the Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway."