"TransCanada, the company seeking to build the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline from oil sands formations in Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries, received the final go-ahead from the federal government on Friday for the southern leg of the project."
"WASHINGTON -- The Agriculture Department says a statement on its website encouraging its employees not to eat meat on Mondays was made without proper clearance."
"WASHINGTON -- The Republican-led House on Thursday passed legislation that would freeze major government regulations until the unemployment rate, now at 8.2 percent, drops to 6 percent or below. The latest GOP attempt to rein in Obama administration's rulemaking, like previous anti-regulation bills, is virtually certain to die in the Democratic-controlled Senate."
"WASHINGTON — Chemical companies would need to provide more health and safety information about their products and regulators would have more authority to force harmful substances off the market under legislation approved along party lines Wednesday by a Senate committee."
The blog "Right Side News" took a shot at a meeting hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, which had in fact been covered in several articles in E&E News publications.
EPA says it could instead compile a database partly from information collected by some states. But that information is often spotty and inconsistent — which will make it hard for EPA to compile it and even harder to make useful conclusions from it. And the withdrawal may make it harder to get the information disclosed.
"Cordial and generally noncommittal, Allison M. Macfarlane, the new chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, gave her first testimony before Congress on Tuesday without reiterating some of the positions she has taken in the past on nuclear waste."
"The League of Conservation Voters will launch a $1.5 million campaign Tuesday targeting five House Republicans who question the connection between human activity and climate change, in an effort to test whether the issue can sway voters."
For years, controversy has been raging over what little 'science' there is on questions related to the environmental and health impacts of the hydraulic fracturing boom. The scientific controversies may be a proxy for the conflict over the gas-extraction method itself. Billions of dollars are at stake, the debate is getting ever more intense, and its intensity challenges the objectivity of scientists, government regulators, and journalists.
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