"Virginia is about to limit state regulators' ability to protect public health and the environment from toxic discharges entering state waters from surface coal mines."
Which has a stronger influence on human thinking -- power, money, ideology, or science? House Energy Chairman Fred Upton's recent denial that humans are causing climate change casts science as the weakling in the ring. His switch comes even as new documents reveal that the Bush White House overruled EPA science findings on climate -- even though former EPA head Stephen Johnson testified under oath to the contrary.
"On Monday, House oversight committee chair Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) released more than 100 letters he has received from corporations, trade groups, and associations outlining the regulations they'd like to see changed. The letters make clear that the Environmental Protection Agency is corporate America's top target."
"U.S. agricultural regulators on Friday said despite a court ban, they would allow commercial planting of genetically modified sugar beets under closely controlled conditions while they complete a full environmental impact statement."
"Environment Canada enforcement officers launched hundreds of investigations, typed up thousands of warnings and carried out tens of thousands of inspections over a recent seven-year stretch. But over that period they nailed down only 32 convictions – putting the annual average at less than five."
"The Environmental Protection Agency, which enforces rules that affect the U.S. economy from factories to farms, is the No. 1 target of complaints from business groups collected by House Republican leaders." The rules also protect public health.
"The billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch no longer sit outside Washington's political establishment, isolated by their uncompromising conservatism. Instead, they are now at the center of Republican power, a change most evident in the new makeup of the House Energy and Commerce Committee."
"A coalition of public health organizations in the coming weeks plans to step up efforts to oppose legislation that would block or delay Environmental Protection Agency climate rules." Budget-cutting Republicans on Capitol Hill will be encouraged to reduce the healthcare costs borne by taxpayers and ratepayers as a result of air pollution.
"Selling off England's public forests could cost the nation more than it would save, according to an official government document that emerged last night."
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